said the Duchess, going on with her general plans.'Many people are rich,' said the Duchess afterwards to her friend, 'and some people are very rich indeed; but nobody seems to be rich enough to have ready money to do just what he wishes.It all goes into a grand sum total, which is never to be touched without a feeling of sacrifice.I suppose you have always enough for anything.'
It was well known that the present Mrs Finn, as Madame Goesler, had been a wealthy woman.
'Indeed, no,--very far from that.I haven't a shilling.'
'What has happened?' asked the Duchess, pretending to be frightened.
'You forget that I've got a husband of my own, and that he has to be consulted.'
'That must be nonsense.But don't you think women are fools to marry when they've got anything of their own, and could be their own mistresses? I couldn't have been.I was made to marry before I was old enough to assert myself.'
'And how well they did for you!'
'Pas si mal.--He's Prime Minister, which is a great thing, and Ibegin to find myself filled to the full with political ambition.
I feel myself to be a Lady Macbeth, prepared for the murder of any Duncan or any Daubney who may stand in my lord's way.In the mean time, like Lady Macbeth herself, we must attend to the banquetings.' Her lord appeared and misbehaved himself; my lord won't show himself at all,--which I think is worse.'
Our old friend Phineas Finn, who had now reached a higher place in politics than even his political dreams had assigned to him, though he was a Member of Parliament, was much away from London in these days.New brooms sweep clean; and official new brooms, I think, sweep cleaner than any other.Who has not watched at the commencement of a Ministry some Secretary, some Lord, or some Commissioner, who intends by fresh Herculean labours to cleanse the Augean stables just committed to his care? Who does not know the gentleman at the Home Office, who means to reform the police and put an end to malefactors; or the new Minister at the Board of Works, who is to make London beautiful as by a magician's stroke,--or, above all, the new First Lord, who is resolved that he will really build a fleet, purge the dockyards, and save us half a million a year at the same time? Phineas Finn was bent on unriddling the Irish sphinx.Surely something might be done to prove to his susceptible countrymen that at the present moment no curse could be laid upon them so heavy as that of having to rule themselves apart from England; and he thought that this might be easier, as he became from day to day more thoroughly convinced that those Home Rulers who were all around him in the House were altogether of the same opinion.Had some inscrutable decree of fate ordained and made it certain,--with a certainty not to be disturbed,--that no candidate would be returned to Parliament who would not assert the earth to be triangular, there would rise immediately a clamorous assertion of triangularity among political aspirants.The test would be innocent.Candidates have swallowed, and daily do swallow, many a worse one.As might be this doctrine of a great ********, so is the doctrine of Home Rule.Why is a gentleman of property to be kept out in the cold by some O'Mullins because he will not mutter an unmeaning shibboleth? 'Triangular? Yes,--or lozenge-shaped, if you please; but, gentlemen, I am the man for Tipperary.' Phineas Finn, having seen, or thought that he had seen, all this, began, from the very first moment of his appointment, to consider painfully within himself whether the genuine services of an honest and patriotic man might compass some remedy for the present ill-boding ferment of the country.What was in it that the Irish really did want;--what that they wanted, and had not got, and which might with propriety be conceded to them? What was it that the English really would refuse to sanction, even though it might not be wanted? He found himself beating about among the rocks as to Catholic education and Papal interference, the passage among which might be made clearer to him in Irish atmosphere than in that of Westminster.There he was away a good deal in these days, travelling backwards and forwards as he might be wanted for any debate.But as his wife did not accompany him on these fitful journeys, she was able to give her time very much to the Duchess.
The Duchess was on the whole very successful with her parties.
There were people who complained that she had everybody; that there was no selection whatever as to politics, principles, rank, morals,--or even manners.But in such a work as the Duchess has now taken in hand, it was impossible that she should escape censure.They who really knew what was being done were aware that nobody was asked to that house without an idea that his or her presence might be desirable,--in however remote a degree.
Paragraphs in newspapers go for much, and therefore the writers and editors of such paragraphs were there,--sometimes with their wives.Mr Broune, of the "Breakfast Table", was to be seen there constantly, with his wife Lady Carbury, and poor old Booker of the "Literary Chronicle".City men can make a budget popular or the reverse, and therefore the Mills Happertons of the day were welcome.Rising barristers might be wanted to become Solicitors-General.The pet Orpheus of the hour, the young tragic actor who was thought to have a real Hamlet within him, the old painter who was sill strong with hope, even the little trilling poet, though he trilled never so faintly, and the somewhat wooden novelist, all had tongues of their own, and certain modes of expression, which might assist or injure the Palliser Coalition,--as the Duke's Ministry was now called.
'Who is that man? I've seen him here before.The Duchess was talking to him ever so long just now.' The question was asked by Mr Rattler of Mr Roby.About half-an-hour before this time Mr Rattler had essayed to get a few words with the Duchess, beginning with the communication of some small political secret.