Can You Forgive Her? Part 39

But not the less was Mr. Palliser a prosperous man, as to the success of whose career few who knew him had much doubt. It might be written in the book of his destiny that he would have to pa.s.s through some violent domestic trouble, some ruin in the hopes of his home, of a nature to destroy then and for ever the worldly prospects of other men. But he was one who would pa.s.s through such violence, should it come upon him, without much scathe. To lose his influence with his party would be worse to him than to lose his wife, and public disgrace would hit him harder than private dishonour.

And the present was the very moment in which success was, as was said, coming to him. He had already held laborious office under the Crown, but had never sat in the Cabinet. He had worked much harder than Cabinet Ministers generally work,--but hitherto had worked without any reward that was worth his having. For the stipend which he had received had been nothing to him,--as the great stipend which he would receive, if his hopes were true, would also be nothing to him. To have ascendancy over other men, to be known by his countrymen as one of their real rulers, to have an actual and acknowledged voice in the management of nations,--those were the rewards for which he looked; and now in truth it seemed as though they were coming to him.

It was all but known that the existing Chancellor of the Exchequer would separate himself from the Government, carrying various others with him, either before or immediately consequent on the meeting of Parliament;--and it was all but known, also, that Mr. Palliser would fill his place, taking that high office at once, although he had never hitherto sat in that august a.s.sembly which men call the Cabinet. He could thus afford to put up with the small everyday calamity of having a wife who loved another man better than she loved him.

The presence of the Duke of St. Bungay at Matching was a.s.sumed to be a sure sign of Mr. Palliser's coming triumph. The Duke was a statesman of a very different cla.s.s, but he also had been eminently successful as an aristocratic pillar of the British Const.i.tutional Republic. He was a minister of very many years' standing, being as used to cabinet sittings as other men are to their own armchairs; but he had never been a hard-working man. Though a constant politician, he had ever taken politics easy whether in office or out. The world had said before now that the Duke might be Premier, only that he would not take the trouble. He had been consulted by a very distinguished person,--so the papers had said more than once,--as to the making of Prime Ministers. His voice in council was esteemed to be very great.

He was regarded as a strong rock of support to the liberal cause, and yet n.o.body ever knew what he did; nor was there much record of what he said. The offices which he held, or had held, were generally those to which no very arduous duties were attached. In severe debates he never took upon himself the brunt of opposition oratory. What he said in the House was generally short and pleasant,--with some slight, drolling, undercurrent of uninjurious satire running through it. But he was a walking miracle of the wisdom of common sense. He never lost his temper. He never made mistakes. He never grew either hot or cold in a cause. He was never reckless in politics, and never cowardly. He snubbed no man, and took snubbings from no man. He was a Knight of the Garter, a Lord Lieutenant of his county, and at sixty-two had his digestion unimpaired and his estate in excellent order. He was a great buyer of pictures, which, perhaps, he did not understand, and a great collector of books which certainly he never read. All the world respected him, and he was a man to whom the respect of all the world was as the breath of his nostrils.

But even he was not without his peac.o.c.k on the wall, his skeleton in the closet, his thorn in his side; though the peac.o.c.k did not scream loud, the skeleton was not very terrible in his anatomical arrangement, nor was the thorn likely to fester to a gangrene. The Duke was always in awe about his wife.

He was ever uneasy about his wife, but it must not be supposed that he feared the machinations of any Burgo Fitzgerald as being destructive of his domestic comfort. The d.u.c.h.ess was and always had been all that is proper. Ladies in high rank, when gifted with excelling beauty, have often been made the marks of undeserved calumny;--but no breath of slander had ever touched her name. I doubt if any man alive had ever had the courage even to wink at her since the Duke had first called her his own. Nor was she a spendthrift, or a gambler. She was not fast in her tastes, or given to any pursuit that was objectionable. She was simply a fool, and as a fool was ever fearing that she was the mark of ridicule. In all such miseries she would complain sorrowfully, piteously, and occasionally very angrily, to her dear Duke and protector; till sometimes her dear Duke did not quite know what to do with her or how to protect her. It did not suit him, a Knight of the Garter and a Duke of St. Bungay, to beg mercy for that poor wife of his from such a one as Mrs. Conway Sparkes; nor would it be more in his way to lodge a formal complaint against that lady before his host or hostess,--as one boy at school may sometimes do as regards another. "If you don't like the people, my dear, we will go away," he said to her late on that evening of which we have spoken. "No," she replied, "I do not wish to go away. I have said that we would stay till December, and Longroyston won't be ready before that. But I think that something ought to be done to silence that woman." And the accent came strong upon "something," and then again with terrific violence upon "woman."

The Duke did not know how to silence Mrs. Conway Sparkes. It was a great principle of his life never to be angry with any one. How could he get at Mrs. Conway Sparkes? "I don't think she is worth your attention," said the husband. "That's all very well, Duke," said the wife, "and perhaps she is not. But I find her in this house, and I don't like to be laughed at. I think Lady Glencora should make her know her place."

"Lady Glencora is very young, my dear."

"I don't know about being so very young," said the d.u.c.h.ess, whose ear had perhaps caught some little hint of poor Lady Glencora's almost unintentional mimicry. Now as appeals of this kind were being made frequently to the Duke, and as he was often driven to say some word, of which he himself hardly approved, to some one in protection of his d.u.c.h.ess, he was aware that the matter was an annoyance, and at times almost wished that her Grace was at--Longroyston.

And there was a third politician staying at Matching Priory who had never yet risen to the rank of a statesman, but who had his hopes.

This was Mr. Bott, the member for St. Helens, whom Lady Glencora had described as a man who stood about, with red hair,--and perhaps told tales of her to her husband. Mr. Bott was a person who certainly had had some success in life and who had won it for himself. He was not very young, being at this time only just on the right side of fifty.

He was now enjoying his second session in Parliament, having been returned as a pledged disciple of the Manchester school. Nor had he apparently been false to his pledges. At St. Helens he was still held to be a good man and true. But they who sat on the same side with him in the House and watched his political manoeuvres, knew that he was striving hard to get his finger into the public pie. He was not a rich man, though he had made calico and had got into Parliament.

And though he claimed to be a thoroughgoing Radical, he was a man who liked to live with aristocrats, and was fond of listening to the whispers of such as the Duke of St. Bungay or Mr. Palliser. It was supposed that he did understand something of finance. He was at any rate great in figures; and as he was possessed of much industry, and was obedient withal, he was a man who might make himself useful to a Chancellor of the Exchequer ambitious of changes.

There are men who get into such houses as Matching Priory and whose presence there is a mystery to many;--as to whom the ladies of the house never quite understand why they are entertaining such a guest.

"And Mr. Bott is coming," Mr. Palliser had said to his wife. "Mr.

Bott!" Lady Glencora had answered. "Goodness me! who is Mr. Bott?"

"He is member for St. Helens," said Mr. Palliser. "A very serviceable man in his way." "And what am I to do with him?" asked Lady Glencora.

"I don't know that you can do anything with him. He is a man who has a great deal of business, and I dare say he will spend most of his time in the library." So Mr. Bott arrived. But though a huge pile of letters and papers came to him every morning by post, he unfortunately did not seem to spend much of his time in the library.

Perhaps he had not found the clue to that lost apartment. Twice he went out shooting, but as on the first day he shot the keeper, and on the second very nearly shot the Duke, he gave that up. Hunting he declined, though much pressed to make an essay in that art by Jeffrey Palliser. He seemed to spend his time, as Lady Glencora said, in standing about,--except at certain times when he was closeted with Mr. Palliser, and when, it may be presumed, he made himself useful.

On such days he would be seen at the hour of lunch with fingers much stained with ink, and it was generally supposed that on those occasions he had been counting up taxes and calculating the effect of great financial changes. He was a tall, wiry, strong man, with a bald head and bristly red beard, which, however, was cut off from his upper and under lip. This was unfortunate, as had he hidden his mouth he would not have been in so marked a degree an ugly man. His upper lip was very long, and his mouth was mean. But he had found that without the help of a razor to these parts he could not manage his soup to his satisfaction, and preferring cleanliness to beauty had shaved himself accordingly.

"I shouldn't dislike Mr. Bott so much," Lady Glencora said to her husband, "if he didn't rub his hands and smile so often, and seem to be going to say something when he really is not going to say anything."

"I don't think you need trouble yourself about him, my dear," Mr.

Palliser had answered.

"But when he looks at me in that way, I can't help stopping, as I think he is going to speak; and then he always says, 'Can I do anything for you, Lady Glen-cowrer?'"

She instantly saw that her husband did not like this. "Don't be angry with me, dear," she said. "You must admit that he is rather a bore."

"I am not at all angry, Glencora," said the husband; "and if you insist upon it, I will see that he leaves;--and in such case will of course never ask him again. But that might be prejudicial to me, as he is a man whom I trust in politics, and who may perhaps be serviceable to me."

Of course Lady Glencora declared that Mr. Bott might remain as long as he and her husband desired, and of course she mentioned his name no more to Mr. Palliser; but from that time forth she regarded Mr. Bott as an enemy, and felt also that Mr. Bott regarded her in the same light.

When it was known among outside politicians that the Duke of St.

Bungay was staying at Matching Priory, outside politicians became more sure than ever that Mr. Palliser would be the new Chancellor of the Exchequer. The old minister and the young minister were of course arranging matters together. But I doubt whether Mr. Palliser and the Duke ever spoke on any such topic during the entire visit. Though Mr. Bott was occasionally closeted with Mr. Palliser, the Duke never troubled himself with such closetings. He went out shooting--on his pony, read his newspaper, wrote his notes, and looked with the eye of a connoisseur over all Mr. Palliser's farming apparatus. "You seem to have a good man, I should say," said the Duke. "What! Hubbings?

Yes;--he was a legacy from my uncle when he gave me up the Priory."

"A very good man, I should say. Of course he won't make it pay; but he'll make it look as though it did;--which is the next best thing.

I could never get rent out of land that I farmed myself,--never." "I suppose not," said Mr. Palliser, who did not care much about it. The Duke would have talked to him by the hour together about farming had Mr. Palliser been so minded; but he talked to him very little about politics. Nor during the whole time of his stay at Matching did the Duke make any other allusion to Mr. Palliser's hopes as regarded the ministry, than that in which he had told Lady Glencora at the dinner-table that her husband's ambition was the highest by which any man could be moved.

But Mr. Bott was sometimes honoured by a few words with the Duke.

"We shall muster pretty strong, your Grace," Mr. Bott had said to him one day before dinner.

"That depends on how the changes go," said the Duke.

"I suppose there will be a change?"

"Oh yes; there'll be a change,--certainly, I should say. And it will be in your direction."

"And in Palliser's?"

"Yes; I should think so;--that is, if it suits him. By-the-by, Mr.

Bott--" Then there was a little whispered communication, in which perhaps Mr. Bott was undertaking some commission of that nature which Lady Glencora had called "telling."

CHAPTER XXV.

In Which Much of the History of the Pallisers Is Told.

At the end of ten days Alice found herself quite comfortable at Matching Priory. She had now promised to remain there till the second week of December, at which time she was to go to Vavasor Hall,--there to meet her father and Kate. The Pallisers were to pa.s.s their Christmas with the Duke of Omnium in Ba.r.s.etshire. "We always are to do that," said Glencora. "It is the state occasion at Gatherum Castle, but it only lasts for one week. Then we go somewhere else.

Oh dear!"

"Why do you say 'oh dear'?"

"Because--; I don't think I mean to tell you."

"Then I'm sure I won't ask."

"That's so like you, Alice. But I can be as firm as you, and I'm sure I won't tell you unless you do ask." But Alice did not ask, and it was not long before Lady Glencora's firmness gave way.

But, as I have said, Alice had become quite comfortable at Matching Priory. Perhaps she was already growing upwards towards the light.

At any rate she could listen with pleasure to the few words the Duke would say to her. She could even chat a little to the d.u.c.h.ess,--so that her Grace had observed to Lady Glencora that "her cousin was a very nice person,--a very nice person indeed. What a pity it was that she had been so ill-treated by that gentleman in Oxfordshire!" Lady Glencora had to explain that the gentleman lived in Cambridgeshire, and that he, at any rate, had not treated anybody ill. "Do you mean that she--jilted him?" said the d.u.c.h.ess, almost whistling, and opening her eyes very wide. "Dear me, I'm sorry for that. I shouldn't have thought it." And when she next spoke to Alice she a.s.sumed rather a severe tone of emphasis;--but this was soon abandoned when Alice listened to her with complacency.

Alice also had learned to ride,--or rather had resumed her riding, which for years had been abandoned. Jeffrey Palliser had been her squire, and she had become intimate with him so as to learn to quarrel with him and to like him,--to such an extent that Lady Glencora had laughingly told her that she was going to do more.

"I rather think not," said Alice.

"But what has thinking to do with it? Who ever thinks about it?"

"I don't just at present,--at any rate."

"Upon my word it would be very nice;--and then perhaps some day you'd be the d.u.c.h.ess."

"Glencora, don't talk such nonsense."

"Those are the speculations which people make. Only I should spite you by killing myself, so that he might marry again."