“Then tell the truth.”
“After drinking brandy so long I hardly think that 12s. claret will agree with my stomach. You ask for the truth, and there it is—very plainly.”
“Plain enough!”
“You asked, you know.”
“And I am glad to have been told, even though that which you tell me is not pleasant hearing. When a man has been drinking too much brandy, it may be well that he should be put on a course of 12s. claret.”
“He won’t like it; and then—it’s kill or cure.”
“I don’t think you’re gone so far, Cora, that we need fear that the remedy will be fatal.”
“I am thinking of you rather than myself. I can make myself generally disagreeable, and get excitement in that way. But what will you do? It’s all very well to talk of me and the children, but you can’t bring in a Bill for reforming us. You can’t make us go by decimals. You can’t increase our consumption by lowering our taxation. I wish you had gone back to some Board.” This she said looking up into his face with an anxiety which was half real and half burlesque.
“I had made up my mind to go back to no Board—for the present. I was thinking that we could spend some months in Italy, Cora.”
“What; for the summer;—so as to be in Rome in July! After that we could utilise the winter by visiting Norway.”
“We might take Norway first.”
“And be eaten up by mosquitoes! I’ve got to be too old to like travelling.”
“What do you like, dear?”
“Nothing;—except being the Prime Minister’s wife; and upon my word there were times when I didn’t like that very much. I don’t know anything else that I’m fit for. I wonder whether Mr. Gresham would let me go to him as housekeeper? Only we should have to lend him Gatherum, or there would be no room for the display of my abilities. Is Mr. Monk in?”
“He keeps his old office.”
“And Mr. Finn?”
“I believe so; but in what place I don’t know.”
“And who else?”
“Our old friend the Duke, and Lord Cantrip, and Mr. Wilson—and Sir Gregory will be Lord Chancellor.”
“Just the old stupid Liberal team. Put their names in a bag and shake them, and you can always get a ministry. Well, Plantagenet;—I’ll go anywhere you like to take me. I’ll have something for the malaria at Rome, and something for the mosquitoes in Norway, and will make the best of it. But I don’t see why you should run away in the middle of the Session. I would stay and pitch into them, all round, like a true ex-minister and independent member of Parliament.” Then as he was leaving her she fired a last shot. “I hope you made Sir Orlando and Sir Timothy peers before you gave up.”
It was not till two days after this that she read in one of the daily papers that Sir Timothy Beeswax was to be Attorney-General, and then her patience almost deserted her. To tell the truth, her husband had not dared to mention the appointment when he first saw her after hearing it. Her explosion first fell on the head of Phineas Finn, whom she found at home with his wife, deploring the necessity which had fallen upon him of filling the fainéant office of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. “Mr. Finn,” she said, “I congratulate you on your colleagues.”
“Your Grace is very good. I was at any rate introduced to many of them under the Duke’s auspices.”
“And ought, I think, to have seen enough of them to be ashamed of them. Such a regiment to march through Coventry with!”
“I do not doubt that we shall be good enough men for any enemies we may meet.”
“It cannot but be that you should conquer all the world with such a hero among you as Sir Timothy Beeswax. The idea of Sir Timothy coming back again! What do you feel about it?”
“Very indifferent, Duchess. He won’t interfere much with me, as I have an Attorney-General of my own. You see I’m especially safe.”
“I do believe men would do anything,” said the Duchess, turning to Mrs. Finn. “Of course I mean in the way of politics! But I did not think it possible that the Duke of St. Bungay should again be in the same Government with Sir Timothy Beeswax.”
LXXIX
The Wharton Wedding
It was at last settled that the Wharton marriage should take place during the second week in June. There were various reasons for the postponement. In the first place Mary Wharton, after a few preliminary inquiries, found herself forced to declare that Messrs. Muddocks and Cramble could not send her forth equipped as she ought to be equipped for such a husband in so short a time. “Perhaps they do it quicker in London,” she said to Everett with a soft regret, remembering the metropolitan glories of her sister’s wedding. And then Arthur Fletcher could be present during the Whitsuntide holidays; and the presence of Arthur Fletcher was essential. And it was not only his presence at the altar that was needed;—Parliament was not so exacting but that he might have given that;—but it was considered by the united families to be highly desirable that he should on this occasion remain some days in the country. Emily had promised to attend the wedding, and would of course be at Wharton for at least a week. As soon as Everett had succeeded in wresting a promise from his sister, the tidings were conveyed to Fletcher. It was a great step gained. When in London she was her own mistress; but surrounded as she would be down in Herefordshire by Fletchers and Whartons, she must be stubborn indeed if she should still refuse to be taken back into the flock, and be made once more happy by marrying the man whom she confessed that she loved with her whole heart. The letter to Arthur Fletcher containing the news
