The Palliser Novels (133 page)

“You may trust me as against all others, except us two ourselves.”

“For you, then, I will say also that I have always liked you since I knew you; that I have loved you as a friend; — and could have loved you otherwise had not circumstances showed me so plainly that it would be unwise.”

“Oh, Lady Laura!”

“Listen a moment. And pray remember that what I say to you now must never be repeated to any ears. No one knows it but my father, my brother, and Mr. Kennedy. Early in the spring I paid my brother’s debts. His affection to me is more than a return for what I have done for him. But when I did this, — when I made up my mind to do it, I made up my mind also that I could not allow myself the same freedom of choice which would otherwise have belonged to me. Will that be sufficient, Mr. Finn?”

“How can I answer you, Lady Laura? Sufficient! And you are not angry with me for what I have said?”

“No, I am not angry. But it is understood, of course, that nothing of this shall ever be repeated, — even among ourselves. Is that a bargain?”

“Oh, yes. I shall never speak of it again.”

“And now you will wish me joy?”

“I have wished you joy, Lady Laura. And I will do so again. May you have every blessing which the world can give you. You cannot expect me to be very jovial for awhile myself; but there will be nobody to see my melancholy moods. I shall be hiding myself away in Ireland. When is the marriage to be?”

“Nothing has been said of that. I shall be guided by him, — but there must, of course, be delay. There will be settlements and I know not what. It may probably be in the spring, — or perhaps the summer. I shall do just what my betters tell me to do.”

Phineas had now seated himself on the exact stone on which he had wished her to sit when he proposed to tell his own story, and was looking forth upon the lake. It seemed to him that everything had been changed for him while he had been up there upon the mountain, and that the change had been marvellous in its nature. When he had been coming up, there had been apparently two alternatives before him: the glory of successful love, — which, indeed, had seemed to him to be a most improbable result of the coming interview, — and the despair and utter banishment attendant on disdainful rejection. But his position was far removed from either of these alternatives. She had almost told him that she would have loved him had she not been poor, — that she was beginning to love him and had quenched her love, because it had become impossible to her to marry a poor man. In such circumstances he could not be angry with her, — he could not quarrel with her; he could not do other than swear to himself that he would be her friend. And yet he loved her better than ever; — and she was the promised wife of his rival! Why had not Donald Bean’s pony broken his neck?

“Shall we go down now?” she said.

“Oh, yes.”

“You will not go on by the lake?”

“What is the use? It is all the same now. You will want to be back to receive him in from shooting.”

“Not that, I think. He is above those little cares. But it will be as well we should go the nearest way, as we have spent so much of our time here. I shall tell Mr. Kennedy that I have told you, — if you do not mind.”

“Tell him what you please,” said Phineas.

“But I won’t have it taken in that way, Mr. Finn. Your brusque want of courtesy to me I have forgiven, but I shall expect you to make up for it by the alacrity of your congratulations to him. I will not have you uncourteous to Mr. Kennedy.”

“If I have been uncourteous I beg your pardon.”

“You need not do that. We are old friends, and may take the liberty of speaking plainly to each other; — but you will owe it to Mr. Kennedy to be gracious. Think of the pony.”

They walked back to the house together, and as they went down the path very little was said. Just as they were about to come out upon the open lawn, while they were still under cover of the rocks and shrubs, Phineas stopped his companion by standing before her, and then he made his farewell speech to her.

“I must say good-bye to you. I shall be away early in the morning.”

“Good-bye, and God bless you,” said Lady Laura.

“Give me your hand,” said he. And she gave him her hand. “I don’t suppose you know what it is to love dearly.”

“I hope I do.”

“But to be in love! I believe you do not. And to miss your love! I think, — I am bound to think that you have never been so tormented. It is very sore; — but I will do my best, like a man, to get over it.”

“Do, my friend, do. So small a trouble will never weigh heavily on shoulders such as yours.”

“It will weigh very heavily, but I will struggle hard that it may not crush me. I have loved you so dearly! As we are parting give me one kiss, that I may think of it and treasure it in my memory!” What murmuring words she spoke to express her refusal of such a request, I will not quote; but the kiss had been taken before the denial was completed, and then they walked on in silence together, — and in peace, towards the house.

On the next morning six or seven men were going away, and there was an early breakfast. There were none of the ladies there, but Mr. Kennedy, the host, was among his friends. A large drag with four horses was there to take the travellers and their luggage to the station, and there was naturally a good deal of noise at the front door as the preparations for the departure were made. In the middle of them Mr. Kennedy took our hero aside. “Laura has told me,” said Mr. Kennedy, “that she has acquainted you with my good fortune.”

“And I congratulate you most heartily,” said Phineas, grasping the other’s hand. “You are indeed a lucky fellow.”

“I feel myself to be so,” said Mr. Kennedy. “Such a wife was all that was wanting to me, and such a wife is very hard to find. Will you remember, Finn, that Loughlinter will never be so full but what there will be a room for you, or so empty but what you will be made welcome? I say this on Lady Laura’s part and on my own.”

Phineas, as he was being carried away to the railway station, could not keep himself from speculating as to how much Kennedy knew of what had taken place during the walk up the Linter. Of one small circumstance that had occurred, he felt quite sure that Mr. Kennedy knew nothing.

Phineas Finn’s first session of Parliament was over, — his first session with all its adventures. When he got back to Mrs. Bunce’s house, — for Mrs. Bunce received him for a night in spite of her husband’s advice to the contrary, — I am afraid he almost felt that Mrs. Bunce and her rooms were beneath him. Of course he was very unhappy, — as wretched as a man can be; there were moments in which he thought that it would hardly become him to live unless he could do something to prevent the marriage of Lady Laura and Mr. Kennedy. But, nevertheless, he had his consolations. These were reflections which had in them much of melancholy satisfaction. He had not been despised by the woman to whom he had told his love. She had not shown him that she thought him to be unworthy of her. She had not regarded his love as an offence. Indeed, she had almost told him that prudence alone had forbidden her to return his passion. And he had kissed her, and had afterwards parted from her as a dear friend. I do not know why there should have been a flavour of exquisite joy in the midst of his agony as he thought of this; — but it was so. He would never kiss her again. All future delights of that kind would belong to Mr. Kennedy, and he had no real idea of interfering with that gentleman in the fruition of his privileges. But still there was the kiss, — an eternal fact. And then, in all respects except that of his love, his visit to Loughlinter had been pre-eminently successful. Mr. Monk had become his friend, and had encouraged him to speak during the next session, — setting before him various models, and prescribing for him a course of reading. Lord Brentford had become intimate with him. He was on pleasant terms with Mr. Palliser and Mr. Gresham. And as for Mr. Kennedy, — he and Mr. Kennedy were almost bosom friends. It seemed to him that he had quite surpassed the Ratlers, Fitzgibbons, and Bonteens in that politico-social success which goes so far towards downright political success, and which in itself is so pleasant. He had surpassed these men in spite of their offices and their acquired positions, and could not but think that even Mr. Low, if he knew it all, would confess that he had been right.

As to his bosom friendship with Mr. Kennedy, that of course troubled him. Ought he not to be driving a poniard into Mr. Kennedy’s heart? The conventions of life forbade that; and therefore the bosom friendship was to be excused. If not an enemy to the death, then there could be no reason why he should not be a bosom friend.

He went over to Ireland, staying but one night with Mrs. Bunce, and came down upon them at Killaloe like a god out of the heavens. Even his father was well-nigh overwhelmed by admiration, and his mother and sisters thought themselves only fit to minister to his pleasures. He had learned, if he had learned nothing else, to look as though he were master of the circumstances around him, and was entirely free from internal embarrassment. When his father spoke to him about his legal studies, he did not exactly laugh at his father’s ignorance, but he recapitulated to his father so much of Mr. Monk’s wisdom at second hand, — showing plainly that it was his business to study the arts of speech and the technicalities of the House, and not to study law, — that his father had nothing further to say. He had become a man of such dimensions that an ordinary father could hardly dare to inquire into his proceedings; and as for an ordinary mother, — such as Mrs. Finn certainly was, — she could do no more than look after her son’s linen with awe.

Mary Flood Jones, — the reader I hope will not quite have forgotten Mary Flood Jones, — was in a great tremor when first she met the hero of Loughshane after returning from the honours of his first session. She had been somewhat disappointed because the newspapers had not been full of the speeches he had made in Parliament. And indeed the ladies of the Finn household had all been ill at ease on this head. They could not imagine why Phineas had restrained himself with so much philosophy. But Miss Flood Jones in discussing the matter with the Miss Finns had never expressed the slightest doubt of his capacity or his judgment. And when tidings came, — the tidings came in a letter from Phineas to his father, — that he did not intend to speak that session, because speeches from a young member on his first session were thought to be inexpedient, Miss Flood Jones and the Miss Finns were quite willing to accept the wisdom of this decision, much as they might regret the effect of it. Mary, when she met her hero, hardly dared to look him in the face, but she remembered accurately all the circumstances of her last interview with him. Could it be that he wore that ringlet near his heart? Mary had received from Barbara Finn certain hairs supposed to have come from the head of Phineas, and these she always wore near her own. And moreover, since she had seen Phineas she had refused an offer of marriage from Mr. Elias Bodkin, — had refused it almost ignominiously, — and when doing so had told herself that she would never be false to Phineas Finn.

“We think it so good of you to come to see us again,” she said.

“Good to come home to my own people?”

“Of course you might be staying with plenty of grandees if you liked it.”

“No, indeed, Mary. It did happen by accident that I had to go to the house of a man whom perhaps you would call a grandee, and to meet grandees there. But it was only for a few days, and I am very glad to be taken in again here, I can assure you.”

“You know how very glad we all are to have you.”

“Are you glad to see me, Mary?”

“Very glad. Why should I not be glad, and Barbara the dearest friend I have in the world? Of course she talks about you, — and that makes me think of you.”

“If you knew, Mary, how often I think about you.” Then Mary, who was very happy at hearing such words, and who was walking in to dinner with him at the moment, could not refrain herself from pressing his arm with her little fingers. She knew that Phineas in his position could not marry at once; but she would wait for him, — oh, for ever, if he would only ask her. He of course was a wicked traitor to tell her that he was wont to think of her. But Jove smiles at lovers’ perjuries; — and it is well that he should do so, as such perjuries can hardly be avoided altogether in the difficult circumstances of a successful gentleman’s life. Phineas was a traitor, of course, but he was almost forced to be a traitor, by the simple fact that Lady Laura Standish was in London, and Mary Flood Jones in Killaloe.

He remained for nearly five months at Killaloe, and I doubt whether his time was altogether well spent. Some of the books recommended to him by Mr. Monk he probably did read, and was often to be found encompassed by blue books. I fear that there was a grain of pretence about his blue books and parliamentary papers, and that in these days he was, in a gentle way, something of an impostor. “You must not be angry with me for not going to you,” he said once to Mary’s mother when he had declined an invitation to drink tea; “but the fact is that my time is not my own.” “Pray don’t make any apologies. We are quite aware that we have very little to offer,” said Mrs. Flood Jones, who was not altogether happy about Mary, and who perhaps knew more about members of Parliament and blue books than Phineas Finn had supposed. “Mary, you are a fool to think of that man,” the mother said to her daughter the next morning. “I don’t think of him, mamma; not particularly.” “He is no better than anybody else that I can see, and he is beginning to give himself airs,” said Mrs. Flood Jones. Mary made no answer; but she went up into her room and swore before a figure of the Virgin that she would be true to Phineas for ever and ever, in spite of her mother, in spite of all the world, — in spite, should it be necessary, even of himself.

About Christmas time there came a discussion between Phineas and his father about money. “I hope you find you get on pretty well,” said the doctor, who thought that he had been liberal.

“It’s a tight fit,” said Phineas, — who was less afraid of his father than he had been when he last discussed these things.