LI
Coddling the Prime Minister
Parliament was to meet on the 12th of February, and it was of course necessary that there should be a Cabinet Council before that time. The Prime Minister, about the end of the third week in January, was prepared to name a day for this, and did so, most unwillingly. But he was then ill, and talked both to his friend the old Duke and his private Secretary of having the meeting held without him. “Impossible!” said the old Duke.
“If I could not go it would have to be possible.”
“We could all come here if it were necessary.”
“Bring fourteen or fifteen ministers out of town because a poor creature such as I am is ill!” But in truth the Duke of St. Bungay hardly believed in this illness. The Prime Minister was unhappy rather than ill.
By this time everybody in the House—and almost everybody in the country who read the newspapers—had heard of Mr. Lopez and his election expenses—except the Duchess. No one had yet dared to tell her. She saw the newspapers daily, but probably did not read them very attentively. Nevertheless she knew that something was wrong. Mr. Warburton hovered about the Prime Minister more tenderly than usual; the Duke of St. Bungay was more concerned; the world around her was more mysterious, and her husband more wretched. “What is it that’s going on?” she said one day to Phineas Finn.
“Everything—in the same dull way as usual.”
“If you don’t tell me, I’ll never speak to you again. I know there is something wrong.”
“The Duke, I’m afraid, is not quite well.”
“What makes him ill? I know well when he’s ill and when he’s well. He’s troubled by something.”
“I think he is, Duchess. But as he has not spoken to me I am loath to make guesses. If there be anything, I can only guess at it.”
Then she questioned Mrs. Finn, and got an answer which, if not satisfactory, was at any rate explanatory. “I think he is uneasy about that Silverbridge affair.”
“What Silverbridge affair?”
“You know that he paid the expenses which that man Lopez says that he incurred.”
“Yes;—I know that.”
“And you know that that other man Slide has found it out, and published it all in the People’s Banner?”
“No!”
“Yes, indeed. And a whole army of accusations has been brought against him. I have never liked to tell you, and yet I do not think that you should be left in the dark.”
“Everybody deceives me,” said the Duchess angrily.
“Nay;—there has been no deceit.”
“Everybody keeps things from me. I think you will kill me among you. It was my doing. Why do they attack him? I will write to the papers. I encouraged the man after Plantagenet had determined that he should not be assisted—and, because I had done so, he paid the man his beggarly money. What is there to hurt him in that? Let me bear it. My back is broad enough.”
“The Duke is very sensitive.”
“I hate people to be sensitive. It makes them cowards. A man when he is afraid of being blamed, dares not at last even show himself, and has to be wrapped up in lamb’s wool.”
“Of course men are differently organised.”
“Yes;—but the worst of it is, that when they suffer from this weakness, which you call sensitiveness, they think that they are made of finer material than other people. Men shouldn’t be made of Sèvres china, but of good stone earthenware. However, I don’t want to abuse him, poor fellow.”
“I don’t think you ought.”
“I know what that means. You do want to abuse me. So they’ve been bullying him about the money he paid to that man Lopez. How did anybody know anything about it?”
“Lopez must have told of it,” said Mrs. Finn.
“The worst, my dear, of trying to know a great many people is, that you are sure to get hold of some that are very bad. Now that man is very bad. Yet they say he has married a nice wife.”
“That’s often the case, Duchess.”
“And the contrary;—isn’t it, my dear? But I shall have it out with Plantagenet. If I have to write letters to all the newspapers myself, I’ll put it right.” She certainly coddled her husband less than the others; and, indeed, in her heart of hearts disapproved altogether of the coddling system. But she was wont at this particular time to be somewhat tender to him because she was aware that she herself had been imprudent. Since he had discovered her interference at Silverbridge, and had made her understand its pernicious results, she had been—not, perhaps, shamefaced, for that word describes a condition to which hardly any series of misfortunes could have reduced the Duchess of Omnium—but inclined to quiescence by feelings of penitence. She was less disposed than heretofore to attack him with what the world of yesterday calls “chaff,” or with what the world of today calls “cheek.” She would not admit to herself that she was cowed;—but the greatness of the game and the high interest attached to her husband’s position did in some degree dismay her. Nevertheless she executed her purpose of “having it out with Plantagenet.” “I have just heard,” she said, having knocked at the door of his own room, and having found him alone—“I have just heard, for the first time, that there is a row about the money you paid to Mr. Lopez.”
“Who told you?”
“Nobody told me—in the usual sense of the word. I presumed that something was the matter, and then I got it out from Marie. Why had you not told me?”
“Why should I tell you?”
“But why not? If anything troubled me I should tell you. That is, if it troubled me much.”
“You take it for granted that this does trouble me much.” He was smiling as he said this, but the smile passed very quickly
