THE DUKE'S MISERY.
We must go back for a while to Gatherum Castle and see the guests whom the Duchess had collected there for her Christmas festivities.The hospitality of the Duke's house had been maintained almost throughout the autumn.Just at the end of October they went to Matching, for what the Duchess called a quiet month--which, however, at the Duke's urgent request, became six weeks.But even here the house was full all the time, though from deficiency of bedrooms the guests were very much less numerous.But at Matching the Duchess had been uneasy and almost cross.Mrs Finn had gone with her husband to Ireland, and she had taught herself to fancy that she could not live without Mrs Finn.And her husband had insisted upon having round him politicians of his own sort, men who really preferred work to archery, or even to hunting, and who discussed the evils of direct taxation absolutely in the drawing-room.The Duchess was assured that the country could not be governed by the support of such men as these, and was very glad to get back to Gatherum,--whither also came Phineas Finn with his wife, and St Bungay people, and Barrington Erle, and Mr Monk, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with Lord and Lady Cantrip, and Lord and Lady Drummond,--Lord Drummond being the only representative of the other or coalesced party.And Major Pountney was there, having been urgent with the Duchess,--and having fully explained to his friend Captain Gunner that he had acceded to the wishes of his hostess only on the assurance of her Grace that the house would not be again troubled with the presence of Ferdinand Lopez.Such assurances were common between the two friends, but were innocent, as, of course, neither believed the other.And Lady Rosina was agin there,--with many others.The melancholy poverty of Lady Rosina had captivated the Duke.'She shall come and live here, if you like,' the Duchess had said in answer to a request from her husband on his new friend's behalf,--'I've no doubt she will be willing.' The place was not crowded as it had been before, but still about thirty guests sat down to dinner daily, and Locock, Millepois, and Mrs Pritchard were all kept hard at work.Nor was our Duchess idle.She was always making up the party,--meaning the coalition,--doing something to strengthen the buttresses, writing letters to little people, who, little as they were, might become big by amalgamation.'One always has to be binding one's faggot,' she said to Mrs Finn, having read her Aesop, not altogether in vain.'Where should we have been without you?' she had whispered to Sir Orlando Drought when that gentleman was leaving Gatherum at the termination of his second visit.She had particularly disliked Sir Orlando, and was aware that her husband had been peculiarly shy of Sir Orlando since the day on which they had walked together in the park,--and consequently, the Duchess had whispered to him.'Don't bind your faggot too conspicuously,' Mrs Finn had said to her.Then the Duchess had fallen to a seat almost exhausted by labour, mingled with regrets, and by the doubts which from time to time pervaded even her audacious spirit.'I'm not a god,' she said, 'or a Pitt, or an Italian with a long name beginning with M., that I should be able to do these things without ever making a mistake.And yet they must be done.And as for him,--he does not help me in the least.He wanders about among the clouds of the multiplication table, and thinks that a majority will drop into his mouth because he does not shut it.Can you tie the faggot any better?' 'I think I would leave it untied,' said Mrs Finn.'You would not do anything of the kind.You'd be just as fussy as I am.' And thus the game was carried on at Gatherum Castle from week to week.
'But you won't leave him?' This was said to Phineas Finn by his wife a day or two before Christmas, and the question was introduced to ask whether Phineas Finn thought of giving up his place.
'Not if I can help it.'
'You like the work.'
'That has but little to do with the question, unfortunately.Icertainly like having something to do.I like earning money.'
'I don't know why you like that especially,' said the wife laughing.
'I do at any rate,--and, in a certain sense, I like authority.
But in serving with the Duke I find a lack of that sympathy which one should have with one's chief.He would never say a word to me unless I spoke to him.And when I do speak, though he is studiously civil,--much too courteous,--I know that he is bored.He has nothing to say to me about the country.When he has anything to communicated, he prefers to write a minute for Warburton, who then writes to Morton,--and so it reaches me.'
'Doesn't it do as well?'
'It may do with me.There are reasons which bind me to him, which will not bind other men.Men don't talk to me about it, because they know I am bound to him through you.But I am aware of the feeling which exists.You can't be really loyal to a king if you never see him,--if he be always locked up in some almost divine recess.'
'A king may make himself too common, Phineas.'
'No doubt.A king has to know where to draw the line.But the Duke draws no intentional line at all.He is not be nature gregarious or communicative, and is therefore hardly fitted to be the head of a ministry.'
'It will break her heart if anything goes wrong.'
'She ought to remember that Ministries seldom live very long,'
said Phineas.'But she'll recover even if she does break her heart.She is too full of vitality to be much repressed by calamity.Have you heard what is to be done about Silverbridge?'
'The Duchess wants to get it for this man, Ferdinand Lopez.'
'But it has not been promised yet.'
'The seat is not vacant,' said Mrs Finn, 'and I don't know when it will be vacant.I think there is a hitch about it,--and Ithink the Duchess is going to be made very angry.'
