The Duke's Children Part 22

"Times are changed a little, perhaps," said his Lordship.

"The matter is not to be discussed now," said the old attorney. "I understand that. Only I hope you'll excuse me if I say that a man ought to get up very early in the morning if he means to see further into politics than your father."

"Very early indeed," said Mr. Du Boung, shaking his head.

"That's all right," said Lord Silverbridge.

"I'll propose you, my Lord. I need not wish you success, because there is no one to stand against you."

Then they went to Dr. Tempest, who was also an old man. "Yes, my Lord, I shall be proud to second you," said the rector. "I didn't think that I should ever do that to one of your name in Silverbridge."

"I hope you think I've made a change for the better," said the candidate.

"You've come over to my school of course, and I suppose I am bound to think that a change for the better. Nevertheless I have a kind of idea that certain people ought to be Tories and that other certain people ought to be Whigs. What does your father say about it?"

"My father wishes me to be in the House, and that he has not quarrelled with me you may know by the fact that had there been a contest he would have paid my expenses."

"A father generally has to do that whether he approves of what his son is about or not," said the caustic old gentleman.

There was nothing else to be done. They all went back to the hotel, and Mr. Sprugeon with Mr. Sprout and the landlord drank a gla.s.s of sherry at the candidate's expense, wishing him political long life and prosperity. There was no one else whom it was thought necessary that the candidate should visit, and the next day he returned to town with the understanding that on the day appointed in the next week he should come back again to be elected.

And on the day appointed the two young men again went to Silverbridge, and after he had been declared duly elected, the new Member of Parliament made his first speech. There was a meeting in the town-hall and many were a.s.sembled anxious to hear,--not the lad's opinions, for which probably n.o.body cared much,--but the tone of his voice and to see his manner. Of what sort was the eldest son of the man of whom the neighbourhood had been so proud? For the county was in truth proud of their Duke. Of this son whom they had now made a Member of Parliament they at present only knew that he had been sent away from Oxford,--not so very long ago,--for painting the Dean's house scarlet. The speech was not very brilliant. He told them that he was very much obliged to them for the honour they had done him. Though he could not follow exactly his father's political opinions,--he would always have before his eyes his father's political honesty and independence. He broke down two or three times and blushed, and repeated himself, and knocked his words a great deal too quickly one on the top of another. But it was taken very well, and was better than was expected. When it was over he wrote a line to the Duke.

MY DEAR FATHER,

I am Member of Parliament for Silverbridge,--as you used to be in the days which I can first remember. I hope you won't think that it does not make me unhappy to have differed from you. Indeed it does. I don't think that anybody has ever done so well in politics as you have.

But when a man does take up an opinion I don't see how he can help himself. Of course I could have kept myself quiet;--but then you wished me to be in the House. They were all very civil to me at Silverbridge, but there was very little said.

Your affectionate Son,

SILVERBRIDGE.

CHAPTER XV

The Duke Receives a Letter,--and Writes One

The Duke, when he received Mrs. Finn's note, demanding an interview, thought much upon the matter before he replied. She had made her demand as though the Duke had been no more than any other gentleman, almost as though she had a right to call upon him to wait upon her.

He understood and admired the courage of this;--but nevertheless he would not go to her. He had trusted her with that which of all things was the most sacred to him, and she had deceived him! He wrote to her as follows:

The Duke of Omnium presents his compliments to Mrs. Finn.

As the Duke thinks that no good could result either to Mrs. Finn or to himself from an interview, he is obliged to say that he would rather not do as Mrs. Finn has requested.

But for the strength of this conviction the Duke would have waited upon Mrs. Finn most willingly.

Mrs. Finn when she received this was not surprised. She had felt sure that such would be the nature of the Duke's answer; but she was also sure that if such an answer did come she would not let the matter rest. The accusation was so bitter to her that she would spare nothing in defending herself,--nothing in labour and nothing in time.

She would make him know that she was in earnest. As she could not succeed in getting into his presence she must do this by letter,--and she wrote her letter, taking two days to think of her words.

May 18, 18--.

MY DEAR DUKE OF OMNIUM,

As you will not come to me, I must trouble your Grace to read what I fear will be a long letter. For it is absolutely necessary that I should explain my conduct to you. That you have condemned me I am sure you will not deny;--nor that you have punished me as far as the power of punishment was in your hands. If I can succeed in making you see that you have judged me wrongly, I think you will admit your error and beg my pardon. You are not one who from your nature can be brought easily to do this; but you are one who will certainly do it if you can be made to feel that by not doing so you would be unjust. I am myself so clear as to my own rect.i.tude of purpose and conduct, and am so well aware of your perspicuity, that I venture to believe that if you will read this letter I shall convince you.

Before I go any further I will confess that the matter is one,--I was going to say almost of life and death to me.

Circ.u.mstances, not of my own seeking, have for some years past thrown me so closely into intercourse with your family that now to be cast off, and to be put on one side as a disgraced person,--and that so quickly after the death of her who loved me so dearly and who was so dear to me,--is such an affront as I cannot bear and hold up my head afterwards. I have come to be known as her whom your uncle trusted and loved, as her whom your wife trusted and loved,--obscure as I was before;--and as her whom, may I not say, you yourself trusted? As there was much of honour and very much of pleasure in this, so also was there something of misfortune. Friendships are safest when the friends are of the same standing. I have always felt there was danger, and now the thing I feared has come home to me.

Now I will plead my case. I fancy, that when first you heard that I had been cognisant of your daughter's engagement, you imagined that I was aware of it before I went to Matching. Had I been so, I should have been guilty of that treachery of which you accuse me. I did know nothing of it till Lady Mary told me on the day before I left Matching. That she should tell me was natural enough.

Her mother had known it, and for the moment,--if I am not a.s.suming too much in saying so,--I was filling her mother's place. But, in reference to you, I could not exercise the discretion which a mother might have used, and I told her at once, most decidedly, that you must be made acquainted with the fact.

Then Lady Mary expressed to me her wish,--not that this matter should be kept any longer from you, for that it should be told she was as anxious as I was myself,--but that it should be told to you by Mr. Tregear. It was not for me to raise any question as to Mr. Tregear's fitness or unfitness,--as to which indeed I could know nothing.

All I could do was to say that if Mr. Tregear would make the communication at once, I should feel that I had done my duty. The upshot was that Mr. Tregear came to me immediately on my return to London, and agreeing with me that it was imperative that you be informed, went to you and did inform you. In all of that, if I have told the story truly, where has been my offence? I suppose you will believe me, but your daughter can give evidence as to every word that I have written.

I think that you have got it into your mind that I have befriended Mr. Tregear's suit, and that, having received this impression, you hold it with the tenacity which is usual to you. There never was a greater mistake. I went to Matching as the friend of my dear friend;--but I stayed there at your request, as your friend. Had I been, when you asked me to do so, a partic.i.p.ator in that secret I could not have honestly remained in the position you a.s.signed to me. Had I done so, I should have deserved your ill opinion. As it is I have not deserved it, and your condemnation of me has been altogether unjust. Should I not now receive from you a full withdrawal of all charge against me, I shall be driven to think that after all the insight which circ.u.mstances have given me into your character, I have nevertheless been mistaken in the reading of it.

I remain, Dear Duke of Omnium, Yours truly,

M. FINN.

I find on looking over my letter that I must add one word further. It might seem that I am asking for a return of your friendship. Such is not my purpose. Neither can you forget that you have accused me,--nor can I. What I expect is that you should tell me that you in your conduct to me have been wrong and that I in mine to you have been right.

I must be enabled to feel that the separation between us has come from injury done to me, and not by me.

He did read the letter more than once, and read it with tingling ears, and hot cheeks, and a knitted brow. As the letter went on, and as the woman's sense of wrong grew hot from her own telling of her own story, her words became stronger and still stronger, till at last they were almost insolent in their strength. Were it not that they came from one who did think herself to have been wronged, then certainly they would be insolent. A sense of injury, a burning conviction of wrong sustained, will justify language which otherwise would be unbearable. The Duke felt that, and though his ears were tingling and his brow knitted, he could have forgiven the language, if only he could have admitted the argument. He understood every word of it. When she spoke of tenacity she intended to charge him with obstinacy. Though she had dwelt but lightly on her own services she had made her thoughts on the matter clear enough. "I, Mrs. Finn, who am n.o.body, have done much to succour and a.s.sist you, the Duke of Omnium; and this is the return which I have received!" And then she told him to his face that unless he did something which it would be impossible that he should do, she would revoke her opinion of his honesty! He tried to persuade himself that her opinion about his honesty was nothing to him;--but he failed. Her opinion was very much to him. Though in his anger he had determined to throw her off from him, he knew her to be one whose good opinion was worth having.

Not a word of overt accusation had been made against his wife. Every allusion to her was full of love. But yet how heavy a charge was really made! That such a secret should be kept from him, the father, was acknowledged to be a heinous fault;--but the wife had known the secret and had kept it from him, the father! And then how wretched a thing it was for him that any one should dare to write to him about the wife that had been taken away from him! In spite of all her faults her name was so holy to him that it had never once pa.s.sed his lips since her death, except in low whispers to himself,--low whispers made in the perfect, double-guarded seclusion of his own chamber. "Cora, Cora," he had murmured, so that the sense of the sound and not the sound itself had come to him from his own lips. And now this woman wrote to him about her freely, as though there were nothing sacred, no religion in the memory of her.

"It was not for me to raise any question as to Mr. Tregear's fitness." Was it not palpable to all the world that he was unfit?

Unfit! How could a man be more unfit? He was asking for the hand of one who was second only to royalty--who was possessed of everything, who was beautiful, well-born, rich, who was the daughter of the Duke of Omnium, and he had absolutely nothing of his own to offer.

But it was necessary that he should at last come to the consideration of the actual point as to which she had written to him so forcibly.

He tried to set himself to the task in perfect honesty. He certainly had condemned her. He had condemned her and had no doubt punished her to the extent of his power. And if he could be brought to see that he had done this unjustly, then certainly must he beg her pardon. And when he considered it all, he had to own that her intimacy with his uncle and his wife had not been so much of her seeking as of theirs.

It grieved him now that it should have been so, but so it was. And after all this,--after the affectionate surrender of herself to his wife's caprices which the woman had made,--he had turned upon her and driven her away with ignominy. That was all true. As he thought of it he became hot, and was conscious of a quivering feeling round his heart. These were bonds indeed; but they were bonds of such a nature as to be capable of being rescinded and cut away altogether by absolute bad conduct. If he could make it good to himself that in a matter of such magnitude as the charge of his daughter she had been untrue to him and had leagued herself against him, with an unworthy lover, then, then--all bonds would be rescinded! Then would his wrath be altogether justified! Then would it have been impossible that he should have done aught else than cast her out! As he thought of this he felt sure that she had betrayed him! How great would be the ignominy to him should he be driven to own to himself that she had not betrayed him! "There should not have been a moment," he said to himself over and over again,--"not a moment!" Yes;--she certainly had betrayed him.

There might still be safety for him in that confident a.s.sertion of "not a moment;" but had there been anything of that conspiracy of which he had certainly at first judged her to be guilty? She had told her story, and had then appealed to Lady Mary for evidence. After five minutes of perfect stillness,--but five minutes of misery, five minutes during which great beads of perspiration broke out from him and stood upon his brow, he had to confess to himself that he did not want any evidence. He did believe her story. When he allowed himself to think she had been in league with Tregear he had wronged her. He wiped away the beads from his brow, and again repeated to himself those words which were now his only comfort, "There should not have been a moment;--not a moment!"

It was thus and only thus that he was enabled to a.s.sure himself that there need be no acknowledgment of wrong done on his part. Having settled this in his own mind he forced himself to attend a meeting at which his a.s.sistance had been asked as to a complex question on Law Reform. The Duke endeavoured to give himself up entirely to the matter; but through it all there was the picture before him of Mrs.

Finn waiting for an answer to her letter. If he should confirm himself in his opinion that he had been right, then would any answer be necessary? He might just acknowledge the letter, after the fashion which has come up in official life, than which silence is an insult much more bearable. But he did not wish to insult, nor to punish her further. He would willingly have withdrawn the punishment under which she was groaning could he have done so without self-abas.e.m.e.nt. Or he might write as she had done,--advocating his own cause with all his strength, using that last one strong argument,--"there should not have been a moment." But there would be something repulsive to his personal dignity in the continued correspondence which this would produce. "The Duke of Omnium regrets to say, in answer to Mrs.

Finn's letter, that he thinks no good can be attained by a prolonged correspondence." Such, or of such kind, he thought must be his answer. But would this be a fair return for the solicitude shown by her to his uncle, for the love which had made her so patient a friend to his wife, for the n.o.bility of her own conduct in many things? Then his mind reverted to certain jewels,--supposed to be of enormous value,--which were still in his possession though they were the property of this woman. They had been left to her by his uncle, and she had obstinately refused to take them. Now they were lying packed in the cellars of certain bankers,--but still they were in his custody. What should he now do in this matter? Hitherto, perhaps once in every six months, he had notified to her that he was keeping them as her curator, and she had always repeated that it was a charge from which she could not relieve him. It had become almost a joke between them. But how could he joke with a woman with whom he had quarrelled after this internecine fashion?

What if he were to consult Lady Cantrip? He could not do so without a pang that would be very bitter to him,--but any agony would be better than that arising from a fear that he had been unjust to one who had deserved well of him. No doubt Lady Cantrip would see it in the same light as he had done. And then he would be able to support himself by the a.s.surance that that which he had judged to be right was approved of by one whom the world would acknowledge to be a good judge on such a matter.