第18章

AN OLD FRIEND GOES TO WINDSOR.

'And what are they going to make you now?'

This question was asked of her husband by a lady with whom perhaps the readers of this volume may have already formed some acquaintance.Chronicles of her early life have been written, at any rate copiously.The lady was the Duchess of Omnium, and her husband was of course the Duke.In order that the nature of the question asked by the Duchess may be explained, it must be stated that just at this time the political affairs of the nation had got themselves tied up into one of those truly desperate knots from which even the wisdom and experience of septuagenarian statesmen can see no unravelment.The heads of parties were at a standstill.In the House of Commons, there was, so to say, no majority on either side.The minds of members were so astray that, according to the best calculation that could be made, there would be a majority of about ten against any possible Cabinet.

There would certainly be a majority against either of those well-tried, but, at this moment, little trusted Prime Ministers, Mr Gresham and Mr Daubney.There were certain men, nominally belonging to this or to the other party, who would certainly within a week of the nomination of a Cabinet in the House, oppose the Cabinet which they ought to support.Mr Daubney had been in power,--nay, was in power, though he had twice resigned.Mr Gresham had been twice sent for to Windsor, and had on one occasion undertaken and on another had refused to undertake to form a Ministry.Mr Daubney had tried two or three combinations, and had been at his wits' end.He was no doubt still in power,--could appoint bishops, and make peers, and give away ribbons.

But he couldn't pass a law, and certainly continued to hold his present uncomfortable position by no will of his own.But a Prime Minister cannot escape till he has succeeded in finding a successor; and though the successor be found and consents to make an attempt, the old unfortunate cannot be allowed to go free when the attempt is shown to be a failure.He has not absolutely given up the keys of his boxes, and no one will take them from him.Even a sovereign can abdicate; but the Prime Minister of a constitutional government is in bonds.The reader may therefore understand that the Duchess was asking her husband what place among the political rulers of the country had been offered to him by the last aspirant to the leadership of the Government.

But the reader should understand more than this, and may perhaps do so, if he has ever seen those former chronicles to which allusion has been made.The Duke, before he became a duke, had held very high office, having been the Chancellor of the Exchequer.When he was transferred, perforce, to the House of Lords, he had,--as it is not uncommon in such cases,--accepted a lower political station.This had displeased the Duchess, who was ambitious both on her own behalf and that of her lord,--and who thought that a Duke of Omnium should be nothing in the Government if not at any rate near the top.But after that, with the simple and single object of doing some special piece of work for the nation,--something which he fancied that nobody else would do if he didn't do it,--his Grace, of his own motion, at his own solicitation, had encountered further official degradation, very much to the disgust of the Duchess.And it was not the way with her Grace to hide such sorrows in the depth of her bosom.When affronted she would speak out, whether to her husband, or to another,--using irony rather than argument to support her cause and to vindicate her ways.The shafts of ridicule hurled by her against her husband in regard to his voluntary abasement had been many and sharp.They stung him, but never for a moment influenced him.It was her nature to say such things,--and he knew that they came rather from her uncontrolled spirit than from any malice.She was his wife too, and he had an idea that of little injuries of that sort there should be no end of bearing on the part of a husband.Sometimes he would endeavour to explain to her the motives which actuated him; but he had come to fear that they were and must be unintelligible to her.But he credited her with less than her real intelligence.

She did understand the nature of his work and his reasons for doing it; and, after her own fashion, did what she conceived to be her own work in endeavouring to create within his bosom a desire for higher things.'Surely,' she said to herself, 'if a man of his rank is to be a minister, he should be a great minister;--at any rate as great as his circumstances will make him.A man never can save his country by degrading himself.' In this he would probably have agreed; but his idea of degradation and hers hardly tallied.

When therefore she asked him what they were going to make him, it was as though some sarcastic housekeeper in a great establishment should ask the butler,--some butler too prone to yield in such matters,--whether the master had appointed him lately to the cleaning of shoes or the carrying of coals.Since these knots had become so very tight, and since the journeys to Windsor had become so very frequent, her Grace had asked many such questions, and had received but very indifferent replies.The Duke had sometimes declared that the matter was not ripe enough to allow him to make any answer.'Of course,' said the Duchess, 'you should keep the secret.The editors of the evening papers haven't known it for above an hour.' At another time he told her that he had undertaken to give Mr Gresham his assistance in any way that might be asked.

'Joint undersecretary with Lord Fawn, I should say,' answered the Duchess.Then he told her that he believed an attempt would be made at a mixed ministry, but that he did not in the least know to whom the work of doing so would be confided.'You will be about the last man who will be told,' replied the Duchess.Now, at this moment, he had, as she knew, come direct from the house of Mr Gresham, and she asked her question in her usual spirit.