The Palliser Novels Part 213

"Why not? - why shouldn't I talk to Lady Rosina De Courcy?"

"I'm not jealous a bit, if you mean that. I don't think Lady Rosina will steal your heart from me. But why you should pick her out of all the people here, when there are so many would think their fortunes made if you would only take a turn with them, I cannot imagine."

"But I don't want to make any one's fortune," said the Duke; "and certainly not in that way."

"What could you be saying to her?"

"She was talking about her family. I rather like Lady Rosina. She is living all alone, it seems, and almost in poverty. Perhaps there is nothing so sad in the world as the female scions of a n.o.ble but impoverished stock."

"Nothing so dull, certainly."

"People are not dull to me, if they are real. I pity that poor lady. She is proud of her blood and yet not ashamed of her poverty."

"Whatever might come of her blood, she has been all her life willing enough to get rid of her poverty. It isn't above three years since she was trying her best to marry that brewer at Silverbridge. I wish you could give your time a little to some of the other people."

"To go and shoot arrows?"

"No; - I don't want you to shoot arrows. You might act the part of host without shooting. Can't you walk about with anybody except Lady Rosina De Courcy?"

"I was walking about with Sir Orlando Drought last Sunday, and I very much prefer Lady Rosina."

"There has been no quarrel?" asked the d.u.c.h.ess sharply.

"Oh dear, no."

"Of course he's an empty-headed idiot. Everybody has always known that. And he's put above his place in the House. But it wouldn't do to quarrel with him now."

"I don't think I am a quarrelsome man, Cora. I don't remember at this moment that I have ever quarrelled with anybody to your knowledge. But I may perhaps be permitted to - "

"Snub a man, you mean. Well, I wouldn't even snub Sir Orlando very much, if I were you; though I can understand that it might be both pleasant and easy."

"I wish you wouldn't put slang phrases into my mouth, Cora. If I think that a man intrudes upon me, I am of course bound to let him know my opinion."

"Sir Orlando has - intruded!"

"By no means. He is in a position which justifies his saying many things to me which another might not say. But then, again, he is a man whose opinion does not go far with me, and I have not the knack of seeming to agree with a man while I let his words pa.s.s idly by me."

"That is quite true, Plantagenet."

"And, therefore, I was uncomfortable with Sir Orlando, while I was able to sympathise with Lady Rosina."

"What do you think of Ferdinand Lopez?" asked the d.u.c.h.ess, with studied abruptness.

"Think of Mr. Lopez! I haven't thought of him at all. Why should I think of him?"

"I want you to think of him. I think he's a very pleasant fellow, and I'm sure he's a rising man."

"You might think the latter, and perhaps feel sure of the former."

"Very well. Then, to oblige you, I'll think the latter and feel sure of the former. I suppose it's true that Mr. Grey is going on this mission to Persia?" Mr. Grey was the Duke's intimate friend, and was at this time member for the neighbouring borough of Silverbridge.

"I think he will go. I've no doubt about it. He is to go after Christmas."

"And will give up his seat?"

The Duke did not answer her immediately. It had only just been decided, - decided by his friend himself, - that the seat should be given up when the journey to Persia was undertaken. Mr. Grey, somewhat in opposition to the Duke's advice, had resolved that he could not be in Persia and do his duty in the House of Commons at the same time. But this resolution had only now been made known to the Duke, and he was rather puzzled to think how the d.u.c.h.ess had been able to be so quick upon him. He had, indeed, kept the matter back from the d.u.c.h.ess, feeling that she would have something to say about it, which might possibly be unpleasant, as soon as the tidings should reach her. "Yes," he said, "I think he will give up his seat. That is his purpose, though I think it is unnecessary."

"Let Mr. Lopez have it."

"Mr. Lopez!"

"Yes; - he is a clever man, a rising man, a man that is sure to do well, and who will be of use to you. Just take the trouble to talk to him. It is a.s.sistance of that kind that you want. You Ministers go on shuffling the old cards till they are so worn out and dirty that one can hardly tell the pips on them."

"I am one of the dirty old cards myself," said the Duke.

"That's nonsense, you know. A man who is at the head of affairs as you are can't be included among the pack I am speaking of. What you want is new blood, or new wood, or new metal, or whatever you may choose to call it. Take my advice and try this man. He isn't a pauper. It isn't money that he wants."

"Cora, your geese are all swans."

"That's not fair. I have never brought to you a goose yet. My swans have been swans. Who was it brought you and your pet swan of all, Mr. Grey, together? I won't name any names, but it is your swans have been geese."

"It is not for me to return a member for Silverbridge." When he said this, she gave him a look which almost upset even his gravity, a look which was almost the same as asking him whether he would not - "tell that to the marines." "You don't quite understand these things, Cora," he continued. "The influence which owners of property may have in boroughs is decreasing every day, and there arises the question whether a conscientious man will any longer use such influence."

"I don't think you'd like to see a man from Silverbridge opposing you in the House."

"I may have to bear worse even than that."

"Well; - there it is. The man is here and you have the opportunity of knowing him. Of course I have not hinted at the matter to him. If there were any Palliser wanted the borough I wouldn't say a word. What more patriotic thing can a patron do with his borough than to select a man who is unknown to him, not related to him, a perfect stranger, merely for his worth?"

"But I do not know what may be the worth of Mr. Lopez."

"I will guarantee that," said the d.u.c.h.ess. Whereupon the Duke laughed, and then left her.

The d.u.c.h.ess had spoken with absolute truth when she told her husband that she had not said a word to Mr. Lopez about Silverbridge, but it was not long before she did say a word. On that same day she found herself alone with him in the garden, - or so much alone as to be able to speak with him privately. He had certainly made the best use of his time since he had been at the Castle, having secured the good-will of many of the ladies, and the displeasure of most of the men. "You have never been in Parliament, I think," said the d.u.c.h.ess.

"I have never even tried to get there."

"Perhaps you dislike the idea of that kind of life."

"No, indeed," he said. "So far from it, that I regard it as the highest kind of life there is in England. A seat in Parliament gives a man a status in this country which it has never done elsewhere."

"Then why don't you try it?"

"Because I've got into another groove. I've become essentially a city man, - one of those who take up the trade of making money generally."

"And does that content you?"

"No, d.u.c.h.ess; - certainly not. Instead of contenting me it disgusts me. Not but that I like the money, - only it is so insufficient a use of one's life. I suppose I shall try to get into Parliament some day. Seats in Parliament don't grow like blackberries on bushes."

"Pretty nearly," said the d.u.c.h.ess.

"Not in my part of the country. These good things seem to be appointed to fall in the way of some men, and not of others. If there were a general election going on to-morrow, I should not know how to look for a seat."

"They are to be found sometimes even without a general election," said the d.u.c.h.ess.

"Are you alluding to anything now?"

"Well; - yes, I am. But I'm very discreet, and do not like to do more than allude. I fancy that Mr. Grey, the member for Silverbridge, is going to Persia. Mr. Grey is a Member of Parliament. Members of Parliament ought to be in London and not in Persia. It is generally supposed that no man in England is more p.r.o.ne to do what he ought to do than Mr. Grey. Therefore, Mr. Grey will cease to be Member for Silverbridge. That's logic; isn't it?"

"Has your Grace any logic equally strong to prove that I can follow him in the borough?"

"No; - or if I have, the logic that I should use in that matter must for the present be kept to myself." She certainly had a little syllogism in her head as to the Duke ruling the borough, the Duke's wife ruling the Duke, and therefore the Duke's wife ruling the borough; but she did not think it prudent to utter this on the present occasion. "I think it much better that men in Parliament should be unmarried," said the d.u.c.h.ess.

"But I am going to be married," said he.

"Going to be married, are you?"

"I have no right to say so, because the lady's father has rejected me." Then he told her the whole story, and so told it as to secure her entire sympathy. In telling it he never said that he was a rich man, he never boasted that that search after wealth of which he had spoken, had been successful; but he gave her to understand that there was no objection to him at all on the score of money. "You may have heard of the family," he said.

"I have heard of the Whartons of course, and know that there is a baronet, - but I know nothing more of them. He is not a man of large property, I think."

"My Miss Wharton, - the one I would fain call mine, - is the daughter of a London barrister. He, I believe, is rich."

"Then she will be an heiress."

"I suppose so; - but that consideration has had no weight with me. I have always regarded myself as the architect of my own fortune, and have no wish to owe my material comfort to a wife."

"Sheer love!" suggested the d.u.c.h.ess.

"Yes, I think so. It's very ridiculous; is it not?"

"And why does the rich barrister object?"

"The rich barrister, d.u.c.h.ess, is an out and out old Tory, who thinks that his daughter ought to marry no one but an English Tory. I am not exactly that."

"A man does not hamper his daughter in these days by politics, when she is falling in love."

"There are other cognate reasons. He does not like a foreigner. Now I am an Englishman, but I have a foreign name. He does not think that a name so grandly Saxon as Wharton should be changed to one so meanly Latin as Lopez."

"The lady does not object to the Latinity?"

"I fancy not."

"Or to the bearer of it?"

"Ah; - there I must not boast. But in simple truth there is only the father's ill-will between us."

"With plenty of money on both sides?" asked the d.u.c.h.ess. Lopez shrugged his shoulders. A shrug at such a time may mean anything, but the d.u.c.h.ess took this shrug as signifying that the question was so surely settled as to admit of no difficulty. "Then," said the d.u.c.h.ess, "the old gentleman may as well give way at once. Of course his daughter will be too many for him." In this way the d.u.c.h.ess of Omnium became the fast friend of Ferdinand Lopez.

CHAPTER XXII.

St. James's Park Towards the end of September Everett Wharton and Ferdinand Lopez were in town together, and as no one else was in town, - so at least they both professed to say, - they saw a good deal of each other. Lopez, as we know, had spent a portion of the preceding month at Gatherum Castle, and had made good use of his time, but Everett Wharton had been less fortunate. He had been a little cross with his father, and perhaps a little cross with all the Whartons generally, who did not, he thought, make quite enough of him. In the event of "anything happening" to that ne'er-do-well nephew, he himself would be the heir; and he reflected not unfrequently that something very probably might happen to the nephew. He did not often see this particular cousin, but he always heard of him as being drunk, overwhelmed with debt and difficulty, and altogether in that position of life in which it is probable that something will "happen." There was always of course the danger that the young man might marry and have a child; - but in the meantime surely he, Everett Wharton, should have been as much thought of on the banks of the Wye as Arthur Fletcher. He had been asked down to Wharton Hall, - but he had been asked in a way which he had not thought to be flattering and had declined to go. Then there had been a plan for joining Arthur Fletcher in a certain shooting, but that had failed in consequence of a few words between himself and Arthur respecting Lopez. Arthur had wanted him to say that Lopez was an unpardonable intruder, - but he had taken the part of Lopez, and therefore, when the time came round, he had nothing to do with the shooting. He had stayed in town till the middle of August, and had then started by himself across the continent with some keen intention of studying German politics; but he had found perhaps that German politics do not manifest themselves in the autumn, or that a foreign country cannot be well studied in solitude, - and he had returned.

Late in the summer, just before his father and sister had left town, he had had some words with the old barrister. There had been a few bills to be paid, and Everett's allowance had been insufficient. It often was insufficient, and then ready money for his German tour was absolutely necessary. Mr. Wharton might probably have said less about the money had not his son accompanied his pet.i.tion by a further allusion to Parliament. "There are some fellows at last really getting themselves together at the Progress, and of course it will be necessary to know who will be ready to come forward at the next general election."

"I think I know one who won't," said the father, "judging from the manner in which he seems at present to manage his own money affairs." There was more severity in this than the old man had intended, for he had often thought within his own bosom whether it would not be well that he should encourage his son to stand for some seat. And the money that he had now been asked to advance had not been very much, - not more, in truth, than he expected to be called upon to pay in addition to the modest sum which he professed to allow his son. He was a rich man, who was not in truth made unhappy by parting with his money. But there had been, he thought, an impudence in the conjoint attack which it was his duty to punish. Therefore he had given his son very little encouragement.

"Of course, sir, if you tell me that you are not inclined to pay anything beyond the allowance you make me, there is an end of it."

"I rather think that you have just asked me to pay a considerable sum beyond your allowance, and that I have consented." Everett argued the matter no further, but he permitted his mind to entertain an idea that he was ill-used by his father. The time would come when he would probably be heir not only to his father's money, but also to the Wharton t.i.tle and the Wharton property, - when his position in the country would really be, as he frequently told himself, quite considerable. Was it possible that he should refrain from blaming his father for not allowing him to obtain, early in life, that parliamentary education which would fit him to be an ornament to the House of Commons, and a safeguard to his country in future years?

Now he and Lopez were at the Progress together, and they were almost the only men in the club. Lopez was quite contented with his own present sojourn in London. He had not only been at Gatherum Castle but was going there again. And then he had brilliant hopes before him, - so brilliant that they began, he thought, to a.s.sume the shape of certainties. He had corresponded with the d.u.c.h.ess, and he had gathered from her somewhat dubious words that the Duke would probably accede to her wishes in the matter of Silverbridge. The vacancy had not yet been declared. Mr. Grey was deterred, no doubt by certain high State purposes, from applying for the stewards.h.i.+p of the Chiltern Hundreds, and thereby releasing himself from his seat in Parliament, and enabling himself to perform, with a clear conscience, duties in a distant part of the world which he did not feel to be compatible with that seat. The seekers after seats were, no doubt, already on the track; but the d.u.c.h.ess had thought that as far as the Duke's good word went, it might possibly be given in favour of Mr. Lopez. The happy aspirant had taken this to be almost as good as a promise. There were also certain pecuniary speculations on foot, which could not be kept quite quiet even in September, as to which he did not like to trust entirely to the unaided energy of Mr. s.e.xtus Parker, or to the boasted alliance of Mr. Mills Happerton. s.e.xtus Parker's whole heart and soul were now in the matter, but Mr. Mills Happerton, an undoubted partner in Hunky and Sons, had blown a little coldly on the affair. But in spite of this Ferdinand Lopez was happy. Was it probable that Mr. Wharton should continue his opposition to a marriage which would make his daughter the wife of a member of Parliament and of a special friend of the d.u.c.h.ess of Omnium?

He had said a word about his own prospects in reference to the marriage, but Everett had been at first too full of his own affairs to attend much to a matter which was comparatively so trifling. "Upon my word," he said, "I am beginning to feel angry with the governor, which is a kind of thing I don't like at all."

"I can understand that when he's angry with you, you shouldn't like it."

"I don't mind that half so much. He'll come round. However unjust he may be now, at the moment, he's the last man in the world to do an injustice in his will. I have thorough confidence in him. But I find myself driven into hostility to him by a conviction that he won't let me take any real step in life, till my life has been half frittered away."

"You're thinking of Parliament."

"Of course I am. I don't say you ain't an Englishman, but you are not quite enough of an Englishman to understand what Parliament is to us."

"I hope to be, - some of these days," said Lopez.

"Perhaps you may. I won't say but what you may get yourself educated to it when you've been married a dozen years to an English wife, and have half-a-dozen English children of your own. But, in the meantime, look at my position. I am twenty-eight years old."

"I am four years your senior."

"It does not matter a straw to you," continued Everett. "But a few years are everything with me. I have a right to suppose that I may be able to represent the county, - say in twenty years. I shall probably then be the head of the family and a rich man. Consider what a parliamentary education would be to me! And then it is just the life for which I have laid myself out, and in which I could make myself useful. You don't sympathise with me, but you might understand me."

"I do both. I think of going into the House myself."

"You!"

"Yes; I do."

"You must have changed your ideas very much then within the last month or two."

"I have changed my ideas. My one chief object in life is, as you know, to marry your sister; and if I were a Member of Parliament I think that some difficulties would be cleared away."

"But there won't be an election for the next three years at any rate," said Everett Wharton, staring at his friend. "You don't mean to keep Emily waiting for a dissolution?"