‘I find no fault; – but I think my brother would make her happy.’
Lady Laura, when she was left alone, at once reverted to the tone in which Phineas Finn had answered her remarks about Miss Effingham. Phineas was very ill able to conceal his thoughts, and wore his heart almost upon his sleeve. ‘Can it be possible that he cares for her himself?’ That was the nature of Lady Laura's first question to herself upon the matter. And in asking herself that question, she thought nothing of the disparity in rank or fortune between Phineas Finn and Violet Effingham. Nor did it occur to her as at all improbable that Violet might accept the love of him who had so lately been her own lover. But the idea grated against her wishes on two sides. She was most anxious that Violet should ultimately become her brother's wife, – and she could not be pleased that Phineas should be able to love any woman.
I must beg my readers not to be carried away by those last words into any erroneous conclusion. They must not suppose that Lady Laura Kennedy, the lately married bride, indulged a guilty passion for the young man who had loved her. Though she had probably thought often of Phineas Finn since her marriage, her thoughts had never been of a nature to disturb her rest. It had never occurred to her even to think that she regarded him with any feeling that was an offence to her husband. She would have hated herself had any such idea presented itself to her mind. She prided herself on being a pure high-principled woman, who had kept so strong a guard upon herself as to be nearly free from the dangers of those rocks upon which other women make shipwreck of their happiness. She took pride in this, and would then blame herself for her own pride. But though she so blamed herself, it never occurred to her to think that to her there might be danger of such shipwreck. She had put away from herself the idea of love when she had first perceived that Phineas had regarded her with more than friendship, and had accepted Mr Kennedy's offer with an assured conviction that by doing so she was acting best for her own happiness and for that of all those concerned. She had felt the romance of the position to be sweet when Phineas had stood with her at the top of the falls of the Linter, and had told her of the hopes which he had dared to indulge. And when at the bottom of the falls he had presumed to take her in his arms, she had forgiven him without difficulty to herself, telling herself that that would be the alpha and the omega of the romance of her life. She had not felt herself bound to tell Mr Kennedy of what had occurred, – but she had felt that he could hardly have been angry even had he been told. And she had often thought of her lover since, and of his love, – telling herself that she too had once had a lover, never regarding her husband in that light; but her thoughts had not frightened her as guilty thoughts will do. There had come a romance which had been pleasant, and it was gone. It had been soon banished, – but it had left to her a sweet flavour, of which she loved to taste the sweetness though she knew that it was gone. And the man should be her friend, but especially her husband's friend. It should be her care to see that his life was successful, – and especially her husband's care. It was a great delight to her to know that her husband liked the man. And the man would marry, and the man's wife should be her friend. All this had been very pure and very pleasant. Now an idea had flitted across her brain that the man was in love with some one else, – and she did not like it!
But she did not therefore become afraid of herself, or in the least realise at once the danger of her own position. Her immediate glance at the matter did not go beyond the falseness of men. If it were so, as she suspected, – if Phineas Finn had in truth transferred his affections to Violet Effingham, of how little value was the love of such a man! It did not occur to her at this moment that she also had transferred hers to Robert Kennedy, or that, if not, she had done worse. But she did remember that in the autumn this young Phoebus among men had turned his back upon her out upon the mountain that he might hide from her the agony of his heart when he learned that she was to be the wife of another man; and that now, before the winter was over, he could not hide from her the fact that his heart was elsewhere! And then she speculated, and counted up facts, and satisfied herself that Phineas could not even have seen Violet Effingham since they two had stood together upon the mountain. How false are men! – how false and how weak of heart!
‘Chiltern and Violet Effingham!’ said Phineas to himself, as he walked away from Grosvenor Place. ‘Is it fair that she should be sacrificed because she is rich, and because she is so winning and so fascinating that Lord Brentford would receive even his son for the sake of receiving also such a daughter-in-law?’ Phineas also liked Lord Chiltern; had seen or fancied that he had seen fine things in him; had looked forward to his regeneration, hoping, perhaps, that he might have some hand in the good work. But he did not recognise the propriety of sacrificing Violet Effingham even for work so good as this. If Miss Effingham had refused Lord Chiltern twice, surely that ought to be sufficient. It did not as yet occur to him that the love of such a girl as Violet would be a great treasure – to himself. As regarded himself, he was still in love, – hopelessly in love, with Lady Laura Kennedy!33
CHAPTER 18
Mr Turnbull
IT was a Wednesday evening and there was no House; – and at seven o'clock Phineas was at Mr Monk's hall door. He was the first of the guests and he found Mr Monk alone in the dining-room. ‘I am doing butler,’ said Mr Monk, who had a brace of decanters in his hands, which he proceeded to put down in the neighbourhood of the fire. ‘But I have finished, and now we will go up-stairs to receive the two great men properly.’
‘I beg your pardon for coming too early,’ said Finn.
‘Not a minute too early. Seven is seven, and it is I who am too late. But, Lord bless you, you don't think I'm ashamed of being found in the act of decanting my own wine! I remember Lord Palmerston saying before some committee about salaries, five or six years ago now, I daresay, that it wouldn't do for an English Minister to have his hall door opened by a maid-servant. Now, I'm an English Minister, and I've got nobody but a maid-servant to open my hall door, and I'm obliged to look after my own wine. I wonder whether it's improper? I shouldn't like to be the means of injuring the British Constitution.’
‘Perhaps if you resign soon, and if nobody follows your example, grave evil results may be avoided.’
‘I sincerely hope so, for I do love the British Constitution; and I love also the respect in which members of the English Cabinet are held. Now Turnbull, who will be here in a moment, hates it all; but he is a rich man, and has more powdered footmen hanging about his house than ever Lord Palmerston had himself.’
‘He is still in business.’
‘Oh yes; – and makes his thirty thousand a year. Here he is. How are you, Turnbull? We were talking about my maid-servant. I hope she opened the door for you properly.’
‘Certainly, – as far as I perceived,’ said Mr Turnbull, who was better at a speech than a joke. ‘A very respectable young woman I should say.’
‘There is not one more so in all London,’ said Mr Monk; ‘but Finn seems to think that I ought to have a man in livery.’
‘It is a matter of perfect indifference to me,’ said Mr Turnbull. ‘I am one of those who never think of such things.’
‘Nor I either,’ said Mr Monk. Then the laird of Loughlinter was announced, and they all went down to dinner.
Mr Turnbull was a good-looking robust man about sixty, with long grey hair and a red complexion, with hard eyes, a well-cut nose, and full lips. He was nearly six feet high, stood quite upright, and always wore a black swallow-tail coat, black trousers, and a black silk waistcoat. In the House, at least, he was always so dressed, and at dinner tables. What difference there might be in his costume when at home at Staleybridge few of those who saw him in London had the means of knowing. There was nothing in his face to indicate special talent. No one looking at him would take him to be a fool; but there was none of the fire of genius in his eye, nor was there in the lines of his mouth any of that play of thought or fancy which is generally to be found in th
e faces of men and women who have made themselves great. Mr Turnbull had certainly made himself great, and could hardly have done so without force of intellect. He was one of the most popular, if not the most popular politician in the country. Poor men believed in him, thinking that he was their most honest public friend; and men who were not poor believed in his power, thinking that his counsels must surely prevail. He had obtained the ear of the House and the favour of the reporters, and opened his voice at no public dinner, on no platform, without a conviction that the words spoken by him would be read by thousands. The first necessity for good speaking is a large audience; and of this advantage Mr Turnbull had made himself sure. And yet it could hardly be said that he was a great orator. He was gifted with a powerful voice, with strong, and I may, perhaps, call them broad convictions, with perfect self-reliance, with almost unlimited powers of endurance, with hot ambition, with no keen scruples, and with a moral skin of great thickness. Nothing said against him pained him, no attacks wounded him, no raillery touched him in the least. There was not a sore spot about him, and probably his first thoughts on waking every morning told him that he, at least, was totus teres atque rotundus. He was, of course, a thorough radical, – and so was Mr Monk. But Mr Monk's first waking thoughts were probably exactly the reverse of those of his friend. Mr Monk was a much hotter man in debate than Mr Turnbull; – but Mr Monk was ever doubting of himself, and never doubted of himself so much as when he had been most violent, and also most effective, in debate. When Mr Monk jeered at himself for being a Cabinet Minister and keeping no attendant grander than a parlour-maid, there was a substratum of self-doubt under the joke.
Mr Turnbull was certainly a great Radical, and as such enjoyed a great reputation. I do not think that high office in the State had ever been offered to him; but things had been said which justified him, or seemed to himself to justify him, in declaring that in no possible circumstances would he serve the Crown. ‘I serve the people,’ he had said, ‘and much as I respect the servants of the Crown, I think that my own office is the higher.’ He had been greatly called to task for this speech; and Mr Mildmay, the present Premier, had asked him whether he did not recognise the so-called servants of the Crown as the most hard-worked and truest servants of the people. The House and the press had supported Mr Mildmay, but to all that Mr Turnbull was quite indifferent; and when an assertion made by him before three or four thousand persons at Manchester, to the effect that he, – he specially, – was the friend and servant of the people, was received with acclamation, he felt quite satisfied that he had gained his point. Progressive reform in the franchise, of which manhood suffrage should be the acknowledged and not far distant end, equal electoral districts, ballot, tenant right for England as well as Ireland, reduction of the standing army till there should be no standing army to reduce, utter disregard of all political movements in Europe, an almost idolatrous admiration for all political movements in America, free trade in everything except malt, and an absolute extinction of a State Church, – these were among the principal articles in Mr Turnbull's political catalogue.34 And I think that when once he had learned the art of arranging his words as he stood upon his legs, and had so mastered his own voice as to have obtained the ear of the House, the work of his life was not difficult. Having nothing to construct, he could always deal with generalities. Being free from responsibility, he was not called upon either to study details or to master even great facts. It was his business to inveigh against existing evils, and perhaps there is no easier business when once the privilege of an audience has been attained. It was his work to cut down forest-trees, and he had nothing to do with the subsequent cultivation of the land. Mr Monk had once told Phineas Finn how great were the charms of that inaccuracy which was permitted to the opposition. Mr Turnbull no doubt enjoyed these charms to the full, though he would sooner have put a padlock on his mouth for a month than have owned as much. Upon the whole, Mr Turnbull was no doubt right in resolving that he would not take office, though some reticence on that subject might have been more becoming to him.
The conversation at dinner, though it was altogether on political subjects, had in it nothing of special interest as long as the girl was there to change the plates; but when she was gone, and the door was closed, it gradually opened out, and there came on to be a pleasant sparring match between the two great Radicals, – the Radical who had joined himself to the governing powers, and the Radical who stood aloof. Mr Kennedy barely said a word now and then, and Phineas was almost as silent as Mr Kennedy. He had come there to hear some such discussion, and was quite willing to listen while guns of such great calibre were being fired off for his amusement.
‘I think Mr Mildmay is making a great step forward,’ said Mr Turnbull.
‘I think he is,’ said Mr Monk.
‘I did not believe that he would ever live to go so far. It will hardly suffice even for this year; but still, coming from him, it is a great deal. It only shows how far a man may be made to go, if only the proper force be applied. After all, it matters very little who are the Ministers.’
‘That is what I have always declared,’ said Mr Monk.
‘Very little indeed. We don't mind whether it be Lord De Terrier, or Mr Mildmay, or Mr Gresham, or you yourself, if you choose to get yourself made First Lord of the Treasury.’
‘I have no such ambition, Turnbull.’
‘I should have thought you had. If I went in for that kind of thing myself, I should like to go to the top of the ladder. I should feel that if I could do any good at all by becoming a Minister, I could only do it by becoming first Minister.’
‘You wouldn't doubt your own fitness for such a position?’
‘I doubt my fitness for the position of any Minister,’ said Mr Turnbull.
‘You mean that on other grounds,’ said Mr Kennedy.
‘I mean it on every ground,’ said Mr Turnbull, rising on his legs and standing with his back to the fire. ‘Of course I am not fit to have diplomatic intercourse with men who would come to me simply with the desire of deceiving me. Of course I am unfit to deal with members of Parliament who would flock around me because they wanted places. Of course I am unfit to answer every man's question so as to give no information to any one.’
‘Could you not answer them so as to give information?’ said Mr Kennedy.
But Mr Turnbull was so intent on his speech that it may be doubted whether he heard this interruption. He took no notice of it as he went on. ‘Of course I am unfit to maintain the proprieties of a seeming confidence between a Crown all-powerless and a people all-powerful. No man recognises his own unfitness for such work more clearly than I do, Mr Monk. But if I took in hand such work at all, I should like to be the leader, and not the led. Tell us fairly, now, what are your convictions worth in Mr Mildmay's Cabinet?’
‘That is a question which a man may hardly answer himself,’ said Mr Monk.
‘It is a question which a man should at least answer for himself before he consents to sit there,’ said Mr Turnbull, in a tone of voice which was almost angry.
‘And what reason have you for supposing that I have omitted that duty?’ said Mr Monk.
‘Simply this, – that I can not reconcile your known opinions with the practices of your colleagues.’
‘I will not tell you what my convictions may be worth in Mr Mildmay's Cabinet. I will not take upon myself to say that they are worth the chair on which I sit when I am there. But I will tell you what my aspirations were when I consented to fill that chair, and you shall judge of their worth. I thought that they might possibly leaven the batch of bread which we have to bake, – giving to the whole batch more of the flavour of reform than it would have possessed had I absented myself. I thought that when I was asked to join Mr Mildmay and Mr Gresham, the very fact of that request indicated liberal progress, and that if I refused the request I should be declining to assist in good work.’
‘You could have supported them, if anything were proposed worthy of support,’ sa
id Mr Turnbull.
‘Yes; but I could not have been so effective in taking care that some measure be proposed worthy of support as I may possibly be now. I thought a good deal about it, and I believe that my decision was right.’
‘I'm sure you were right,’ said Mr Kennedy.
‘There can be no juster object of ambition than a seat in the Cabinet,’ said Phineas.
‘Sir, I must dispute that,’ said Mr Turnbull, turning round upon our hero. ‘I regard the position of our high Ministers as most respectable.’
‘Thank you for so much,’ said Mr Monk. But the orator went on, again regardless of the interruption: –
‘The position of gentlemen in inferior offices, – of gentlemen who attend rather to the nods and winks of their superiors in Downing Street than to the interests of their constituents, – I do not regard as being highly respectable.’
‘A man cannot begin at the top,’ said Phineas.
‘Our friend Mr Monk has begun at what you are pleased to call the top,’ said Mr Turnbull. ‘But I will not profess to think that even he has raised himself by going into office. To be an independent representative of a really popular commercial constituency is, in my estimation, the highest object of an Englishman's ambition.’
Phineas Finn, the Irish Member Page 21
