RETRIBUTION.
The Duchess had been at work with her husband for the last two months in the hope of renewing her autumnal festivities, but had been lamentably unsuccessful.The Duke had declared that there should be no more rural crowds, no repetition of what he called London turned loose on his own grounds.He could not forget the necessity which had been imposed upon him of turning Major Pountney out of his house, or the change that had been made in his gardens, or his wife's attempt to conquer him at Silverbridge.'Do you mean,' she said, 'that we are to have nobody?' He replied that he thought it would be best to go to Matching.'And live a Darby and Joan life?' said the Duchess.
'I said nothing of Darby and Joan.Whatever may be my feelings Ihardly think that you are fitted for that kind of thing.
Matching is not so big as Gatherum, but it is not a cottage.Of course you can ask your own friends.'
'I don't know what you mean by my own friends.I endeavour always to ask yours.'
'I don't know that Major Pountney, and Captain Gunner, and Mr Lopez were ever among the number of my friends.'
'I suppose you mean Lady Rosina?' said the Duchess.'I shall be happy to have her at Matching, if you wish it.'
'I should like to see Lady Rosina De Courcy at Matching very much.'
'And is there to be nobody else? I'm afraid I should find it rather dull while you two were opening your hearts to each other.' Here he looked at her angrily.'Can you think of anybody besides Lady Rosina?'
'I suppose you will wish to have Mrs Finn.'
'What an arrangement! Lady Rosina for you to flirt with, and Mrs Finn for me to grumble to.'
'That is an odious word,' said the Prime Minister.
'What;--flirting? I don't see anything bad about the word.The thing is dangerous.But you are quite at liberty if you don't go beyond Lady Rosina.I should like to know whether you would wish anybody else to come?' Of course he made no becoming answer to this question, and of course no becoming answer was expected.He knew that she was trying to provoke him because he would not let her do this year as she had done last.The house, he had no doubt, would be full to overflowing when he got there.He could not help that.But as compared with Gatherum Castle the house at Matching was small, and his domestic authority sufficed at any rate for shutting up Gatherum for the time.
I do not know whether at times her sufferings were not as acute as his own.He, at any rate, was Prime Minister, and it seemed to her that she was to be reduced to nothing.At the beginning of it all he had, with unwonted tenderness asked her for her sympathy in his undertaking, and, according to her power, she had given it to him with her whole heart.She had thought that she had seen a way by which she might assist him in his great employment, and she had worked at it like a slave.Every day she told herself that she did not, herself, love the Captain Gunners and Major Pountneys, nor the Sir Orlandos, nor, indeed the Lady Rosinas.She had not followed the bent of her own inclination when she had descended to sheets and towels, and busied herself to establish an archery-ground.She had not shot an arrow during the whole season, nor had she cared who had won and who had lost.
It had not been for her own personal delight that she had kept open house for forty persons throughout four months of the year, in doing which he had never taken an ounce of labour off her shoulders by any single word or deed! It had all been done for his sake,--that his reign might be long and triumphant, that the world might say that his hospitality was noble and full, that his name might be in men's mouths, and that he might prosper as a British Minister.Such, at least, were the assertions which she made to herself, when she thought of her own grievances and her own troubles.And how she was angry with her husband.It was very well for him to ask for her sympathy, but he had none to give her in return! He could not pity her failures,--even though he had himself caused them! If he had a grain of intelligence about him he must, she thought, understand well enough how sore it must be for her to descend from her princely entertainments to solitude at Matching, and thus to own before all the world that she was beaten.Then when she asked him for advice, when she was really anxious to know how far she might go in filling her house without offending him, he told her to ask Lady Rosina De Courcy! If he chose to be ridiculous he might.
She would ask Lady Rosina De Courcy.In her active anger she did write to Lady Rosina De Courcy a formal letter, in which she said that the Duke hoped to have the pleasure of her ladyship's company at Matching Park on the 1st August.It was an absurd letter, somewhat long, written very much in the Duke's name, with overwhelming expressions of affection, instigated in the writer's mind partly by the fun of supposition that such a man as her husband should flirt with such a woman as Lady Rosina.There was something too of anger in what she wrote, some touch of revenge.
She sent off this invitation, and she sent no other.Lady Rosina took it all in good part, and replied saying that she should have the greatest pleasure in going to Matching! She had declared to herself that she would ask none but those he had named, and in accordance with her resolution she sent out no other written invitation.
He had also told her to ask Mrs Finn.Now this had become almost a matter of course.There had grown up from accidental circumstances so strong a bond between these two women, that it was taken for granted by both their husbands that they should be nearly always within reach of one another.And the two husbands were also on kindly, if not affectionate, terms with each other.
The nature of the Duke's character was such that, with a most loving heart, he was hardly capable of that opening out of himself to another which is necessary for positive friendship.
