“Rattler says we shall have a majority. He and Roby are quite agreed about it. Between them they must know,” said the Prime Minister, unintentionally pleading for himself.
“They ought to know, if any men do;—but the crisis is exceptional. I suppose you think that if the second reading is lost we should resign?”
“Oh—certainly.”
“Or, after that, if the Bill be much mutilated in Committee? I don’t know that I shall personally break my own heart about the Bill. The existing difference in the suffrages is rather in accordance with my prejudices. But the country desires the measure, and I suppose we cannot consent to any such material alteration as these men suggest.” As he spoke he laid his hand on Sir Timothy’s letter.
“Mr. Monk would not hear of it,” said the Prime Minister.
“Of course not. And you and I in this measure must stick to Mr. Monk. My great, indeed my only strong desire in the matter, is to act in strict unison with you.”
“You are always good and true, Duke.”
“For my own part I shall not in the least regret to find in all this an opportunity of resigning. We have done our work, and if, as I believe, a majority of the House would again support either Gresham or Monk as the head of the entire Liberal party, I think that that arrangement would be for the welfare of the country.”
“Why should it make any difference to you? Why should you not return to the Council?”
“I should not do so;—certainly not at once; probably never. But you—who are in the very prime of your life—”
The Prime Minister did not smile now. He knit his brows and a dark shadow came across his face. “I don’t think I could do that,” he said. “Caesar could hardly have led a legion under Pompey.”
“It has been done, greatly to the service of the country, and without the slightest loss of honour or character in him who did it.”
“We need hardly talk of that, Duke. You think then that we shall fail;—fail, I mean, in the House of Commons. I do not know that failure in our House should be regarded as fatal.”
“In three cases we should fail. The loss of any material clause in Committee would be as bad as the loss of the Bill.”
“Oh, yes.”
“And then, in spite of Messrs. Rattler and Roby—who have been wrong before and may be wrong now—we may lose the second reading.”
“And the third chance against us?”
“You would not probably try to carry on the Bill with a very small majority.”
“Not with three or four.”
“Nor, I think, with six or seven. It would be useless. My own belief is that we shall never carry the Bill into Committee.”
“I have always known you to be right, Duke.”
“I think that general opinion has set in that direction, and general opinion is generally right. Having come to that conclusion I thought it best to tell you, in order that we might have our house in order.” The Duke of Omnium, who with all his haughtiness and all his reserve, was the simplest man in the world and the least apt to pretend to be that which he was not, sighed deeply when he heard this. “For my own part,” continued his elder, “I feel no regret that it should be so.”
“It is the first large measure that we have tried to carry.”
“We did not come in to carry large measures, my friend. Look back and see how many large measures Pitt carried—but he took the country safely through its most dangerous crisis.”
“What have we done?”
“Carried on the Queen’s Government prosperously for three years. Is that nothing for a minister to do? I have never been a friend of great measures, knowing that when they come fast, one after another, more is broken in the rattle than is repaired by the reform. We have done what Parliament and the country expected us to do, and to my poor judgment we have done it well.”
“I do not feel much self-satisfaction, Duke. Well;—we must see it out, and if it is as you anticipate, I shall be ready. Of course I have prepared myself for it. And if, of late, my mind has been less turned to retirement than it used to be, it has only been because I have become wedded to this measure, and have wished that it should be carried under our auspices.” Then the old Duke took his leave, and the Prime Minister was left alone to consider the announcement that had been made to him.
He had said that he had prepared himself, but, in so saying, he had hardly known himself. Hitherto, though he had been troubled by many doubts, he had still hoped. The report made to him by Mr. Rattler, backed as it had been by Mr. Roby’s assurances, had almost sufficed to give him confidence. But Mr. Rattler and Mr. Roby combined were as nothing to the Duke of St. Bungay. The Prime Minister knew now—he felt that he knew, that his days were numbered. The resignation of that lingering old bishop was not completed, and the person in whom he believed would not have the see. He had meditated the making of a peer or two, having hitherto been very cautious in that respect, but he would do nothing of the kind if called upon by the House of Commons to resign with an uncompleted measure. But his thoughts soon ran away from the present to the future. What was now to come of himself? How should he use his future life—he who as yet had not passed his forty-seventh year? He regretted much having made that apparently pretentious speech about Caesar, though he knew his old friend well enough to be sure that it would never be used against him. Who was he that he should class
