The Duke had left her about two. She did not stir out of the house that day, but in the course of the afternoon she wrote a line to a friend who lived not very far from her. The Duchess dwelt in Carlton Terrace, and her friend in Park Lane. The note was as follows:—
Dear M.,
Come to me at once. I am too excited to go to you.
This was addressed to one Mrs. Finn, a lady as to whom chronicles also have been written, and who has been known to the readers of such chronicles as a friend dearly loved by the Duchess. As quickly as she could put on her carriage garments and get herself taken to Carlton Terrace, Mrs. Finn was there. “Well, my dear, how do you think it’s all settled at last?” said the Duchess. It will probably be felt that the new Prime Minister’s wife was indiscreet, and hardly worthy of the confidence placed in her by her husband. But surely we all have some one friend to whom we tell everything, and with the Duchess Mrs. Finn was that one friend.
“Is the Duke to be Prime Minister?”
“How on earth should you have guessed that?”
“What else could make you so excited? Besides, it is by no means strange. I understand that they have gone on trying the two old stagers till it is useless to try them any longer; and if there is to be a fresh man, no one would be more likely than the Duke.”
“Do you think so?”
“Certainly. Why not?”
“He has frittered away his political position by such meaningless concessions. And then he had never done anything to put himself forward—at any rate since he left the House of Commons. Perhaps I haven’t read things right—but I was surprised, very much surprised.”
“And gratified?”
“Oh yes. I can tell you everything, because you will neither misunderstand me nor tell tales of me. Yes—I shall like him to be Prime Minister, though I know that I shall have a bad time of it myself.”
“Why a bad time?”
“He is so hard to manage. Of course I don’t mean about politics. Of course it must be a mixed kind of thing at first, and I don’t care a straw whether it run to Radicalism or Toryism. The country goes on its own way, either for better or for worse, whichever of them are in. I don’t think it makes any difference as to what sort of laws are passed. But among ourselves, in our set, it makes a deal of difference who gets the garters, and the counties, who are made barons and then earls, and whose name stands at the head of everything.”
“That is your way of looking at politics?”
“I own it to you;—and I must teach it to him.”
“You never will do that, Lady Glen.”
“Never is a long word. I mean to try. For look back and tell me of any Prime Minister who has become sick of his power. They become sick of the want of power when it’s falling away from them—and then they affect to disdain and put aside the thing they can no longer enjoy. Love of power is a kind of feeling which comes to a man as he grows older.”
“Politics with the Duke have been simple patriotism,” said Mrs. Finn.
“The patriotism may remain, my dear, but not the simplicity. I don’t want him to sell his country to Germany, or to turn it into an American republic in order that he may be president. But when he gets the reins in his hands, I want him to keep them there. If he’s so much honester than other people, of course he’s the best man for the place. We must make him believe that the very existence of the country depends on his firmness.”
“To tell you the truth, Lady Glen, I don’t think you’ll ever make the Duke believe anything. What he believes, he believes either from very old habit, or from the working of his own mind.”
“You’re always singing his praises, Marie.”
“I don’t know that there is any special praise in what I say; but as far as I can see, it is the man’s character.”
“Mr. Finn will come in, of course,” said the Duchess.
“Mr. Finn will be like the Duke in one thing. He’ll take his own way as to being in or out quite independently of his wife.”
“You’d like him to be in office?”
“No, indeed! Why should I? He would be more often at the House, and keep later hours, and be always away all the morning into the bargain. But I shall like him to do as he likes himself.”
“Fancy thinking of all that. I’d sit up all night every night of my life.—I’d listen to every debate in the House myself—to have Plantagenet Prime Minister. I like to be busy. Well now, if it does come off—”
“It isn’t settled, then?”
“How can one hope that a single journey will settle it, when those other men have been going backwards and forwards between Windsor and London, like buckets in a well, for the last three weeks? But if it is settled, I mean to have a cabinet of my own, and I mean that you shall do the foreign affairs.”
“You’d better let me be at the exchequer. I’m very good at accounts.”
“I’ll do that myself. The accounts that I intend to set a-going would frighten anyone less audacious. And I mean to be my own home secretary, and to keep my own conscience—and to be my own master of the ceremonies certainly. I think a small cabinet gets on best. Do you know—I should like to put the
