The Palliser Novels

by Anthony Trollope

  “He is careworn.”

  “A man may be worn by care till there comes to be nothing left of him. But he never speaks of giving up now. The old Bishop of St. Austell talks of resigning, and he has already made up his mind who is to have the see. He used to consult the Duke about all these things, but I don’t think he ever consults any one now. He never forgave the Duke about Lord Earlybird. Certainly, if a man wants to quarrel with all his friends, and to double the hatred of all his enemies, he had better become Prime Minister.”

  “Are you really sorry that such was his fate, Lady Glen?”

  “Ah, — I sometimes ask myself that question, but I never get at an answer. I should have thought him a poltroon if he had declined. It is to be the greatest man in the greatest country in the world. Do ever so little and the men who write history must write about you. And no man has ever tried to be nobler than he till, — till — .”

  “Make no exception. If he be careworn and ill and weary, his manners cannot be the same as they were, but his purity is the same as ever.”

  “I don’t know that it would remain so. I believe in him, Marie, more than in any man, — but I believe in none thoroughly. There is a devil creeps in upon them when their hands are strengthened. I do not know what I would have wished. Whenever I do wish, I always wish wrong. Ah, me; when I think of all those people I had down at Gatherum, — of the trouble I took, and of the glorious anticipations in which I revelled, I do feel ashamed of myself. Do you remember when I was determined that that wretch should be member for Silverbridge?”

  “You haven’t seen her since, Duchess?”

  “No; but I mean to see her. I couldn’t make her first husband member, and therefore the man who is member is to be her second husband. But I’m almost sick of schemes. Oh, dear, I wish I knew something that was really pleasant to do. I have never really enjoyed anything since I was in love, and I only liked that because it was wicked.”

  The Duchess was wrong in saying that the Duke of St. Bungay had cut them. The old man still remembered the kiss and still remembered the pledge. But he had found it very difficult to maintain his old relations with his friend. It was his opinion that the Coalition had done all that was wanted from it, and that now had come the time when they might retire gracefully. It is, no doubt, hard for a Prime Minister to find an excuse for going. But if the Duke of Omnium would have been content to acknowledge that he was not the man to alter the County Suffrage, an excuse might have been found that would have been injurious to no one. Mr. Monk and Mr. Gresham might have joined, and the present Prime Minister might have resigned, explaining that he had done all that he had been appointed to accomplish. He had, however, yielded at once to Mr. Monk, and now it was to be feared that the House of Commons would not accept the Bill from his hands. In such a state of things, — especially after that disagreement about Lord Earlybird, — it was difficult for the old Duke to tender his advice. He was at every Cabinet Council; he always came when his presence was required; he was invariably good-humoured; — but it seemed to him that his work was done. He could hardly volunteer to tell his chief and his colleague that he would certainly be beaten in the House of Commons, and that therefore there was little more now to be done than to arrange the circumstances of their retirement. Nevertheless, as the period for the second reading of the Bill came on, he resolved that he would discuss the matter with his friend. He owed it to himself to do so, and he also owed it to the man whom he had certainly placed in his present position. On himself politics had imposed a burden very much lighter than that which they had inflicted on his more energetic and much less practical colleague. Through his long life he had either been in office, or in such a position that men were sure that he would soon return to it. He had taken it, when it had come, willingly, and had always left it without a regret. As a man cuts in and out at a whist table, and enjoys both the game and the rest from the game, so had the Duke of St. Bungay been well pleased in either position. He was patriotic, but his patriotism did not disturb his digestion. He had been ambitious, — but moderately ambitious, and his ambition had been gratified. It never occurred to him to be unhappy because he or his party were beaten on a measure. When President of the Council, he could do his duty and enjoy London life. When in opposition, he could linger in Italy till May and devote his leisure to his trees and his bullocks. He was always esteemed, always self-satisfied, and always Duke of St. Bungay. But with our Duke it was very different. Patriotism with him was a fever, and the public service an exacting mistress. As long as this had been all he had still been happy. Not trusting much in himself, he had never aspired to great power. But now, now at last, ambition had laid hold of him, — and the feeling, not perhaps uncommon with such men, that personal dishonour would be attached to political failure. What would his future life be if he had so carried himself in his great office as to have shown himself to be unfit to resume it? Hitherto any office had sufficed him in which he might be useful; — but now he must either be Prime Minister, or a silent, obscure, and humbled man!

  Dear Duke,

  I will be with you to-morrow morning at 11 a.m., if you can give me half-an-hour.

  Yours affectionately,

  St. B.

  The Prime Minister received this note one afternoon, a day or two before that appointed for the second reading, and meeting his friend within an hour in the House of Lords, confirmed the appointment. “Shall I not rather come to you?” he said. But the old Duke, who lived in St. James’s Square, declared that Carlton Terrace would be in his way to Downing Street; and so the matter was settled. Exactly at eleven the two Ministers met. “I don’t like troubling you,” said the old man, “when I know that you have so much to think of.”

  “On the contrary, I have but little to think of, — and my thoughts must be very much engaged, indeed, when they shall be too full to admit of my seeing you.”

  “Of course we are all anxious about this Bill.” The Prime Minister smiled. Anxious! Yes, indeed. His anxiety was of such a nature that it kept him awake all night, and never for a moment left his mind free by day. “And of course we must be prepared as to what shall be done either in the event of success or of failure.”

  “You might as well read that,” said the other. “It only reached me this morning, or I should have told you of it.” The letter was a communication from the Solicitor-General containing his resignation. He had now studied the County Suffrage Bill closely, and regretted to say that he could not give it a conscientious support. It was a matter of sincerest sorrow to him that relations so pleasant should be broken, but he must resign his place, unless, indeed, the clauses as to redistribution could be withdrawn. Of course he did not say this as expecting that any such concession would be made to his opinion, but merely as indicating the matter on which his objection was so strong as to over-rule all other considerations. All this he explained at great length.

  “The pleasantness of the relations must have been on one side,” said the veteran. “He ought to have gone long since.”

  “And Lord Drummond has already as good as said that unless we will abandon the same clauses, he must oppose the Bill in the Lords.”

  “And resign, of course.”

  “He meant that, I presume. Lord Ramsden has not spoken to me.”

  “The clauses will not stick in his throat. Nor ought they. If the lawyers have their own way about law they should be contented.”

  “The question is, whether in these circumstances we should postpone the second reading?” asked the Prime Minister.

  “Certainly not,” said the other Duke. “As to the Solicitor-General you will have no difficulty. Sir Timothy was only placed there as a concession to his party. Drummond will no doubt continue to hold his office till we see what is done in the Lower House. If the second reading be lost there, — why then his lordship can go with the rest of us.”

  “Rattler says we shall have a majority. He and Roby are quite agreed about it. Between them they must know,” said the Pri
me Minister, unintentionally pleading for himself.

  “They ought to know, if any men do; — but the crisis is exceptional. I suppose you think that if the second reading is lost we should resign?”

  “Oh, — certainly.”

  “Or, after that, if the Bill be much mutilated in Committee? I don’t know that I shall personally break my own heart about the Bill. The existing difference in the suffrages is rather in accordance with my prejudices. But the country desires the measure, and I suppose we cannot consent to any such material alteration as these men suggest.” As he spoke he laid his hand on Sir Timothy’s letter.

  “Mr. Monk would not hear of it,” said the Prime Minister.

  “Of course not. And you and I in this measure must stick to Mr. Monk. My great, indeed my only strong desire in the matter, is to act in strict unison with you.”

  “You are always good and true, Duke.”

  “For my own part I shall not in the least regret to find in all this an opportunity of resigning. We have done our work, and if, as I believe, a majority of the House would again support either Gresham or Monk as the head of the entire Liberal party, I think that that arrangement would be for the welfare of the country.”

  “Why should it make any difference to you? Why should you not return to the Council?”

  “I should not do so; — certainly not at once; probably never. But you, — who are in the very prime of your life — “

  The Prime Minister did not smile now. He knit his brows and a dark shadow came across his face. “I don’t think I could do that,” he said. “Cæsar could hardly have led a legion under Pompey.”

  “It has been done, greatly to the service of the country, and without the slightest loss of honour or character in him who did it.”

  “We need hardly talk of that, Duke. You think then that we shall fail; — fail, I mean, in the House of Commons. I do not know that failure in our House should be regarded as fatal.”

  “In three cases we should fail. The loss of any material clause in Committee would be as bad as the loss of the Bill.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “And then, in spite of Messrs. Rattler and Roby, — who have been wrong before and may be wrong now, — we may lose the second reading.”

  “And the third chance against us?”

  “You would not probably try to carry on the Bill with a very small majority.”

  “Not with three or four.”

  “Nor, I think, with six or seven. It would be useless. My own belief is that we shall never carry the Bill into Committee.”

  “I have always known you to be right, Duke.”

  “I think that general opinion has set in that direction, and general opinion is generally right. Having come to that conclusion I thought it best to tell you, in order that we might have our house in order.” The Duke of Omnium, who with all his haughtiness and all his reserve, was the simplest man in the world and the least apt to pretend to be that which he was not, sighed deeply when he heard this. “For my own part,” continued his elder, “I feel no regret that it should be so.”

  “It is the first large measure that we have tried to carry.”

  “We did not come in to carry large measures, my friend. Look back and see how many large measures Pitt carried, — but he took the country safely through its most dangerous crisis.”

  “What have we done?”

  “Carried on the Queen’s Government prosperously for three years. Is that nothing for a minister to do? I have never been a friend of great measures, knowing that when they come fast, one after another, more is broken in the rattle than is repaired by the reform. We have done what Parliament and the country expected us to do, and to my poor judgment we have done it well.”

  “I do not feel much self-satisfaction, Duke. Well; — we must see it out, and if it is as you anticipate, I shall be ready. Of course I have prepared myself for it. And if, of late, my mind has been less turned to retirement than it used to be, it has only been because I have become wedded to this measure, and have wished that it should be carried under our auspices.” Then the old Duke took his leave, and the Prime Minister was left alone to consider the announcement that had been made to him.

  He had said that he had prepared himself, but, in so saying, he had hardly known himself. Hitherto, though he had been troubled by many doubts, he had still hoped. The report made to him by Mr. Rattler, backed as it had been by Mr. Roby’s assurances, had almost sufficed to give him confidence. But Mr. Rattler and Mr. Roby combined were as nothing to the Duke of St. Bungay. The Prime Minister knew now, — he felt that he knew, that his days were numbered. The resignation of that lingering old bishop was not completed, and the person in whom he believed would not have the see. He had meditated the making of a peer or two, having hitherto been very cautious in that respect, but he would do nothing of the kind if called upon by the House of Commons to resign with an uncompleted measure. But his thoughts soon ran away from the present to the future. What was now to come of himself? How should he use his future life, — he who as yet had not passed his forty-seventh year? He regretted much having made that apparently pretentious speech about Cæsar, though he knew his old friend well enough to be sure that it would never be used against him. Who was he that he should class himself among the big ones of the world? A man may indeed measure small things by great, but the measurer should be careful to declare his own littleness when he illustrates his position by that of the topping ones of the earth. But the thing said had been true. Let the Pompey be who he might, he, the little Cæsar of the day, could never now command another legion.

  He had once told Phineas Finn that he regretted that he had abstained from the ordinary amusements of English gentlemen. But he had abstained also from their ordinary occupations, — except so far as politics is one of them. He cared nothing for oxen or for furrows. In regard to his own land he hardly knew whether the farms were large or small. He had been a scholar, and after a certain fitful fashion he had maintained his scholarship, but the literature to which he had been really attached had been that of blue-books and newspapers. What was he to do with himself when called upon to resign? And he understood, — or thought that he understood, — his position too well to expect that after a while, with the usual interval, he might return to power. He had been Prime Minister, not as the leading politician on either side, not as the king of a party, but, — so he told himself, — as a stop-gap. There could be nothing for him now till the insipidity of life should gradually fade away into the grave.

  After a while he got up and went off to his wife’s apartment, the room in which she used to prepare her triumphs and where now she contemplated her disappointments. “I have had the Duke with me,” he said.

  “What; — at last?”

  “I do not know that he could have done any good by coming sooner.”

  “And what does his Grace say?”

  “He thinks that our days are numbered.”

  “Psha! — is that all? I could have told him that ever so long ago. It was hardly necessary that he should disturb himself at last to come and tell us such well-ventilated news. There isn’t a porter at one of the clubs who doesn’t know it.”

  “Then there will be the less surprise, — and to those who are concerned perhaps the less mortification.”

  “Did he tell you who was to succeed you?” asked the Duchess.

  “Not precisely.”

  “He ought to have done that, as I am sure he knows. Everybody knows except you, Plantagenet.”

  “If you know, you can tell me.”

  “Of course, I can. It will be Mr. Monk.”

  “With all my heart, Glencora. Mr. Monk is a very good man.”

  “I wonder whether he’ll do anything for us. Think how destitute we shall be! What if I were to ask him for a place! Would he not give it us?”

  “Will it make you unhappy, Cora?”

  “What; — your going?”

  “Yes; — the change altogether.”
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br />   She looked him in the face for a moment before she answered, with a peculiar smile in her eyes to which he was well used, — a smile half ludicrous and half pathetic, — having in it also a dash of sarcasm. “I can dare to tell the truth,” she said, “which you can’t. I can be honest and straightforward. Yes, it will make me unhappy. And you?”

  “Do you think that I cannot be honest too, — at any rate to you? It does fret me. I do not like to think that I shall be without work.”

  “Yes; — Othello’s occupation will be gone, — for awhile; for awhile.” Then she came up to him and put both her hands on his breast. “But yet, Othello, I shall not be all unhappy.”

  “Where will be your contentment?”

  “In you. It was making you ill. Rough people, whom the tenderness of your nature could not well endure, trod upon you, and worried you with their teeth and wounded you everywhere. I could have turned at them again with my teeth, and given them worry for worry; — but you could not. Now you will be saved from them, and so I shall not be discontented.” All this she said looking up into his face, still with that smile which was half pathetic and half ludicrous.

  “Then I will be contented too,” he said as he kissed her.

  CHAPTER LXXIII

  Only the Duke of Omnium

  The night of the debate arrived, but before the debate was commenced Sir Timothy Beeswax got up to make a personal explanation. He thought it right to state to the House how it came to pass that he found himself bound to leave the Ministry at so important a crisis in its existence. Then an observation was made by an honourable member of the Government, — presumably in a whisper, but still loud enough to catch the sharp ears of Sir Timothy, who now sat just below the gangway. It was said afterwards that the gentleman who made the observation, — an Irish gentleman named Fitzgibbon, conspicuous rather for his loyalty to his party than his steadiness, — had purposely taken the place in which he then sat, that Sir Timothy might hear the whisper. The whisper suggested that falling houses were often left by certain animals. It was certainly a very loud whisper, — but, if gentlemen are to be allowed to whisper at all, it is almost impossible to restrain the volume of the voice. To restrain Mr. Fitzgibbon had always been found difficult. Sir Timothy, who did not lack pluck, turned at once upon his assailant, and declared that words had been used with reference to himself which the honourable member did not dare to get upon his legs and repeat. Larry Fitzgibbon, as the gentleman was called, looked him full in the face, but did not move his hat from his head or stir a limb. It was a pleasant little episode in the evening’s work, and afforded satisfaction to the House generally. Then Sir Timothy went on with his explanation. The details of this measure, as soon as they were made known to him, appeared to him, he said, to be fraught with the gravest and most pernicious consequences. He was sure that the members of her Majesty’s Government, who were hurrying on this measure with what he thought was indecent haste, — ministers are always either indecent in their haste or treacherous in their delay, — had not considered what they were doing, or, if they had considered, were blind as to its results. He then attempted to discuss the details of the measure, but was called to order. A personal explanation could not be allowed to give him an opportunity of anticipating the debate. He contrived, however, before he sat down, to say some very heavy things against his late chief, and especially to congratulate the Duke on the services of the honourable gentleman, the member for Mayo, — meaning thereby Mr. Laurence Fitzgibbon.