The Palliser Novels (522 page)

After the dinner she went home alone. There were other festivities to be attended, had she pleased to attend them; and poor Miss Cassewary was dressed ready to go with her as chaperone; — but Miss Cassewary was quite satisfied to be allowed to go to bed in lieu of Mrs. Montacute Jones’s great ball. And she had gone to her bedroom when Lady Mabel went to her. “I am glad you are alone,” she said, “because I want to speak to you.”

“Is anything wrong?”

“Everything is wrong. Papa says he must give up this house.”

“He says that almost always when he comes back from the races, and very often when he comes back from the club.”

“Percival has lost ever so much.”

“I don’t think my Lord will hamper himself for your brother.”

“I can’t explain it, but there is some horrible money complication. It is hard upon you and me.”

“Who am I?” said Miss Cassewary.

“About the dearest friend that ever a poor girl had. It is hard upon you, — and upon me. I have given up everything, — and what good have I done?”

“It is hard, my dear.”

“But after all I do not care much for all that. The thing has been going on so long that one is used to it.”

“What is it then?”

“Ah; — yes; — what is it? How am I to tell you?”

“Surely you can tell me,” said the old woman, putting out her hand so as to caress the arm of the younger one.

“I could tell no one else; I am sure of that. Frank Tregear has taken to gambling, — like the rest of them.”

“Who says so?”

“He has lost a lot of money at these races. A man who sat next me at dinner, — one of those stupid do-nothing fools that one meets everywhere, — told me so. He is one of the Beargarden set, and of course he knows all about it.”

“Did he say how much?”

“How is he to pay anything? Of all things that men do this is the worst. A man who would think himself disgraced for ever if he accepted a present of money will not scruple to use all his wits to rob his friend of everything that he has by studying the run of cards or by watching the paces of some brutes of horses! And they consider themselves to be fine gentlemen! A real gentleman should never want the money out of another man’s pocket; — should never think of money at all.”

“I don’t know how that is to be helped, my dear. You have got to think of money.”

“Yes; I have to think of it, and do think of it; and because I do so I am not what I call a gentleman.”

“No; — my dear; you’re a lady.”

“Psha! you know what I mean. I might have had the feelings of a gentleman as well as the best man that ever was born. I haven’t; but I have never done anything so mean as gambling. Now I have got something else to tell you.”

“What is it? You do frighten me so when you look like that.”

“You may well be frightened, — for if this all comes round I shall very soon be able to dispense with you altogether. His Royal Highness Lord
Silverbridge — “

“What do you mean, Mabel?”

“He’s next door to a Royal Highness at any rate, and a much more topping man than most of them. Well then; — His Serene Highness the heir of the Duke of Omnium has done me the inexpressible honour of asking me — to marry him.”

“No!”

“You may well say, No. And to tell the truth exactly, he didn’t.”

“Then why do you say he did?”

“I don’t think he did quite ask me, but he gave me to understand that he would do so if I gave him any encouragement.”

“Did he mean it?”

“Yes; — poor boy! He meant it. With a word; — with a look, he would have been down there kneeling. He asked me whether I liked him well enough. What do you think I did?”

“What did you do?”

“I spared him; — out of sheer downright Christian charity! I said to myself ‘Love your neighbours.’ ‘Don’t be selfish.’ ‘Do unto him as you would he should do unto you,’ — that is, think of his welfare. Though I had him in my net, I let him go. Shall I go to heaven for doing that?”

“I don’t know,” said Miss Cassewary, who was so much perturbed by the news she had heard as to be unable to come to any opinion on the point just raised.

“Or mayn’t I rather go to the other place? From how much embarrassment should I have relieved my father! What a friend I should have made for Percival! How much I might have been able to do for Frank! And then what a wife I should have made him!”

“I think you would.”

“He’ll never get another half so good; and he’ll be sure to get one before long. It is a sort of tenderness that is quite inefficacious. He will become a prey, as I should have made him a prey. But where is there another who will treat him so well?”

“I cannot bear to hear you speak of yourself in that way.”

“But it is true. I know the sort of girl he should marry. In the first place she should be two years younger, and four years fresher. She should be able not only to like him and love him, but to worship him. How well I can see her! She should have fair hair, and bright green-gray eyes, with the sweetest complexion, and the prettiest little dimples; — two inches shorter than me, and the delight of her life should be to hang with two hands on his arm. She should have a feeling that her Silverbridge is an Apollo upon earth. To me he is a rather foolish, but very, very sweet-tempered young man; — anything rather than a god. If I thought that he would get the fresh young girl with the dimples then I ought to abstain.”

“If he was in earnest,” said Miss Cassewary, throwing aside all this badinage and thinking of the main point, “if he was in earnest he will come again.”

“He was quite in earnest.”

“Then he will come again.”

“I don’t think he will,” said Lady Mabel. “I told him that I was too old for him, and I tried to laugh him out of it. He does not like being laughed at. He has been saved, and he will know it.”

“But if he should come again?”

“I shall not spare him again. No; — not twice. I felt it to be hard to do so once, because I so nearly love him! There are so many of them who are odious to me, as to whom the idea of marrying them seems to be mixed somehow with an idea of suicide.”

“Oh, Mabel!”

“But he is as sweet as a rose. If I were his sister, or his servant, or his dog, I could be devoted to him. I can fancy that his comfort and his success and his name should be everything to me.”

“That is what a wife ought to feel.”

“But I could never feel him to be my superior. That is what a wife ought in truth to feel. Think of those two young men and the difference between them! Well; — don’t look like that at me. I don’t often give way, and I dare say after all I shall live to be the Duchess of Omnium.” Then she kissed her friend and went away to her own room.

There had lately been a great Conservative reaction in the country, brought about in part by the industry and good management of gentlemen who were strong on that side; — but due also in part to the blunders and quarrels of their opponents. That these opponents should have blundered and quarrelled, being men active and in earnest, was to have been expected. Such blunderings and quarrellings have been a matter of course since politics have been politics, and since religion has been religion. When men combine to do nothing, how should there be disagreement? When men combine to do much, how should there not be disagreement? Thirty men can sit still, each as like the other as peas. But put your thirty men up to run a race, and they will soon assume different forms. And in doing nothing, you can hardly do amiss. Let the doers of nothing have something of action forced upon them, and they, too, will blunder and quarrel.

The wonder is that there should ever be in a reforming party enough of consentaneous action to carry any reform. The reforming or Liberal party in British politics had thus stumbled, — and stumbled till it fell. And now there had been a great Conservative reaction! Many of the most Liberal constituencies in the country had been untrue to their old political convictions. And, as the result, Lord Drummond was Prime Minister in the House of Lords, — with Sir Timothy Beeswax acting as first man in the House of Commons.

It cannot be denied that Sir Timothy had his good points as a politician. He was industrious, patient, clear-sighted, intelligent, courageous, and determined. Long before he had had a seat in the House, when he was simply making his way up to the probability of a seat by making a reputation as an advocate, he had resolved that he would be more than an Attorney-General, more than a judge, — more, as he thought it, than a Chief Justice; but at any rate something different. This plan he had all but gained, — and it must be acknowledged that he had been moved by a grand and manly ambition. But there were drawbacks to the utility and beauty of Sir Timothy’s character as a statesman. He had no idea as to the necessity or non-necessity of any measure whatever in reference to the well-being of the country. It may, indeed, be said that all such ideas were to him absurd, and the fact that they should be held by his friends and supporters was an inconvenience. He was not in accord with those who declare that a Parliament is a collection of windbags which puff, and blow, and crack to the annoyance of honest men. But to him Parliament was a debating place, by having a majority in which, and by no other means, he, — or another, — might become the great man of the day. By no other than parliamentary means could such a one as he come to be the chief man. And this use of Parliament, either on his own behalf or on behalf of others, had been for so many years present to his mind, that there seemed to be nothing absurd in an institution supported for such a purpose. Parliament was a club so eligible in its nature that all Englishmen wished to belong to it. They who succeeded were acknowledged to be the cream of the land. They who dominated in it were the cream of the cream. Those two who were elected to be the chiefs of the two parties had more of cream in their composition than any others. But he who could be the chief of the strongest party, and who therefore, in accordance with the prevailing arrangements of the country, should have the power of making dukes, and bestowing garters and appointing bishops, he who by attaining the first seat should achieve the right of snubbing all before him, whether friends or foes, he, according to the feelings of Sir Timothy, would have gained an Elysium of creaminess not to be found in any other position on the earth’s surface. No man was more warmly attached to parliamentary government than Sir Timothy Beeswax; but I do not think that he ever cared much for legislation.

Parliamentary management was his forte. There have been various rocks on which men have shattered their barks in their attempts to sail successfully into the harbours of parliamentary management. There is the great Senator who declares to himself that personally he will have neither friend nor foe. There is his country before him and its welfare. Within his bosom is the fire of patriotism, and within his mind the examples of all past time. He knows that he can be just, he teaches himself to be eloquent, and he strives to be wise. But he will not bend; — and at last, in some great solitude, though closely surrounded by those whose love he had neglected to acquire, — he breaks his heart.

Then there is he who seeing the misfortune of that great one, tells himself that patriotism, judgment, industry, and eloquence will not suffice for him unless he himself can be loved. To do great things a man must have a great following, and to achieve that he must be popular. So he smiles and learns the necessary wiles. He is all for his country and his friends, — but for his friends first. He too must be eloquent and well instructed in the ways of Parliament, must be wise and diligent; but in all that he does and all that he says he must first study his party. It is well with him for a time; — but he has closed the door of his Elysium too rigidly. Those without gradually become stronger than his friends within, and so he falls.

But may not the door be occasionally opened to an outsider, so that the exterior force be diminished? We know how great is the pressure of water; and how the peril of an overwhelming weight of it may be removed by opening the way for a small current. There comes therefore the Statesman who acknowledges to himself that he will be pregnable. That, as a Statesman, he should have enemies is a matter of course. Against moderate enemies he will hold his own. But when there comes one immoderately forcible, violently inimical, then to that man he will open his bosom. He will tempt into his camp with an offer of high command any foe that may be worth his purchase. This too has answered well; but there is a Nemesis. The loyalty of officers so procured must be open to suspicion. The man who has said bitter things against you will never sit at your feet in contented submission, nor will your friend of old standing long endure to be superseded by such converts.

All these dangers Sir Timothy had seen and studied, and for each of them he had hoped to be able to provide an antidote. Love cannot do all. Fear may do more. Fear acknowledges a superior. Love desires an equal. Love is to be created by benefits done, and means gratitude, which we all know to be weak. But hope, which refers itself to benefits to come, is of all our feelings the strongest. And Sir Timothy had parliamentary doctrines concealed in the depths of his own bosom more important even than these. The Statesman who falls is he who does much, and thus injures many. The Statesman who stands the longest is he who does nothing and injures no one. He soon knew that the work which he had taken in hand required all the art of a great conjuror. He must be possessed of tricks so marvellous that not even they who sat nearest to him might know how they were performed.

For the executive or legislative business of the country he cared little. The one should be left in the hands of men who liked work; — of the other there should be little, or, if possible, none. But Parliament must be managed, — and his party. Of patriotism he did not know the meaning; — few, perhaps, do, beyond a feeling that they would like to lick the Russians, or to get the better of the Americans in a matter of fisheries or frontiers. But he invented a pseudo-patriotic conjuring phraseology which no one understood but which many admired. He was ambitious that it should be said of him that he was far-and-away the cleverest of his party. He knew himself to be clever. But he could only be far-and-away the cleverest by saying and doing that which no one could understand. If he could become master of some great hocus-pocus system which could be made to be graceful to the ears and eyes of many, which might for awhile seem to have within it some semi-divine attribute, which should have all but divine power of mastering the loaves and fishes, then would they who followed him believe in him more firmly than other followers who had believed in their leaders. When you see a young woman read a closed book placed on her dorsal vertebræ, — if you do believe that she so reads it, you think that she is endowed with a wonderful faculty! And should you also be made to believe that the same young woman had direct communication with Abraham, by means of some invisible wire, you would be apt to do a great many things as that young woman might tell you. Conjuring, when not known to be conjuring, is very effective.