Everybody came up to town, Mr Monk having his bill in his pocket, and the Queen's speech was read, promising the County Suffrage Bill.The address was voted with a very few words from either side.The battle was not to be fought then.Indeed, the state of things was so abnormal that there could hardly be said to be any sides in the House.A stranger in the gallery, not knowing the condition of affairs, would have thought that no minister had for many years commanded so large a majority, as the crowd of members was always on the Government side of the House; but the opposition which Mr Monk expected would, he knew, come from those who sat around him, behind him, and even at his very elbow.
About a week after Parliament met the bill was read for the first time, and the second reading was appointed for an early day in March.
The Duke had suggested to Mr Monk the expedience of some further delay, giving his reason the necessity of getting through certain routine work, should the rejection of the bill create the confusion of a resignation.No one who knew the Duke could ever suspect him of giving a false reason.But it seemed that in this the Prime Minister was allowing himself to be harassed by fears of the future.Mr Monk thought that any delay would be injurious and open to suspicion after what had been said and done, and was urgent in his arguments.The Duke gave way, but he did so almost sullenly, signifying his acquiescence with haughty silence.'Iam sorry,' said Mr Monk, 'to differ from your Grace, but my opinion in the matter is so strong that I do not dare to abstain from expressing it.' The Duke bowed again and smiled.He had intended that the smile should be acquiescent, but it had been as cold as steel.He knew that he was misbehaving, but was not sufficiently master of his own manner to be gracious.He told himself on the spot,--though he was quite wrong in so telling himself,--that he had now made an enemy also of Mr Monk, and through Mr Monk of Phineas Finn.And now he felt that he had no friend left in whom he could trust,--for the old Duke had become cold and indifferent.The old Duke, he thought, was tired of his work and anxious to rest.It was the old Duke who had brought him into this hornet's nest; had fixed upon his back the unwilling load; had compelled him to assume the place which now to lose would be a disgrace,--and the old Duke was now deserting him!
He was sore all over, angry with everyone, ungracious even with his private Secretary and his wife,--and especially miserable because he was thoroughly aware of his own faults.And yet, through it all, there was present to him a desire to fight on to the very last.Let his colleagues do what they might, and say what they might, he would remain Prime Minister of England as long as he was supported by a majority in the House of Commons.
'I do not know any greater ship than this,' Phineas said to him pleasantly one day, speaking of their new measure, 'towards that millennium of which we were talking at Matching, if we can only accomplish it.'
'Those moral speculations, Mr Finn,' he said, 'will hardly beat the wear and tear of real life.' The words of the answer, combined with the manner in which they were spoken, were stern and almost uncivil.Phineas, at any rate, had done nothing to offend him.The Duke paused, trying to find some expression by which he might correct the injury he had done, but, not finding any, passed on without further speech.Phineas shrugged his shoulders and went his way, telling himself that he had received one further injunction not to put his trust in princes.
'We shall be beaten certainly,' said Mr Monk to Phineas not long afterwards.
'What makes you so sure?'
'I smell it in the air.I see it in men's faces.'
'And yet it's a moderate bill.They'll have to pass something stronger before long if they throw it out now.'
'It's not the bill that they'll reject, but us.We have served our turn, and we ought to go.'
'The House is tired of the Duke?'
'The Duke is so good a man that I hardly like to admit even that, --but I fear it is so.He is fretful and he makes enemies.'
'I sometimes think that he is ill.'
'He is ill at ease and sick at heart.He cannot hide his chagrin, and then is double wretched because he has betrayed it.
I do not know that I ever respected, and, at the same time, pitied a man more thoroughly.'
'He snubbed me awfully yesterday,' said Phineas.
'He cannot help himself.He snubs me at every word that he speaks; yet I believe that is most anxious to be civil to me.
His ministry has been of great service to the country.For myself, I shall never regret having joined it.But I think that to him it has been a continual sorrow.'
The system on which the Duchess had commenced her career as wife of the Prime Minister had now been completely abandoned.In the first place, she had herself become so weary of it that she had been unable to continue the exertion.She had, too, become in some degree ashamed of her failures.The names of Major Pountney and Mr Lopez were not now pleasant to her ears, nor did she look back with satisfaction on the courtesies she had lavished on Sir Orlando or the smiles she had given to Sir Timothy Beeswax.
'I've known a good many vulgar people in my time,' she said one day to Mrs Finn, 'but none ever so vulgar as our ministerial supporters.You don't remember Mr Bott, my dear.He was before your time;--one of the arithmetical men, a great friend of Plantagenet's.He was very bad, but there have come up worse since him.Sometimes, I think, I like a little vulgarity for a change; but, upon my honour, when we get rid of all this it will be a pleasure to go back to ladies and gentlemen.' This the Duchess said in extreme bitterness.
'It seems to me that you have pretty well got rid of "all this"already.'