“That is a sad programme for your husband.”
“He has recuperative faculties which bring him round at last:—but I really doubt whether he was made for a politician in this country. You remember Lord Brock?”
“Dear old Brock;—of course I do. How should I not, if you remember him?”
“Young men are boys at college, rowing in boats, when women have been ever so long out in the world. He was the very model of an English statesman. He loved his country dearly, and wished her to be, as he believed her to be, first among nations. But he had no belief in perpetuating her greatness by any grand improvements. Let things take their way naturally—with a slight direction hither or thither as things might require. That was his method of ruling. He believed in men rather than measures. As long as he had loyalty around him, he could be personally happy, and quite confident as to the country. He never broke his heart because he could not carry this or that reform. What would have hurt him would have been to be worsted in personal conflict. But he could always hold his own, and he was always happy. Your man with a thin skin, a vehement ambition, a scrupulous conscience, and a sanguine desire for rapid improvement, is never a happy, and seldom a fortunate politician.”
“Mrs. Finn, you understand it all better than anyone else that I ever knew.”
“I have been watching it a long time, and of course very closely since I have been married.”
“But you have an eye trained to see it all. What a useful member you would have been in a government!”
“But I should never have had patience to sit all night upon that bench in the House of Commons. How men can do it! They mustn’t read. They can’t think because of the speaking. It doesn’t do for them to talk. I don’t believe they ever listen. It isn’t in human nature to listen hour after hour to such platitudes. I believe they fall into a habit of half-wakeful sleeping, which carries them through the hours; but even that can’t be pleasant. I look upon the Treasury Bench in July as a sort of casual-ward which we know to be necessary, but is almost too horrid to be contemplated.”
“Men do get bread and skilly there certainly; but, Mrs. Finn, we can go into the library and smoking-room.”
“Oh, yes;—and a clerk in an office can read the newspapers instead of doing his duty. But there is a certain surveillance exercised, and a certain quantity of work exacted. I have met Lords of the Treasury out at dinner on Mondays and Thursdays, but we all regard them as boys who have shirked out of school. I think upon the whole, Mr. Erle, we women have the best of it.”
“I don’t suppose you will go in for your ‘rights.’ ”
“Not by Act of Parliament, or by platform meeting. I have a great idea of a woman’s rights; but that is the way, I think, to throw them away. What do you think of the Duchess’s evenings?”
“Lady Glen is in her way as great a woman as you are;—perhaps greater, because nothing ever stops her.”
“Whereas I have scruples.”
“Her Grace has none. She has feelings and convictions which keep her straight, but no scruples. Look at her now talking to Sir Orlando Drought, a man whom she both hates and despises. I am sure she is looking forward to some happy time in which the Duke may pitch Sir Orlando overboard, and rule supreme, with me or some other subordinate leading the House of Commons simply as lieutenant. Such a time will never come, but that is her idea. But she is talking to Sir Orlando now as if she were pouring her full confidence into his ear, and Sir Orlando is believing her. Sir Orlando is in a seventh heaven, and she is measuring his credulity inch by inch.”
“She makes the place very bright.”
“And is spending an enormous deal of money,” said Barrington Erle.
“What does it matter?”
“Well, no;—if the Duke likes it. I had an idea that the Duke would not like the display of the thing. There he is. Do you see him in the corner with his brother duke? He doesn’t look as if he were happy; does he? No one would think he was the master of everything here. He has got himself hidden almost behind the screen. I’m sure he doesn’t like it.”
“He tries to like whatever she likes,” said Mrs. Finn.
As her husband was away in Ireland, Mrs. Finn was staying in the house in Carlton Gardens. The Duchess at present required so much of her time that this was found to be convenient. When, therefore, the guests on the present occasion had all gone, the Duchess and Mrs. Finn were left together. “Did you ever see anything so hopeless as he is?” said the Duchess.
“Who is hopeless?”
“Heavens and earth! Plantagenet;—who else? Is there another man in the world would come into his own house, among his own guests, and speak only to one person? And, then, think of it! Popularity is the staff on which alone Ministers can lean in this country with security.”
“Political but not social popularity.”
“You know as well as I do that the two go together. We’ve seen enough of that even in our day. What broke up Mr. Gresham’s Ministry? If he had stayed away people might have thought that he was reading blue-books, or calculating coinage, or preparing a speech. That would have been much better. But he comes in and sits for half-an-hour whispering to another duke! I hate dukes!”
“He talks to the Duke of St. Bungay because there is no one he trusts so much. A few years ago it would have been Mr. Mildmay.”
“My dear,” said the Duchess angrily, “you treat me as though I were a child.
