The Palliser Novels Part 183

CHAPTER L.

What the Lords and Commons Said about the Murder When the House met on that Thursday at four o'clock everybody was talking about the murder, and certainly four-fifths of the members had made up their minds that Phineas Finn was the murderer. To have known a murdered man is something, but to have been intimate with a murderer is certainly much more. There were many there who were really sorry for poor Bonteen, - of whom without a doubt the end had come in a very horrible manner; and there were more there who were personally fond of Phineas Finn, - to whom the future of the young member was very sad, and the fact that he should have become a murderer very awful. But, nevertheless, the occasion was not without its consolations. The business of the House is not always exciting, or even interesting. On this afternoon there was not a member who did not feel that something had occurred which added an interest to Parliamentary life.

Very soon after prayers Mr. Gresham entered the House, and men who had hitherto been behaving themselves after a most unparliamentary fashion, standing about in knots, talking by no means in whispers, moving in and out of the House rapidly, all crowded into their places. Whatever pretence of business had been going on was stopped in a moment, and Mr. Gresham rose to make his statement. "It was with the deepest regret, - nay, with the most profound sorrow, - that he was called upon to inform the House that his right honourable friend and colleague, Mr. Bonteen, had been basely and cruelly murdered during the past night." It was odd then to see how the name of the man, who, while he was alive and a member of that House, could not have been p.r.o.nounced in that a.s.sembly without disorder, struck the members almost with dismay. "Yes, his friend Mr. Bonteen, who had so lately filled the office of President of the Board of Trade, and whose loss the country and that House could so ill bear, had been beaten to death in one of the streets of the metropolis by the arm of a dastardly ruffian during the silent watches of the night." Then Mr. Gresham paused, and every one expected that some further statement would be made. "He did not know that he had any further communication to make on the subject. Some little time must elapse before he could fill the office. As for adequately supplying the loss, that would be impossible. Mr. Bonteen's services to the country, especially in reference to decimal coinage, were too well known to the House to allow of his holding out any such hope." Then he sat down without having as yet made an allusion to Phineas Finn.

But the allusion was soon made. Mr. Daubeny rose, and with much graceful and mysterious circ.u.mlocution asked the Prime Minister whether it was true that a member of the House had been arrested, and was now in confinement on the charge of having been concerned in the murder of the late much-lamented President of the Board of Trade. He - Mr. Daubeny - had been given to understand that such a charge had been made against an honourable member of that House, who had once been a colleague of Mr. Bonteen's, and who had always supported the right honourable gentleman opposite. Then Mr. Gresham rose again. "He regretted to say that the honourable member for Tankerville was in custody on that charge. The House would of course understand that he only made that statement as a fact, and that he was offering no opinion as to who was the perpetrator of the murder. The case seemed to be shrouded in great mystery. The two gentlemen had unfortunately differed, but he did not at all think that the House would on that account be disposed to attribute guilt so black and d.a.m.ning to a gentleman they had all known so well as the honourable member for Tankerville." So much and no more was spoken publicly, to the reporters; but members continued to talk about the affair the whole evening.

There was nothing, perhaps, more astonishing than the absence of rancour or abhorrence with which the name of Phineas was mentioned, even by those who felt most certain of his guilt. All those who had been present at the club acknowledged that Bonteen had been the sinner in reference to the transaction there; and it was acknowledged to have been almost a public misfortune that such a man as Bonteen should have been able to prevail against such a one as Phineas Finn in regard to the presence of the latter in the Government. Stories which were exaggerated, accounts worse even than the truth, were bandied about as to the perseverance with which the murdered man had destroyed the prospects of the supposed murderer, and robbed the country of the services of a good workman. Mr. Gresham, in the official statement which he had made, had, as a matter of course, said many fine things about Mr. Bonteen. A man can always have fine things said about him for a few hours after his death. But in the small private conferences which were held the fine things said all referred to Phineas Finn. Mr. Gresham had spoken of a "dastardly ruffian in the silent watches," but one would have almost thought from overhearing what was said by various gentlemen in different parts of the House that upon the whole Phineas Finn was thought to have done rather a good thing in putting poor Mr. Bonteen out of the way.

And another pleasant feature of excitement was added by the prevalent idea that the Prince had seen and heard the row. Those who had been at the club at the time of course knew that this was not the case; but the presence of the Prince at The Universe between the row and the murder had really been a fact, and therefore it was only natural that men should allow themselves the delight of mixing the Prince with the whole concern. In remote circles the Prince was undoubtedly supposed to have had a great deal to do with the matter, though whether as abettor of the murdered or of the murderer was never plainly declared. A great deal was said about the Prince that evening in the House, so that many members were able to enjoy themselves thoroughly.

"What a G.o.dsend for Gresham," said one gentleman to Mr. Ratler very shortly after the strong eulogium which had been uttered on poor Mr. Bonteen by the Prime Minister.

"Well, - yes; I was afraid that the poor fellow would never have got on with us."

"Got on! He'd have been a thorn in Gresham's side as long as he held office. If Finn should be acquitted, you ought to do something handsome for him." Whereupon Mr. Ratler laughed heartily.

"It will pretty nearly break them up," said Sir Orlando Drought, one of Mr. Daubeny's late Secretaries of State to Mr. Roby, Mr. Daubeny's late patronage secretary.

"I don't quite see that. They'll be able to drop their decimal coinage with a good excuse, and that will be a great comfort. They are talking of getting Monk to go back to the Board of Trade."

"Will that strengthen them?"

"Bonteen would have weakened them. The man had got beyond himself, and lost his head. They are better without him."

"I suppose Finn did it?" asked Sir Orlando.

"Not a doubt about it, I'm told. The queer thing is that he should have declared his purpose beforehand to Erle. Gresham says that all that must have been part of his plan, - so as to make men think afterwards that he couldn't have done it. Grogram's idea is that he had planned the murder before he went to the club."

"Will the Prince have to give evidence?"

"No, no," said Mr. Roby. "That's all wrong. The Prince had left the club before the row commenced. Confucius Putt says that the Prince didn't hear a word of it. He was talking to the Prince all the time." Confucius Putt was the distinguished artist with whom the Prince had shaken hands on leaving the club.

Lord Drummond was in the Peers' Gallery, and Mr. Boffin was talking to him over the railings. It may be remembered that those two gentlemen had conscientiously left Mr. Daubeny's Cabinet because they had been unable to support him in his views about the Church. After such sacrifice on their parts their minds were of course intent on Church matters. "There doesn't seem to be a doubt about it," said Mr. Boffin.

"Cantrip won't believe it," said the peer.

"He was at the Colonies with Cantrip, and Cantrip found him very agreeable. Everybody says that he was one of the pleasantest fellows going. This makes it out of the question that they should bring in any Church bill this Session."

"Do you think so?"

"Oh yes; - certainly. There will be nothing else thought of now till the trial."

"So much the better," said his Lordship. "It's an ill wind that blows no one any good. Will they have evidence for a conviction?"

"Oh dear yes; not a doubt about it. Fawn can swear to him," said Mr. Boffin.

Barrington Erle was telling his story for the tenth time when he was summoned out of the Library to the d.u.c.h.ess of Omnium, who had made her way up into the lobby. "Oh, Mr. Erle, do tell me what you really think," said the d.u.c.h.ess.

"That is just what I can't do."

"Why not?"

"Because I don't know what to think."

"He can't have done it, Mr. Erle."

"That's just what I say to myself, d.u.c.h.ess."

"But they do say that the evidence is so very strong against him."

"Very strong."

"I wish we could get that Lord Fawn out of the way."

"Ah; - but we can't."

"And will they - hang him?"

"If they convict him, they will."

"A man we all knew so well! And just when we had made up our minds to do everything for him. Do you know I'm not a bit surprised. I've felt before now as though I should like to have done it myself."

"He could be very nasty, d.u.c.h.ess!"

"I did so hate that man. But I'd give, - oh, I don't know what I'd give to bring him to life again this minute. What will Lady Laura do?" In answer to this, Barrington Erle only shrugged his shoulders. Lady Laura was his cousin. "We mustn't give him up, you know, Mr. Erle."

"What can we do?"

"Surely we can do something. Can't we get it in the papers that he must be innocent, - so that everybody should be made to think so? And if we could get hold of the lawyers, and make them not want to - to destroy him! There's nothing I wouldn't do. There's no getting hold of a judge, I know."

"No, d.u.c.h.ess. The judges are stone."

"Not that they are a bit better than anybody else, - only they like to be safe."

"They do like to be safe."

"I'm sure we could do it if we put our shoulders to the wheel. I don't believe, you know, for a moment that he murdered him. It was done by Lizzie Eustace's Jew."

"It will be sifted, of course."

"But what's the use of sifting if Mr. Finn is to be hung while it's being done? I don't think anything of the police. Do you remember how they bungled about that woman's necklace? I don't mean to give him up, Mr. Erle; and I expect you to help me." Then the d.u.c.h.ess returned home, and, as we know, found Madame Goesler at her house.

Nothing whatever was done that night, either in the Lords or Commons. A "statement" about Mr. Bonteen was made in the Upper as well as in the Lower House, and after that statement any real work was out of the question. Had Mr. Bonteen absolutely been Chancellor of the Exchequer, and in the Cabinet when he was murdered, and had Phineas Finn been once more an Under-Secretary of State, the commotion and excitement could hardly have been greater. Even the Duke of St. Bungay had visited the spot, - well known to him, as there the urban domains meet of two great Whig peers, with whom and whose predecessors he had long been familiar. He also had known Phineas Finn, and not long since had said civil words to him and of him. He, too, had, of late days, especially disliked Mr. Bonteen, and had almost insisted that the man now murdered should not be admitted into the Cabinet. He had heard what was the nature of the evidence; - had heard of the quarrel, the life-preserver, and the grey coat. "I suppose he must have done it," said the Duke of St. Bungay to himself as he walked away up Hay Hill.

CHAPTER LI.

"You think it shameful"

The tidings of what had taken place first reached Lady Laura Kennedy from her brother on his return to Portman Square after the scene in the police court. The object of his visit to Finn's lodgings has been explained, but the nature of Lady Laura's vehemence in urging upon her brother the performance of a very disagreeable task has not been sufficiently described. No brother would willingly go on such a mission from a married sister to a man who had been publicly named as that sister's lover; - and no brother could be less likely to do so than Lord Chiltern. But Lady Laura had been very stout in her arguments, and very strong-willed in her purpose. The income arising from this money, - which had been absolutely her own, - would again be exclusively her own should the claim to it on behalf of her husband's estate be abandoned. Surely she might do what she liked with her own. If her brother would not a.s.sist her in making this arrangement, it must be done by other means. She was quite willing that it should appear to come to Mr. Finn from her father and not from herself. Did her brother think any ill of her? Did he believe in the calumnies of the newspapers? Did he or his wife for a moment conceive that she had a lover? When he looked at her, worn out, withered, an old woman before her time, was it possible that he should so believe? She herself asked him these questions. Lord Chiltern of course declared that he had no suspicion of the kind, "No; - indeed," said Lady Laura. "I defy any one to suspect me who knows me. And if so, why am not I as much ent.i.tled to help a friend as you might be? You need not even mention my name." He endeavoured to make her understand that her name would be mentioned, and others would believe and would say evil things. "They cannot say worse than they have said," she continued. "And yet what harm have they done to me, - or you?" Then he demanded why she desired to go so far out of her way with the view of spending her money upon one who was in no way connected with her. "Because I like him better than any one else," she answered, boldly. "There is very little left for which I care at all; - but I do care for his prosperity. He was once in love with me and told me so, - but I had chosen to give my hand to Mr. Kennedy. He is not in love with me now, - nor I with him; but I choose to regard him as my friend." He a.s.sured her over and over again that Phineas Finn would certainly refuse to touch her money; - but this she declined to believe. At any rate the trial might be made. He would not refuse money left to him by will, and why should he not now enjoy that which was intended for him? Then she explained how certain it was that he must speedily vanish out of the world altogether, unless some a.s.surance of an income were made to him. So Lord Chiltern went on his mission, hardly meaning to make the offer, and confident that it would be refused if made. We know the nature of the new trouble in which he found Phineas Finn enveloped. It was such that Lord Chiltern did not open his mouth about money, and now, having witnessed the scene at the police-office, he had come back to tell his tale to his sister. She was sitting with his wife when he entered the room.

"Have you heard anything?" he asked at once.

"Heard what?" said his wife.

"Then you have not heard it. A man has been murdered."

"What man?" said Lady Laura, jumping suddenly from her seat. "Not Robert!" Lord Chiltern shook his head. "You do not mean that Mr. Finn has been - killed!". Again he shook his head; and then she sat down as though the asking of the two questions had exhausted her.

"Speak, Oswald," said his wife. "Why do you not tell us? Is it one whom we knew?"

"I think that Laura used to know him. Mr. Bonteen was murdered last night in the streets."

"Mr. Bonteen! The man who was Mr. Finn's enemy," said Lady Chiltern.

"Mr. Bonteen!" said Lady Laura, as though the murder of twenty Mr. Bonteens were nothing to her.

"Yes; - the man whom you talk of as Finn's enemy. It would be better if there were no such talk."

"And who killed him?" said Lady Laura, again getting up and coming close to her brother.

"Who was it, Oswald?" asked his wife; and she also was now too deeply interested to keep her seat.

"They have arrested two men," said Lord Chiltern; - "that Jew who married Lady Eustace, and - " But there he paused. He had determined beforehand that he would tell his sister the double arrest that the doubt this implied might lessen the weight of the blow; but now he found it almost impossible to mention the name.

"Who is the other, Oswald?" said his wife.

"Not Phineas," screamed Lady Laura.

"Yes, indeed; they have arrested him, and I have just come from the court." He had no time to go on, for his sister was crouching prostrate on the floor before him. She had not fainted. Women do not faint under such shocks. But in her agony she had crouched down rather than fallen, as though it were vain to attempt to stand upright with so crushing a weight of sorrow on her back. She uttered one loud shriek, and then covering her face with her hands burst out into a wail of sobs. Lady Chiltern and her brother both tried to raise her, but she would not be lifted. "Why will you not hear me through, Laura?" said he.

"You do not think he did it?" said his wife.

"I'm sure he did not," replied Lord Chiltern.

The poor woman, half-lying, half-seated, on the floor, still hiding her face with her hands, still bursting with half suppressed sobs, heard and understood both the question and the answer. But the fact was not altered to her, - nor the condition of the man she loved. She had not yet begun to think whether it were possible that he should have been guilty of such a crime. She had heard none of the circ.u.mstances, and knew nothing of the manner of the man's death. It might be that Phineas had killed the man, bringing himself within the reach of the law, and that yet he should have done nothing to merit her reproaches; - hardly even her reprobation! Hitherto she felt only the sorrow, the annihilation of the blow; - but not the shame with which it would overwhelm the man for whom she so much coveted the good opinion of the world.

"You hear what he says, Laura."

"They are determined to destroy him," she sobbed out, through her tears.

"They are not determined to destroy him at all," said Lord Chiltern. "It will have to go by evidence. You had better sit up and let me tell you all. I will tell you nothing till you are seated again. You disgrace yourself by sprawling there."

"Do not be hard to her, Oswald."

"I am disgraced," said Lady Laura, slowly rising and placing herself again on the sofa. "If there is anything more to tell, you can tell it. I do not care what happens to me now, or who knows it. They cannot make my life worse than it is."

Then he told all the story, - of the quarrel, and the position of the streets, of the coat, and the bludgeon, and the three blows, each on the head, by which the man had been killed. And he told them also how the Jew was said never to have been out of his bed, and how the Jew's coat was not the coat Lord Fawn had seen, and how no stain of blood had been found about the raiment of either of the men. "It was the Jew who did it, Oswald, surely," said Lady Chiltern.

"It was not Phineas Finn who did it," he replied.

"And they will let him go again?"

"They will let him go when they find out the truth, I suppose. But those fellows blunder so, I would never trust them. He will get some sharp lawyer to look into it; and then perhaps everything will come out. I shall go and see him to-morrow. But there is nothing further to be done."

"And I must see him," said Lady Laura slowly.

Lady Chiltern looked at her husband, and his face became redder than usual with an angry flush. When his sister had pressed him to take her message about the money, he had a.s.sured her that he suspected her of no evil. Nor had he ever thought evil of her. Since her marriage with Mr. Kennedy, he had seen but little of her or of her ways of life. When she had separated herself from her husband he had approved of the separation, and had even offered to a.s.sist her should she be in difficulty. While she had been living a sad lonely life at Dresden, he had simply pitied her, declaring to himself and his wife that her lot in life had been very hard. When these calumnies about her and Phineas Finn had reached his ears, - or his eyes, - as such calumnies always will reach the ears and eyes of those whom they are most capable of hurting, he had simply felt a desire to crush some Quintus Slide, or the like, into powder for the offence. He had received Phineas in his own house with all his old friendship. He had even this morning been with the accused man as almost his closest friend. But, nevertheless, there was creeping into his heart a sense of the shame with which he would be afflicted, should the world really be taught to believe that the man had been his sister's lover. Lady Laura's distress on the present occasion was such as a wife might show, or a girl weeping for her lover, or a mother for her son, or a sister for a brother; but was extravagant and exaggerated in regard to such friendship as might be presumed to exist between the wife of Mr. Robert Kennedy and the member for Tankerville. He could see that his wife felt this as he did, and he thought it necessary to say something at once, that might force his sister to moderate at any rate her language, if not her feelings. Two expressions of face were natural to him; one eloquent of good humour, in which the reader of countenances would find some promise of coming frolic; - and the other, replete with anger, sometimes to the extent almost of savagery. All those who were dependent on him were wont to watch his face with care and sometimes with fear. When he was angry it would almost seem that he was about to use personal violence on the object of his wrath. At the present moment he was rather grieved than enraged; but there came over his face that look of wrath with which all who knew him were so well acquainted. "You cannot see him," he said.

"Why not I, as well as you?"

"If you do not understand, I cannot tell you. But you must not see him; - and you shall not."

"Who will hinder me?"

"If you put me to it, I will see that you are hindered. What is the man to you that you should run the risk of evil tongues, for the sake of visiting him in gaol? You cannot save his life, - though it may be that you might endanger it."

"Oswald," she said very slowly, "I do not know that I am in any way under your charge, or bound to submit to your orders."

"You are my sister."

"And I have loved you as a sister. How should it be possible that my seeing him should endanger his life?"

"It will make people think that the things are true which have been said."

"And will they hang him because I love him? I do love him. Violet knows how well I have always loved him." Lord Chiltern turned his angry face upon his wife. Lady Chiltern put her arm round her sister-in-law's waist, and whispered some words into her ear. "What is that to me?" continued the half-frantic woman. "I do love him. I have always loved him. I shall love him to the end. He is all my life to me."

"Shame should prevent your telling it," said Lord Chiltern.

"I feel no shame. There is no disgrace in love. I did disgrace myself when I gave the hand for which he asked to another man, because, - because - " But she was too n.o.ble to tell her brother even then that at the moment of her life to which she was alluding she had married the rich man, rejecting the poor man's hand, because she had given up all her fortune to the payment of her brother's debts. And he, though he had well known what he had owed to her, and had never been easy till he had paid the debt, remembered nothing of all this now. No lending and paying back of money could alter the nature either of his feelings or his duty in such an emergency as this. "And, mind you," she continued, turning to her sister-in-law, "there is no place for the shame of which he is thinking," and she pointed her finger out at her brother. "I love him, - as a mother might love her child, I fancy; but he has no love for me; none; - none. When I am with him, I am only a trouble to him. He comes to me, because he is good; but he would sooner be with you. He did love me once; - but then I could not afford to be so loved."

"You can do no good by seeing him," said her brother.

"But I will see him. You need not scowl at me as though you wished to strike me. I have gone through that which makes me different from other women, and I care not what they say of me. Violet understands it all; - but you understand nothing."

"Be calm, Laura," said her sister-in-law, "and Oswald will do all that can be done."

"But they will hang him."