The Palliser Novels (208 page)

“I shall never be impatient, — never,” she said to him on the last evening. “All I want is that you should write to me.”

“I shall want more than that, Mary.”

“Then you must come down and see me. When you do come they will be happy, happy days for me. But of course we cannot be married for the next twenty years.”

“Say forty, Mary.”

“I will say anything that you like; — you will know what I mean just as well. And, Phineas, I must tell you one thing, — though it makes me sad to think of it, and will make me sad to speak of it.”

“I will not have you sad on our last night, Mary.”

“I must say it. I am beginning to understand how much you have given up for me.”

“I have given up nothing for you.”

“If I had not been at Killaloe when Mr. Monk was here, and if we had not, — had not, — oh dear, if I had not loved you so very much, you might have remained in London, and that lady would have been your wife.”

“Never!” said Phineas stoutly.

“Would she not? She must not be your wife now, Phineas. I am not going to pretend that I will give you up.”

“That is unkind, Mary.”

“Oh, well; you may say what you please. If that is unkind, I am unkind. It would kill me to lose you.”

Had he done right? How could there be a doubt about it? How could there be a question about it? Which of them had loved him, or was capable of loving him as Mary loved him? What girl was ever so sweet, so gracious, so angelic, as his own Mary? He swore to her that he was prouder of winning her than of anything he had ever done in all his life, and that of all the treasures that had ever come in his way she was the most precious. She went to bed that night the happiest girl in all Connaught, although when she parted from him she understood that she was not to see him again till Christmas-Eve.

But she did see him again before the summer was over, and the manner of their meeting was in this wise. Immediately after the passing of that scrambled Irish Reform Bill, Parliament, as the reader knows, was dissolved. This was in the early days of June, and before the end of July the new members were again assembled at Westminster. This session, late in summer, was very terrible; but it was not very long, and then it was essentially necessary. There was something of the year’s business which must yet be done, and the country would require to know who were to be the Ministers of the Government. It is not needed that the reader should be troubled any further with the strategy of one political leader or of another, or that more should be said of Mr. Monk and his tenant-right. The House of Commons had offended Mr. Gresham by voting in a majority against him, and Mr. Gresham had punished the House of Commons by subjecting it to the expense and nuisance of a new election. All this is constitutional, and rational enough to Englishmen, though it may be unintelligible to strangers. The upshot on the present occasion was that the Ministers remained in their places and that Mr. Monk’s bill, though it had received the substantial honour of a second reading, passed away for the present into the limbo of abortive legislation.

All this would not concern us at all, nor our poor hero much, were it not that the great men with whom he had been for two years so pleasant a colleague, remembered him with something of affectionate regret. Whether it began with Mr. Gresham or with Lord Cantrip, I will not say; — or whether Mr. Monk, though now a political enemy, may have said a word that brought about the good deed. Be that as it may, just before the summer session was brought to a close Phineas received the following letter from Lord Cantrip: —
 

Downing Street, August 4, 186––.

My dear Mr. Finn
, —

Mr. Gresham has been talking to me, and we both think that possibly a permanent Government appointment may be acceptable to you. We have no doubt, that should this be the case, your services would be very valuable to the country. There is a vacancy for a poor-law inspector at present in Ireland, whose residence I believe should be in Cork. The salary is a thousand a-year. Should the appointment suit you, Mr. Gresham will be most happy to nominate you to the office. Let me have a line at your early convenience.

Believe me,

Most sincerely yours,

Cantrip
.
 

He received the letter one morning in Dublin, and within three hours he was on his route to Killaloe. Of course he would accept the appointment, but he would not even do that without telling Mary of his new prospect. Of course he would accept the appointment. Though he had been as yet barely two months in Dublin, though he had hardly been long enough settled to his work to have hoped to be able to see in which way there might be a vista open leading to success, still he had fancied that he had seen that success was impossible. He did not know how to begin, — and men were afraid of him, thinking that he was unsteady, arrogant, and prone to failure. He had not seen his way to the possibility of a guinea.

“A thousand a-year!” said Mary Flood Jones, opening her eyes wide with wonder at the golden future before them.

“It is nothing very great for a perpetuity,” said Phineas.

“Oh, Phineas; surely a thousand a-year will be very nice.”

“It will be certain,” said Phineas, “and then we can be married to-morrow.”

“But I have been making up my mind to wait ever so long,” said Mary.

“Then your mind must be unmade,” said Phineas.

What was the nature of the reply to Lord Cantrip the reader may imagine, and thus we will leave our hero an Inspector of Poor Houses in the County of Cork.

It was admitted by all her friends, and also by her enemies, — who were in truth the more numerous and active body of the two, — that Lizzie Greystock had done very well with herself. We will tell the story of Lizzie Greystock from the beginning, but we will not dwell over it at great length, as we might do if we loved her. She was the only child of old Admiral Greystock, who in the latter years of his life was much perplexed by the possession of a daughter. The admiral was a man who liked whist, wine, — and wickedness in general we may perhaps say, and whose ambition it was to live every day of his life up to the end of it. People say that he succeeded, and that the whist, wine, and wickedness were there, at the side even of his dying bed. He had no particular fortune, and yet his daughter, when she was little more than a child, went about everywhere with jewels on her fingers, and red gems hanging round her neck, and yellow gems pendent from her ears, and white gems shining in her black hair. She was hardly nineteen when her father died and she was taken home by that dreadful old termagant, her aunt, Lady Linlithgow. Lizzie would have sooner gone to any other friend or relative, had there been any other friend or relative to take her possessed of a house in town. Her uncle, Dean Greystock, of Bobsborough, would have had her, and a more good-natured old soul than the dean’s wife did not exist, — and there were three pleasant, good-tempered girls in the deanery, who had made various little efforts at friendship with their cousin Lizzie; but Lizzie had higher ideas for herself than life in the deanery at Bobsborough. She hated Lady Linlithgow. During her father’s lifetime, when she hoped to be able to settle herself before his death, she was not in the habit of concealing her hatred for Lady Linlithgow. Lady Linlithgow was not indeed amiable or easily managed. But when the admiral died, Lizzie did not hesitate for a moment in going to the old “vulturess,” as she was in the habit of calling the countess in her occasional correspondence with the girls at Bobsborough.

The admiral died greatly in debt; — so much so that it was a marvel how tradesmen had trusted him. There was literally nothing left for anybody, — and Messrs. Harter and Benjamin of Old Bond Street condescended to call at Lady Linlithgow’s house in Brook Street, and to beg that the jewels supplied during the last twelve months might be returned. Lizzie protested that there were no jewels, — nothing to signify, nothing worth restoring. Lady Linlithgow had seen the diamonds, and demanded an explanation. They had been “parted with,” by the admiral’s orders, — so said Lizzie, — for the payment of other debts. Of this Lady Linlithgow did not believe a word, but she could not get at any exact truth. At that moment the jewels were in very truth pawned for money which had been necessary for Lizzie’s needs. Certain things must be paid for, — one’s own maid for instance; and one must have some money in one’s pocket for railway-trains and little knick-knacks which cannot be had on credit. Lizzie when she was nineteen knew how to do without money as well as most girls; but there were calls which she could not withstand, debts which even she must pay.