It hardly occurred to Phineas to think that any danger was imminent to Mr Kennedy from the men, but it did occur to him that he might as well take some notice of the matter. Phineas knew that Mr Kennedy would make his way down Park Street, that being his usual route from Portman Square towards his own home, and knew also that he himself could again come across Mr Kennedy's track by going down North Audley Street to the corner of Grosvenor Square, and thence by Brook Street into Park Street. Without much thought, therefore, he went out of his own course down to the corner of the Square, hurrying his steps till he was running, and then ran along Brook Street, thinking as he went of some special word that he might say to Mr Kennedy as an excuse, should he again come across his late companion. He reached the corner of Park Street before that gentleman could have been there, unless he also had run; but just in time to see him as he was coming on, – and also to see in the dark glimmering of the slight uncertain moonlight that the two men were behind him. He retreated a step backwards in the corner, resolving that when Mr Kennedy came up, they two would go on together; for now it was clear that Mr Kennedy was followed. But Mr Kennedy did not reach the corner. When he was within two doors of it, one of the men had followed him up quickly, and had thrown something round his throat from behind him. Phineas understood well now that his friend was in the act of being garrotted,50 and that his instant assistance was needed. He rushed forward, and as the second ruffian had been close upon the footsteps of the first, there was almost instantaneously a concourse of the four men. But there was no fight. The man who had already nearly succeeded in putting Mr Kennedy on to his back, made no attempt to seize his prey when he found that so unwelcome an addition had joined the party, but instantly turned to fly. His companion was turning also, but Phineas was too quick for him, and having seized on to his collar, held to him with all his power. ‘Dash it all,’ said the man, ‘didn't yer see as how I was a-hurrying up to help the gen'leman myself?’ Phineas, however, hadn't seen this, and held on gallantly, and in a couple of minutes the first ruffian was back again upon the spot in the custody of a policeman. ‘You've done it uncommon neat, sir,’ said the policeman, complimenting Phineas upon his performance. ‘If the gen'leman ain't none the worst for it, it'll have been a very pretty evening's amusement.’ Mr Kennedy was now leaning against the railings, and hitherto had been unable to declare whether he was really injured or not, and it was not till a second policeman came up that the hero of the night was at liberty to attend closely to his friend.
Mr Kennedy, when he was able to speak, declared that for a minute or two he had thought his neck had been broken; and he was not quite convinced till he found himself in his own house, that nothing more serious had really happened to him than certain bruises round his throat. The policeman was for a while anxious that at any rate Phineas should go with him to the police-office; but at last consented to take the addresses of the two gentlemen. When he found that Mr Kennedy was a member of Parliament, and that he was designated as Right Honourable, his respect for the garrotter became more great, and he began to feel that the night was indeed a night of great importance. He expressed unbounded admiration at Mr Finn's success in his own line, and made repeated promises that the men should be forthcoming on the morrow. Could a cab be got? Of course a cab could be got, A cab was got, and within a quarter of an hour of the making of the attack, the two members of Parliament were on their way to Grosvenor Place.
There was hardly a word spoken in the cab, for Mr Kennedy was in pain. When, however, they reached the door in Grosvenor Place, Phineas wanted to go, and leave his friend with the servants, but this the Cabinet Minister would not allow. ‘Of course you must see my wife,’ he said. So they went upstairs into the drawing-room, and then upon the stairs, by the lights of the house, Phineas could perceive that his companion's face was bruised and black with dirt, and that his cravat was gone.
‘I have been garrotted,’ said the Cabinet Minister to his wife.
‘What?’
‘Simply that; – or should have been, if he had not been there. How he came there, God only knows.’
The wife's anxiety, and then her gratitude, need hardly be described, – nor the astonishment of the husband, which by no means decreased on reflection, at the opportune re-appearance in the nick of time of the man whom three minutes before the attack he had left in the act of going in the opposite direction.
‘I had seen the men, and thought it best to run round by the corner of Grosvenor Square,’ said Phineas.
‘May God bless you,’ said Lady Laura.
‘Amen,’ said the Cabinet Minister.
‘I think he was born to be my friend,’ said Lady Laura.
The Cabinet Minister said nothing more that night. He was never given to much talking, and the little accident which had just occurred to him did not tend to make words easy to him. But he pressed our hero's hand, and Lady Laura said that of course Phineas would come to them on the morrow. Phineas remarked that his first business must be to go to the police-office, but he promised that he would come down to Grosvenor Place immediately afterwards. Then Lady Laura also pressed his hand, and looked -; she looked, I think, as though she thought that Phineas would only have done right had he repeated the offence which he had committed under the waterfall of Loughlinter.
‘Garrotted!’ said Lord Chiltern, when Phineas told him the story before they went to bed that night. He had been smoking, sipping brandy-and-water, and waiting for Finn's return. ‘Robert Kennedy garrotted!’
‘The fellow was in the act of doing it.’
‘And you stopped him?’
‘Yes; – I got there just in time. Wasn't it lucky?’
‘You ought to be garrotted yourself. I should have lent the man a hand had I been there.’
‘How can you say anything so horrible? But you are drinking too much, old fellow, and I shall lock the bottle up.’
‘If there were no one in London drank more than I do, the wine merchants would have a bad time of it. And so the new Cabinet Minister has been garrotted in the street. Of course I'm sorry for poor Laura's sake.’
‘Luckily he's not much the worse for it; – only a little bruised.’
‘I wonder whether it's on the cards he should be improved by it; – worse, except in the way of being strangled, he could not be. However, as he's my brother-in-law, I'm obliged to you for rescuing him. Come, I'll go to bed. I must say, if he was to be garrotted I should like to have been there to see it.’ That was the manner in which Lord Chiltern received the tidings of the terrible accident which had occurred to his near relative.
CHAPTER 31
Finn For Loughton
BY three o'clock in the day after the little accident which was told in the last chapter, all the world knew that Mr Kennedy, the new Cabinet Minister, had been garrotted, or half garrotted, and that that child of fortune, Phineas Finn, had dropped upon the scene out of heaven at the exact moment of time, had taken the two garrotters prisoners, and saved the Cabinet Minister's neck and valuables, – if not his life. ‘Bedad,’ said Laurence Fitzgibbon, when he came to hear this, ‘that fellow'll marry an heiress, and be Secretary for Oireland yet.’ A good deal was said about it to Phineas at the clubs, but a word or two that was said to him by Violet Effingham was worth all the rest. ‘Why, what a Paladin you are! But you succour men in distress instead of maidens.’ ‘That's my bad luck,’ said Phineas. ‘The other will come no doubt in time,’ Violet replied; ‘and then you'll get your reward.’ He knew that such words from a girl mean nothing, – especially from such a girl as Violet Effingham; but nevertheless they were very pleasant to him.
‘Of course you will come to us at Loughlinter when Parliament is up?’ Lady Laura said the same day.
‘I don't know really. You see I must go over to Ireland about my re-election.’
‘What has that to do with it? You are only making out excuses. We go down on the first of July, and the English elections won't begin till the middle of the month. It will
be August before the men of Loughshane are ready for you.’
‘To tell you the truth, Lady Laura,’ said Phineas, ‘I doubt whether the men of Loughshane, – or rather the man of Loughshane, will have anything more to say to me.’
‘What man do you mean?’
‘Lord Tulla. He was in a passion with his brother before, and I got the advantage of it. Since that he has paid his brother's debts for the fifteenth time, and of course is ready to fight any battle for the forgiven prodigal. Things are not as they were, and my father tells me that he thinks I shall be beaten.’
‘That is bad news.’
‘It is what I have a right to expect.’
Every word of information that had come to Phineas about Loughshane since Mr Mildmay had decided upon a dissolution, had gone towards making him feel at first that there was great doubt as to his re-election, and at last that there was almost a certainty against him. And as these tidings reached him they made him very unhappy. Since he had been in Parliament he had very frequently regretted that he had left the shades of the Inns of Court for the glare of Westminster; and he had more than once made up his mind that he would desert the glare and return to the shade. But now, when the moment came in which such desertion seemed to be compulsory on him, when there would be no longer a choice, the seat in Parliament was dearer to him than ever. If he had gone of his own free will, – so he told himself, – there would have been something of nobility in such going. Mr Low would have respected him, and even Mrs Low might have taken him back to the friendship of her severe bosom. But he would go back now as a cur with his tail between his legs, – kicked out, as it were, from Parliament. Returning to Lincoln's Inn soiled with failure, having accomplished nothing, having broken down on the only occasion on which he had dared to show himself on his legs, not having opened a single useful book during the two years in which he had sat in Parliament, burdened with Laurence Fitzgibbon's debt, and not quite free from debt of his own, how could he start himself in any way by which he might even hope to win success? He must, he told himself, give up all thought of practising in London and betake himself to Dublin. He could not dare to face his friends in London as a young briefless barrister.
On this evening, the evening subsequent to that on which Mr Kennedy had been attacked, the House was sitting in Committee of Ways and Means, and there came on a discussion as to a certain vote for the army. It had been known that there would be such discussion; and Mr Monk having heard from Phineas a word or two now and again about the potted peas, had recommended him to be ready with a few remarks if he wished to support the Government in the matter of that vote. Phineas did so wish, having learned quite enough in the committee-room up-stairs to make him believe that a large importation of the potted peas from Holstein would not be for the advantage of the army or navy, – or for that of the country at large. Mr Monk had made his suggestion without the slightest allusion to the former failure, – just as though Phineas were a practised speaker accustomed to be on his legs three or four time a week. ‘If I find a chance, I will,’ said Phineas, taking the advice just as it was given.
Soon after prayers, a word was said in the House as to the ill-fortune which had befallen the new Cabinet Minister. Mr Daubeny had asked Mr Mildmay whether violent hands had not been laid in the dead of night on the sacred throat, – the throat that should have been sacred, – of the new Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster; and had expressed regret that the Ministry, – which was, he feared, in other respects somewhat infirm, – should now have been further weakened by this injury to that new bulwark with which it had endeavoured to support itself. The Prime Minister, answering his old rival in the same strain, said that the calamity might have been very severe, both to the country and to the Cabinet; but that fortunately for the community at large, a gallant young member of that House, – and he was proud to say a supporter of the Government, – had appeared upon the spot at the nick of time; – ‘As a god out of a machine,’ said Mr Daubeny, interrupting him; – ‘By no means as a god out of a machine,’ continued Mr Mildmay, ‘but as a real help in a very real trouble, and succeeded not only in saving my right honourable friend, the Chancellor of the Duchy, but in arresting the two malefactors who attempted to rob him in the street.’ Then there was a cry of ‘name;’ and Mr Mildmay of course named the member for Loughshane. It so happened that Phineas was not in the House, but he heard it all when he came down to attend the Committee of Ways and Means.
Then came on the discussion about provisions in the army, the subject being mooted by one of Mr Turnbull's close allies. The gentleman on the other side of the House who had moved for the Potted Peas Committee, was silent on the occasion, having felt that the result of that committee had not been exactly what he had expected. The evidence respecting such of the Holstein potted peas as had been used in this country was not very favourable to them. But, nevertheless, the rebound from that committee, – the very fact that such a committee had been made to sit, – gave ground for a hostile attack. To attack is so easy, when a complete refutation barely suffices to save the Minister attacked, – does not suffice to save him from future dim memories of something having been wrong, – and brings down no disgrace whatsoever on the promoter of the false charge. The promoter of the false charge simply expresses his gratification at finding that he has been misled by erroneous information. It is not customary for him to express gratification at the fact, that out of all the mud which he has thrown, some will probably stick! Phineas, when the time came, did get on his legs, and spoke perhaps two or three dozen words. The doing so seemed to come to him quite naturally. He had thought very little about it beforehand, – having resolved not to think of it. And indeed the occasion was one of no great importance. The Speaker was not in the chair, and the House was thin, and he intended to make no speech, – merely to say something which he had to say. Till he had finished he hardly remembered that he was doing that, in attempting to do which he had before failed so egregiously. It was not till he sat down that he began to ask himself whether the scene was swimming before his eyes as it had done on former occasions; – as it had done even when he had so much as thought of making a speech. Now he was astonished at the easiness of the thing, and as he left the House told himself that he had overcome the difficulty just when the victory could be of no avail to him. Had he been more eager, more constant in his purpose, he might at any rate have shown the world that he was fit for the place which he had presumed to take before he was cast out of it.
On the next morning he received a letter from his father. Dr Finn had seen Lord Tulla, having been sent for to relieve his lordship in a fit of the gout, and had been informed by the Earl that he meant to fight the borough to the last man; – had he said to the last shilling he would have spoken with perhaps more accuracy. ‘You see, doctor, your son has had it for two years, as you may say for nothing, and I think he ought to give way. He can't expect that he's to go on there as though it were his own.’ And then his lordship, upon whom this touch of the gout had come somewhat sharply, expressed himself with considerable animation. The old doctor behaved with much spirit. ‘I told the Earl,’ he said, ‘that I could not undertake to say what you might do; but that as you had come forward at first with my sanction, I could not withdraw it now. He asked me if I should support you with money; I said that I should to a moderate extent. “By G—,” said the Earl, “a moderate extent will go a very little way, I can tell you.” Since that he has had Duggin with him; so, I suppose, I shall not see him any more. You can do as you please now; but, from what I hear, I fear you will have no chance.’ Then with much bitterness of spirit Phineas resolved that he would not interfere with Lord Tulla at Loughshane. He would go at once to the Reform Club and explain his reasons to Barrington Erle and others there who would be interested.
But he first went to Grosvenor Place. Here he was shown up into Mr Kennedy's room. Mr Kennedy was up and seated in an armchair by an open window looking over into the Queen's garden; but he was in his d
ressing-gown, and was to be regarded as an invalid. And indeed as he could not turn his neck, or thought that he could not do so, he was not very fit to go out about his work. Let us hope that the affairs of the Duchy of Lancaster did not suffer materially by his absence. We may take it for granted that with a man so sedulous as to all his duties there was no arrear of work when the accident took place. He put out his hand to Phineas, and said some word in a whisper, – some word or two among which Phineas caught the sound of ‘potted peas,’ – and then continued to look out of the window. There are men who are utterly prostrated by any bodily ailment, and it seemed that Mr Kennedy was one of them. Phineas, who was full of his own bad news, had intended to tell his sad story at once. But he perceived that the neck of the Chancellor of the Duchy was too stiff to allow of his taking any interest in external matters, and so he refrained. ‘What does the doctor say about it?’ said Phineas, perceiving that just for the present there could be only one possible subject for remark. Mr Kennedy was beginning to describe in a long whisper what the doctor did think about it, when Lady Laura came into the room.
Phineas Finn, the Irish Member Page 34
