“I don’t think he would object to me,” said the Duke, laughing.
“Of course not. He was only too glad to think you would come. But he took the request as being quite the proper thing. It will kill me if this is to be carried out. After all that I have done, I could show myself nowhere. And it will be so injurious to him! Could not you tell him, Duke? No one else in the world can tell him but you. Nothing unfair has been attempted. No job has been done. I have endeavoured to make his house pleasant to people, in order that they might look upon him with grace and favour. Is that wrong? Is that unbecoming a wife?”
The old Duke patted her on the head as though she were a little girl, and was more comforting to her than her other counsellors. He would say nothing to her husband now;—but they must both be up in London at the meeting of Parliament, and then he would tell his friend that, in his opinion, no sudden change should be made. “This husband of yours is a very peculiar man,” he said, smiling. “His honesty is not like the honesty of other men. It is more downright;—more absolutely honest; less capable of bearing even the shadow which the stain from another’s dishonesty might throw upon it. Give him credit for all that, and remember that you cannot find everything combined in the same person. He is very practical in some things, but the question is, whether he is not too scrupulous to be practical in all things.” At the close of the interview the Duchess kissed him and promised to be guided by him. The occurrences of the last few weeks had softened the Duchess much.
XXIX
The Two Candidates for Silverbridge
On his arrival in London Ferdinand Lopez found a letter waiting for him from the Duchess. This came into his hand immediately on his reaching the rooms in Belgrave Mansions, and was of course the first object of his care. “That contains my fate,” he said to his wife, putting his hand down upon the letter. He had talked to her much of the chance that had come in his way, and had shown himself to be very ambitious of the honour offered to him. She of course had sympathised with him, and was willing to think all good things both of the Duchess and of the Duke, if they would between them put her husband into Parliament. He paused a moment, still holding the letter under his hand. “You would hardly think that I should be such a coward that I don’t like to open it,” he said.
“You’ve got to do it.”
“Unless I make you do it for me,” he said, holding out the letter to her. “You will have to learn how weak I am. When I am really anxious I become like a child.”
“I do not think you are ever weak,” she said, caressing him. “If there were a thing to be done you would do it at once. But I’ll open it if you like.” Then he tore off the envelope with an air of comic importance and stood for a few minutes while he read it.
“What I first perceive is that there has been a row about it,” he said.
“A row about it! What sort of a row?”
“My dear friend the Duchess has not quite hit it off with my less dear friend the Duke.”
“She does not say so?”
“Oh dear, no! My friend the Duchess is much too discreet for that;—but I can see that it has been so.”
“Are you to be the new member? If that is arranged I don’t care a bit about the Duke and Duchess.”
“These things do not settle themselves quite so easily as that. I am not to have the seat at any rate without fighting for it. There’s the letter.”
The Duchess’s letter to her new adherent shall be given, but it must first be understood that many different ideas had passed through the writer’s mind between the writing of the letter and the order given by the Prime Minister to his wife concerning the borough. She of course became aware at once that Mr. Lopez must be informed that she could not do for him what she had suggested that she would do. But there was no necessity of writing at the instant. Mr. Grey had not yet vacated the seat, and Mr. Lopez was away on his travels. The month of January was passed in comparative quiet at the Castle, and during that time it became known at Silverbridge that the election would be open. The Duke would not even make a suggestion, and would neither express, nor feel, resentment should a member be returned altogether hostile to his Ministry. By degrees the Duchess accustomed herself to this condition of affairs, and as the consternation caused by her husband’s very imperious conduct wore off, she began to ask herself whether even yet she need quite give up the game. She could not make a Member of Parliament altogether out of her own hand, as she had once fondly hoped she might do; but still she might do something. She would in nothing disobey her husband, but if Mr. Lopez were to stand for Silverbridge, it could not but be known in the borough that Mr. Lopez was her friend. Therefore she wrote the following
