“Quarrelled with him! Good heavens, no.”
“Of course I know you still call him your noble colleague, and your noble friend, and make one of the same team with him and all that. But it used to be so much more than that.”
“It is still more than that;—very much more.”
“It was you who made him Prime Minister.”
“No, no, no;—and again no. He made himself Prime Minister by obtaining the confidence of the House of Commons. There is no other possible way in which a man can become Prime Minister in this country.”
“If I were not very serious at this moment, Duke, I should make an allusion to the—Marines.” No other human being could have said this to the Duke of St. Bungay, except the young woman whom he had petted all his life as Lady Glencora. “But I am very serious,” she continued, “and I may say not very happy. Of course the big wigs of a party have to settle among themselves who shall be their leader, and when this party was formed they settled, at your advice, that Plantagenet should be the man.”
“My dear Lady Glen, I cannot allow that to pass without contradiction.”
“Do not suppose that I am finding fault, or even that I am ungrateful. No one rejoiced as I rejoiced. No one still feels so much pride in it as I feel. I would have given ten years of my life to make him Prime Minister, and now I would give five to keep him so. It is like it was to be king, when men struggled among themselves who should be king. Whatever he may be, I am ambitious. I love to think that other men should look to him as being above them, and that something of this should come down upon me as his wife. I do not know whether it was not the happiest moment of my life when he told me that the Queen had sent for him.”
“It was not so with him.”
“No, Duke—no! He and I are very different. He only wants to be useful. At any rate, that was all he did want.”
“He is still the same.”
“A man cannot always be carrying a huge load up a hill without having his back bent.”
“I don’t know that the load need be so heavy, Duchess.”
“Ah, but what is the load? It is not going to the Treasury Chambers at eleven or twelve in the morning, and sitting four or five times a week in the House of Lords till seven or eight o’clock. He was never ill when he would remain in the House of Commons till two in the morning, and not have a decent dinner above twice in the week. The load I speak of isn’t work.”
“What is it then?” said the Duke, who in truth understood it all nearly as well as the Duchess herself.
“It is hard to explain, but it is very heavy.”
“Responsibility, my dear, will always be heavy.”
“But it is hardly that;—certainly not that alone. It is the feeling that so many people blame him for so many things, and the doubt in his own mind whether he may not deserve it. And then he becomes fretful, and conscious that such fretfulness is beneath him and injurious to his honour. He condemns men in his mind, and condemns himself for condescending to condemn them. He spends one quarter of an hour in thinking that as he is Prime Minister he will be Prime Minister down to his fingers’ ends, and the next in resolving that he never ought to have been Prime Minister at all.” Here something like a frown passed across the old man’s brow, which was, however, no indication, of anger. “Dear Duke,” she said, “you must not be angry with me. Who is there to whom I can speak but you?”
“Angry, my dear! No, indeed!”
“Because you looked as though you would scold me.” At this he smiled. “And of course all this tells upon his health.”
“Do you think he is ill?”
“He never says so. There is no special illness. But he is thin and wan and careworn. He does not eat and he does not sleep. Of course I watch him.”
“Does his doctor see him?”
“Never. When I asked him once to say a word to Sir James Thorax—for he was getting hoarse, you know—he only shook his head and turned on his heels. When he was in the other House, and speaking every night, he would see Thorax constantly, and do just what he was told. He used to like opening his mouth and having Sir James to look down it. But now he won’t let anyone touch him.”
“What would you have me do, Lady Glen?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you think that he is so far out of health that he ought to give it up?”
“I don’t say that. I don’t dare to say it. I don’t dare to recommend anything. No consideration of health would tell with him at all. If he were to die tomorrow as the penalty of doing something useful tonight, he wouldn’t think twice about it. If you wanted to make him stay where he is, the way to do it would be to tell him that his health was failing him. I don’t know that he does want to give up now.”
“The autumn months will do everything for him;—only let him be quiet.”
“You are coming to Matching, Duke?”
“I suppose so—if you ask me—for a week or two.”
“You must come. I am quite nervous if you desert us. I think he becomes more estranged every day from all the others. I know you won’t do a mischief by repeating what I say.”
“I hope not.”
“He seems to me to turn his nose up at everybody. He
