第42章

THE GATHERING OF CLOUDS.

Throughout June and the first week of July the affairs of the Ministry went on successfully, in spite of the social sins of the Duke and the occasional despair of the Duchess.There had been many politicians who had thought, or had, at any rate, predicted that the Coalition Ministry would not live a month.There had been men, such as Lord Fawn on one side and Mr Boffin on the other, who had found themselves stranded disagreeably,--with no certain position,--unwilling to sit behind a Treasury bench from which they were excluded, and too shy to place themselves immediately opposite.Seats beneath the gangway were, of course, open to such of them as were members of the Lower House and those seats had to be used; but they were not accustomed to sit beneath the gangway.These gentlemen had expected that the seeds of weakness, of which they had perceived a scattering, would grow at once into an enormous crop of blunders, difficulties, and complications; but, for a while, the Ministry were saved from these dangers either by the energy of the Prime Minister, or the popularity of his wife, or perhaps by the sagacity of the elder Duke;--so that there grew up an idea that the Coalition was really the proper thing.In one respect it certainly was successful.The Home Rulers, or Irish party generally, were left without an inch of standing ground.Their support was not needed, and therefore they were not courted.For the moment there was not even a necessity to pretend that Home Rule was anything but an absurdity from beginning to end;--so much so that one or two leading Home Rulers, men who had taken up the cause not only that they might become Members of Parliament, but with some further idea of speech-making and popularity, declared that the Coalition had been formed merely with a view of putting down Ireland.This capability of dispensing with a generally intractable element of support was felt to be a great comfort.

Then, too, there was a set in the House,--at that moment not a very numerous set,--who had been troublesome friends to the old Liberal party, and which the Coalition was able, if not to ignore, at any rate to disregard.These were the staunch economists, and argumentative philosophical Radicals,--men of standing and repute, who are always in doubtful times individually flattered by Ministers, who have great privileges accorded to them of speaking and dividing, and who are not unfrequently even thanked for their rods by the very owners of the backs which bear the scourges.These men could not be quite set aside by the Coalition as were the Home Rules.It was not even yet, perhaps, wise to count them out, or to leave them to talk to the benches absolutely empty;--but the tone of flattery with which they had been addressed became gradually less warm;and when the scourges were wielded, ministerial backs took themselves out of the way.There grew up unconsciously a feeling of security against attack which was distasteful to these gentlemen, and was in itself perhaps a little dangerous.

Gentlemen bound to support the Government, when they perceived that there was comparatively but little to do, and that little might easily be done, became careless, and, perhaps a little contemptuous.So that the great popular orator, Mr Turnbull, found himself compelled to rise in his seat, and ask whether the noble Duke at the head of the Government thought himself strong enough to rule without attention to parliamentary details.The question was asked with an air of inexorable severity, and was intended to have deep signification.Mr Turnbull had disliked the Coalition from the beginning; but then Mr Turnbull always disliked everything.He had so accustomed himself to wield the constitutional cat-of-nine-tails, that heaven will hardly be happy to him unless he be allowed to flog the cherubim.Though the party with which he was presumed to act had generally been in power since he had been in the House, he had never allowed himself to agree with a Minister on any point.And as he had never been satisfied with a Liberal Government, it was not probable that he should endure a Coalition in silence.At the end of a rather lengthy speech, he repeated his question, and then sat down, taking his place with all that constitutional indignation, which becomes the parliamentary flagellator of the day.The little jokes with which Sir Orlando answered him were very well in their way.Mr Turnbull did not care much whether he were answered or not.Perhaps the jauntiness of Sir Orlando, which implied that the Coalition was too strong to regard attack, somewhat irritated outsiders.But there certainly grew up from that moment a feeling among such men as Erle and Rattler that care was necessary, that the House, taken as a whole, was not in a condition to be manipulated with easy freedom, and that Sir Orlando must be made to understand that he was not strong enough to depend on such jauntiness.The jaunty statesman must be very sure of his personal following.There was a general opinion that Sir Orlando had not brought the Coalition well out of the first real attack which had been made upon it.

'Well, Phineas; how do you like the Phoenix?' Phineas Finn had flown back to London at the instigation of probably Mr Rattler, and was now standing at the window of Brook's club with Barrington Erle.It was near nine one Thursday evening, and they were both about to return to the House.

'I don't like the Castle, if you mean that.'

'Tyrone isn't troublesome, surely.' The Marquis of Tyrone was the Lord Lieutenant of the day, and had in his time been a very strong Conservative.

'He finds me troublesome, I fear,'

'I don't wonder at that, Phineas.'