Mr. Daubeny had been seen sitting just below the gangway,—that gentleman returned to the place usually held by the Prime Minister’s rival, saying with a smile that it might be for the convenience of the House that the seat should be utilised. Mr. Gresham at this time had, with declared purpose, asked and obtained the Speaker’s leave of absence and was abroad. Who should lead the House? That had been a great question, caused by the fact that the Prime Minister was in the House of Lords;—and what office should the Leader hold? Mr. Monk had consented to take the Exchequer, but the right to sit opposite to the Treasury Box and to consider himself for the time the principal spirit in that chamber was at last assigned to Sir Orlando Drought. “It will never do,” said Mr. Rattler to Mr. Roby. “I don’t mean to say anything against Drought, who has always been a very useful man to your party;—but he lacks something of the position.”
“The fact is,” said Roby, “that we’ve trusted to two men so long that we don’t know how to suppose any one else big enough to fill their places. Monk wouldn’t have done. The House doesn’t care about Monk.”
“I always thought it should be Wilson, and so I told the Duke. He had an idea that it should be one of your men.”
“I think he’s right there,” said Roby. “There ought to be something like a fair division. Individuals might be content, but the party would be dissatisfied. For myself, I’d have sooner stayed out as an independent member, but Daubeny said that he thought I was bound to make myself useful.”
“I told the Duke from the beginning,” said Rattler, “that I didn’t think that I could be of any service to him. Of course, I would support him, but I had been too thoroughly a party man for a new movement of this kind. But he said just the same!—that he considered I was bound to join him. I asked Gresham, and when Gresham said so too, of course I had no help for it.”
Neither of these excellent public servants had told a lie in this. Some such conversations as those reported had passed;—but a man doesn’t lie when he exaggerates an emphasis, or even when he gives by a tone a meaning to a man’s words exactly opposite to that which another tone would convey. Or, if he does lie in doing so, he does not know that he lies. Mr. Rattler had gone back to his old office at the Treasury and Mr. Roby had been forced to content himself with the Secretaryship at the Admiralty. But, as the old Duke had said, they were close friends, and prepared to fight together any battle which might keep them in their present position.
Many of the cares of office the Prime Minister did succeed in shuffling off altogether on to the shoulders of his elder friend. He would not concern himself with the appointment of ladies, about whom he said he knew nothing, and as to whose fitness and claims he professed himself to be as ignorant as the office messenger. The offers were of course made in the usual form, as though coming direct from the Queen, through the Prime Minister;—but the selections were in truth effected by the old Duke in council with—an illustrious personage. The matter affected our Duke,—only in so far that he could not get out of his mind that strange application from his own wife. “That she should have even dreamed of it!” he would say to himself, not yet having acquired sufficient experience of his fellow creatures to be aware how wonderfully temptations will affect even those who appear to be least subject to them. The town horse, used to gaudy trappings, no doubt despises the work of his country brother; but yet, now and again, there comes upon him a sudden desire to plough. The desire for ploughing had come upon the Duchess, but the Duke could not understand it.
He perceived, however, in spite of the multiplicity of his official work, that his refusal sat heavily on his wife’s breast, and that, though she spoke no further word, she brooded over her injury. And his heart was sad within him when he thought that he had vexed her,—loving her as he did with all his heart, but with a heart that was never demonstrative. When she was unhappy he was miserable, though he would hardly know the cause of his misery. Her ridicule and raillery he could bear, though they stung him; but her sorrow, if ever she were sorrowful, or her sullenness, if ever she were sullen, upset him altogether. He was in truth so soft of heart that he could not bear the discomfort of the one person in the world who seemed to him to be near to him. He had expressly asked her for her sympathy in the business he had on hand,—thereby going much beyond his usual coldness of manner. She, with an eagerness which might have been expected from her, had promised that she would slave for him, if slavery were necessary. Then she had made her request, had been refused, and was now moody. “The Duchess of –––– is to be Mistress of the Robes,” he said to her one day. He had gone to her, up to her own room, before he dressed for dinner, having devoted much more time than as Prime Minister he ought to have done to a resolution that he would make things straight with her, and to the best way of doing it.
“So I am told. She ought to know her way about the place, as I remember she was at the same work when I was a girl of eleven.”
“That’s not so very long ago, Cora.”
“Silverbridge is older now than I was then, and I think that makes it a very long time ago.” Lord Silverbridge was the Duke’s eldest son.
“But what does it matter? If she began her career in the time of George the Fourth, what is it to you?”
“Nothing on earth,—only that she did in truth begin her career in the time of George the Third. I’m sure she’s nearer sixty than fifty.”
“I’m glad to see you remember your dates so well.”
“It’s a pity she should not remember hers in the way she dresses,” said the Duchess.
This was marvellous to him,—that his wife, who as Lady Glencora Palliser had been so conspicuous for a wild disregard of social rules as to be looked upon by many as an enemy of her own class, should be so depressed by not being allowed to be the Queen’s head servant as to descend to personal invective! “I’m afraid,” said he, attempting to smile, “that it won’t come within the compass of my office to effect or even to propose any radical change in her Grace’s apparel. But don’t you think that you and I can afford to ignore all that?”
“I can certainly. She may be an antiquated Eve for me.”
“I hope, Cora, you are not still disappointed because I did not agree with you when you spoke about the place for yourself.”
“Not because you did not agree with me,—but because you did not think me fit to be trusted with any judgment of my own. I don’t know why I’m always to be looked upon as different from other women,—as though I were half a savage.”
“You are what you have made yourself, and I have always rejoiced that you are as you are, fresh, untrammelled, without many prejudices which afflict other ladies, and free from bonds by which they are cramped and confined. Of course such a turn of character is subject to certain dangers of its own.”
“There is no doubt about the dangers. The chances are that when I see her Grace I shall tell her what I think about her.”
“You will I am sure say nothing unkind to a lady who is supposed to be in the place she now fills by my authority. But do not let us quarrel about an old woman.”
“I won’t quarrel with you even about a young one.”
“I cannot be at ease within myself while I think you are resenting my refusal. You do not know how constantly I carry you about with me.”
“You carry a very unnecessary burden then,” she said. But he could tell at once from the altered tone of her voice, and from the light of her eye as he glanced into her face, that her anger about “The Robes” was appeased.
“I have done as you asked about a friend of yours,” he said. This occurred just before the final and perfected list of the new men had appeared in all the newspapers.
“What friend?”
“Mr. Finn is to go to Ireland.”
“Go to Ireland!—How do you mean?”
“It is looked upon as being very great promotion. Indeed I am told that he is considered to be