The Palliser Novels (134 page)

“I had hoped it would have been ample,” said the doctor.

“Don’t think for a moment, sir, that I am complaining,” said Phineas. “I know it is much more than I have a right to expect.”

The doctor began to make an inquiry within his own breast as to whether his son had a right to expect anything; — whether the time had not come in which his son should be earning his own bread. “I suppose,” he said, after a pause, “there is no chance of your doing anything at the bar now?”

“Not immediately. It is almost impossible to combine the two studies together.” Mr. Low himself was aware of that. “But you are not to suppose that I have given the profession up.”

“I hope not, — after all the money it has cost us.”

“By no means, sir. And all that I am doing now will, I trust, be of assistance to me when I shall come back to work at the law. Of course it is on the cards that I may go into office, — and if so, public business will become my profession.”

“And be turned out with the Ministry!”

“Yes; that is true, sir. I must run my chance. If the worst comes to the worst, I hope I might be able to secure some permanent place. I should think that I can hardly fail to do so. But I trust I may never be driven to want it. I thought, however, that we had settled all this before.” Then Phineas assumed a look of injured innocence, as though his father was driving him too hard.

“And in the mean time your money has been enough?” said the doctor, after a pause.

“I had intended to ask you to advance me a hundred pounds,” said Phineas. “There were expenses to which I was driven on first entering Parliament.”

“A hundred pounds.”

“If it be inconvenient, sir, I can do without it.” He had not as yet paid for his gun, or for that velvet coat in which he had been shooting, or, most probably, for the knickerbockers. He knew he wanted the hundred pounds badly; but he felt ashamed of himself in asking for it. If he were once in office, — though the office were but a sorry junior lordship, — he would repay his father instantly.

“You shall have it, of course,” said the doctor; “but do not let the necessity for asking for more hundreds come oftener than you can help.” Phineas said that he would not, and then there was no further discourse about money. It need hardly be said that he told his father nothing of that bill which he had endorsed for Laurence Fitzgibbon.

At last came the time which called him again to London and the glories of London life, — to lobbies, and the clubs, and the gossip of men in office, and the chance of promotion for himself; to the glare of the gas-lamps, the mock anger of rival debaters, and the prospect of the Speaker’s wig. During the idleness of the recess he had resolved at any rate upon this, — that a month of the session should not have passed by before he had been seen upon his legs in the House, — had been seen and heard. And many a time as he had wandered alone, with his gun, across the bogs which lie on the other side of the Shannon from Killaloe, he had practised the sort of address which he would make to the House. He would be short, — always short; and he would eschew all action and gesticulation; Mr. Monk had been very urgent in his instructions to him on that head; but he would be especially careful that no words should escape him which had not in them some purpose. He might be wrong in his purpose, but purpose there should be. He had been twitted more than once at Killaloe with his silence; — for it had been conceived by his fellow-townsmen that he had been sent to Parliament on the special ground of his eloquence. They should twit him no more on his next return. He would speak and would carry the House with him if a human effort might prevail.

So he packed up his things, and started again for London in the beginning of February. “Good-bye, Mary,” he said with his sweetest smile. But on this occasion there was no kiss, and no culling of locks. “I know he cannot help it,” said Mary to herself. “It is his position. But whether it be for good or evil, I will be true to him.”

“I am afraid you are unhappy,” Babara Finn said to her on the next morning.

“No; I am not unhappy, — not at all. I have a deal to make me happy and proud. I don’t mean to be a bit unhappy.” Then she turned away and cried heartily, and Barbara Finn cried with her for company.

Phineas had received two letters during his recess at Killaloe from two women who admired him much, which, as they were both short, shall be submitted to the reader. The first was as follows: —
 

Saulsby, October 20, 186––.

My dear Mr. Finn
,

I write a line to tell you that our marriage is to be hurried on as quickly as possible. Mr. Kennedy does not like to be absent from Parliament; nor will he be content to postpone the ceremony till the session be over. The day fixed is the 3rd of December, and we then go at once to Rome, and intend to be back in London by the opening of Parliament.

Yours most sincerely,

Laura Standish
.

Our London address will be No. 52, Grosvenor Place.
 

To this he wrote an answer as short, expressing his ardent wishes that those winter hymeneals might produce nothing but happiness, and saying that he would not be in town many days before he knocked at the door of No. 52, Grosvenor Place.

And the second letter was as follows: —
 

Great Marlborough Street, December, 186––.

Dear and Honoured Sir
,

Bunce is getting ever so anxious about the rooms, and says as how he has a young Equity draftsman and wife and baby as would take the whole house, and all because Miss Pouncefoot said a word about her port wine, which any lady of her age might say in her tantrums, and mean nothing after all. Me and Miss Pouncefoot’s knowed each other for seven years, and what’s a word or two as isn’t meant after that? But, honoured sir, it’s not about that as I write to trouble you, but to ask if I may say for certain that you’ll take the rooms again in February. It’s easy to let them for the month after Christmas, because of the pantomimes. Only say at once, because Bunce is nagging me day after day. I don’t want nobody’s wife and baby to have to do for, and ‘d sooner have a Parliament gent like yourself than any one else.

Yours umbly and respectful,

Jane Bunce
.
 

To this he replied that he would certainly come back to the rooms in Great Marlborough Street, should he be lucky enough to find them vacant, and he expressed his willingness to take them on and from the 1st of February. And on the 3rd of February he found himself in the old quarters, Mrs. Bunce having contrived, with much conjugal adroitness, both to keep Miss Pouncefoot and to stave off the Equity draftsman’s wife and baby. Bunce, however, received Phineas very coldly, and told his wife the same evening that as far as he could see their lodger would never turn up to be a trump in the matter of the ballot. “If he means well, why did he go and stay with them lords down in Scotland? I knows all about it. I knows a man when I sees him. Mr. Low, who’s looking out to be a Tory judge some of these days, is a deal better; — because he knows what he’s after.”

Immediately on his return to town, Phineas found himself summoned to a political meeting at Mr. Mildmay’s house in St. James’s Square. “We’re going to begin in earnest this time,” Barrington Erle said to him at the club.

“I am glad of that,” said Phineas.

“I suppose you heard all about it down at Loughlinter?”

Now, in truth, Phineas had heard very little of any settled plan down at Loughlinter. He had played a game of chess with Mr. Gresham, and had shot a stag with Mr. Palliser, and had discussed sheep with Lord Brentford, but had hardly heard a word about politics from any one of those influential gentlemen. From Mr. Monk he had heard much of a coming Reform Bill; but his communications with Mr. Monk had rather been private discussions, — in which he had learned Mr. Monk’s own views on certain points, — than revelations on the intention of the party to which Mr. Monk belonged. “I heard of nothing settled,” said Phineas; “but I suppose we are to have a Reform Bill.”

“That is a matter of course.”

“And I suppose we are not to touch the question of ballot.”

“That’s the difficulty,” said Barrington Erle. “But of course we shan’t touch it as long as Mr. Mildmay is in the Cabinet. He will never consent to the ballot as First Minister of the Crown.”

“Nor would Gresham, or Palliser,” said Phineas, who did not choose to bring forward his greatest gun at first.

“I don’t know about Gresham. It is impossible to say what Gresham might bring himself to do. Gresham is a man who may go any lengths before he has done. Planty Pall,” — for such was the name by which Mr. Plantagenet Palliser was ordinarily known among his friends, — “would of course go with Mr. Mildmay and the Duke.”

“And Monk is opposed to the ballot,” said Phineas.

“Ah, that’s the question. No doubt he has assented to the proposition of a measure without the ballot; but if there should come a row, and men like Turnbull demand it, and the London mob kick up a shindy, I don’t know how far Monk would be steady.”

“Whatever he says, he’ll stick to.”

“He is your leader, then?” asked Barrington.

“I don’t know that I have a leader. Mr. Mildmay leads our side; and if anybody leads me, he does. But I have great faith in Mr. Monk.”

“There’s one who would go for the ballot to-morrow, if it were brought forward stoutly,” said Barrington Erle to Mr. Ratler a few minutes afterwards, pointing to Phineas as he spoke.

“I don’t think much of that young man,” said Ratler.

Mr. Bonteen and Mr. Ratler had put their heads together during that last evening at Loughlinter, and had agreed that they did not think much of Phineas Finn. Why did Mr. Kennedy go down off the mountain to get him a pony? And why did Mr. Gresham play chess with him? Mr. Ratler and Mr. Bonteen may have been right in making up their minds to think but little of Phineas Finn, but Barrington Erle had been quite wrong when he had said that Phineas would “go for the ballot” to-morrow. Phineas had made up his mind very strongly that he would always oppose the ballot. That he would hold the same opinion throughout his life, no one should pretend to say; but in his present mood, and under the tuition which he had received from Mr. Monk, he was prepared to demonstrate, out of the House and in it, that the ballot was, as a political measure, unmanly, ineffective, and enervating. Enervating had been a great word with Mr. Monk, and Phineas had clung to it with admiration.

The meeting took place at Mr. Mildmay’s on the third day of the session. Phineas had of course heard of such meetings before, but had never attended one. Indeed, there had been no such gathering when Mr. Mildmay’s party came into power early in the last session. Mr. Mildmay and his men had then made their effort in turning out their opponents, and had been well pleased to rest awhile upon their oars. Now, however, they must go again to work, and therefore the liberal party was collected at Mr. Mildmay’s house, in order that the liberal party might be told what it was that Mr. Mildmay and his Cabinet intended to do.

Phineas Finn was quite in the dark as to what would be the nature of the performance on this occasion, and entertained some idea that every gentleman present would be called upon to express individually his assent or dissent in regard to the measure proposed. He walked to St. James’s Square with Laurence Fitzgibbon; but even with Fitzgibbon was ashamed to show his ignorance by asking questions. “After all,” said Fitzgibbon, “this kind of thing means nothing. I know as well as possible, and so do you, what Mr. Mildmay will say, — and then Gresham will say a few words; and then Turnbull will make a murmur, and then we shall all assent, — to anything or to nothing; — and then it will be over.” Still Phineas did not understand whether the assent required would or would not be an individual personal assent. When the affair was over he found that he was disappointed, and that he might almost as well have stayed away from the meeting, — except that he had attended at Mr. Mildmay’s bidding, and had given a silent adhesion to Mr. Mildmay’s plan of reform for that session. Laurence Fitzgibbon had been very nearly correct in his description of what would occur. Mr. Mildmay made a long speech. Mr. Turnbull, the great Radical of the day, — the man who was supposed to represent what many called the Manchester school of politics, — asked half a dozen questions. In answer to these Mr. Gresham made a short speech. Then Mr. Mildmay made another speech, and then all was over. The gist of the whole thing was, that there should be a Reform Bill, — very generous in its enlargement of the franchise, — but no ballot. Mr. Turnbull expressed his doubt whether this would be satisfactory to the country; but even Mr. Turnbull was soft in his tone and complaisant in his manner. As there was no reporter present, — that plan of turning private meetings at gentlemen’s houses into public assemblies not having been as yet adopted, — there could be no need for energy or violence. They went to Mr. Mildmay’s house to hear Mr. Mildmay’s plan, — and they heard it.

Two days after this Phineas was to dine with Mr. Monk. Mr. Monk had asked him in the lobby of the House. “I don’t give dinner parties,” he said, “but I should like you to come and meet Mr. Turnbull.” Phineas accepted the invitation as a matter of course. There were many who said that Mr. Turnbull was the greatest man in the nation, and that the nation could be saved only by a direct obedience to Mr. Turnbull’s instructions. Others said that Mr. Turnbull was a demagogue and at heart a rebel; that he was un-English, false and very dangerous. Phineas was rather inclined to believe the latter statement; and as danger and dangerous men are always more attractive than safety and safe men, he was glad to have an opportunity of meeting Mr. Turnbull at dinner.

In the meantime he went to call on Lady Laura, whom he had not seen since the last evening which he spent in her company at Loughlinter, — whom, when he was last speaking to her, he had kissed close beneath the falls of the Linter. He found her at home, and with her was her husband. “Here is a Darby and Joan meeting, is it not?” she said, getting up to welcome him. He had seen Mr. Kennedy before, and had been standing close to him during the meeting at Mr. Mildmay’s.