The Palliser Novels (84 page)

“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.”

Some ten or twelve days after George Vavasor’s return to London from Westmoreland he appeared at Mr Scruby’s offices with four small slips of paper in his hand. Mr Scruby, as usual, was pressing for money. The third election was coming on, and money was already being spent very freely among the men of the River Bank. So, at least, Mr Scruby declared. Mr Grimes, of the “Handsome Man,” had shown signs of returning allegiance. But Mr Grimes could not afford to be loyal without money. He had his little family to protect. Mr Scruby, too, had his little family, and was not ashamed to use it on this occasion. “I’m a family man, Mr Vavasor, and therefore I never run any risks. I never go a yard further than I can see my way back.” This he had said in answer to a proposition that he should take George’s note of hand for the expenses of the next election, payable in three months’ time. “It is so very hard to realize,” said George, “immediately upon a death, when all the property left is real property.” “Very hard indeed,” said Mr Scruby, who had heard with accuracy all the particulars of the old Squire’s will. Vavasor understood the lawyer, cursed him inwardly, and suggested to himself that some day he might murder Mr Scruby as well as John Grey, — and perhaps also a few more of his enemies. Two days after the interview in which his own note of hand had been refused, he again called in Great Marlborough Street. Upon this occasion he tendered to Mr Scruby for his approval the four slips of paper which have been mentioned. Mr Scruby regarded them with attention, looking first at one side horizontally, and then at the other side perpendicularly. But before we learn the judgement pronounced by Mr Scruby as to these four slips of paper, we must go back to their earlier history. As they were still in their infancy, we shall not have to go back far.