The Duke, however, had declined to interfere personally. He had told his wife that he should be delighted to welcome Lord and Lady Chiltern—as he would any other friends of hers. The guests, indeed, at the Duke’s house were never his guests, but always hers. But he could not allow himself to be brought into an argument with Lord Chiltern as to the management of his own property. The Duchess was made to understand that she must prevent any such awkwardness. And she did prevent it. “And now, Lord Chiltern,” she said, “how about the foxes?” She had taken care there should be a council of war around her. Lady Chiltern and Madame Goesler were present, and also Phineas Finn.
“Well;—how about them?” said the lord, showing by the fiery eagerness of his eye, and the increased redness of his face, that though the matter had been introduced somewhat jocosely, there could not really be any joke about it.
“Why couldn’t you keep it all out of the newspapers?”
“I don’t write the newspapers, Duchess. I can’t help the newspapers. When two hundred men ride through Trumpeton Wood, and see one fox found, and that fox with only three pads, of course the newspapers will say that the foxes are trapped.”
“We may have traps if we like it, Lord Chiltern.”
“Certainly;—only say so, and we shall know where we are.” He looked very angry, and poor Lady Chiltern was covered with dismay. “The Duke can destroy the hunt if he pleases, no doubt,” said the lord.
“But we don’t like traps, Lord Chiltern;—nor yet poison, nor anything that is wicked. I’d go and nurse the foxes myself if I knew how, wouldn’t I, Marie?”
“They have robbed the Duchess of her sleep for the last six months,” said Madame Goesler.
“And if they go on being not properly brought up and educated, they’ll make an old woman of me. As for the Duke, he can’t be comfortable in his arithmetic for thinking of them. But what can one do?”
“Change your keepers,” said Lord Chiltern energetically.
“It is easy to say—change your keepers. How am I to set about it? To whom can I apply to appoint others? Don’t you know what vested interests mean, Lord Chiltern?”
“Then nobody can manage his own property as he pleases?”
“Nobody can—unless he does the work himself. If I were to go and live in Trumpeton Wood I could do it; but you see I have to live here. I vote that we have an officer of State, to go in and out with the Government—with a seat in the Cabinet or not according as things go, and that we call him Foxmaster-General. It would be just the thing for Mr. Finn.”
“There would be a salary, of course,” said Phineas.
“Then I suppose that nothing can be done,” said Lord Chiltern.
“My dear Lord Chiltern, everything has been done. Vested interests have been attended to. Keepers shall prefer foxes to pheasants, wires shall be unheard of, and Trumpeton Wood shall once again be the glory of the Brake Hunt. It won’t cost the Duke above a thousand or two a year.”
“I should be very sorry indeed to put the Duke to any unnecessary expense,” said Lord Chiltern solemnly—still fearing that the Duchess was only playing with him. It made him angry that he could not imbue other people with his idea of the seriousness of the amusement of a whole county.
“Do not think of it. We have pensioned poor Mr. Fothergill, and he retires from the administration.”
“Then it’ll be all right,” said Lord Chiltern.
“I am so glad,” said his wife.
“And so the great Mr. Fothergill falls from power, and goes down into obscurity,” said Madame Goesler.
“He was an impudent old man, and that’s the truth,” said the Duchess;—“and he has always been my thorough detestation. But if you only knew what I have gone through to get rid of him—and all on account of Trumpeton Wood—you’d send me every brush taken in the Brake country during the next season.”
“Your Grace shall at any rate have one of them,” said Lord Chiltern.
On the next day Lord and Lady Chiltern went back to Harrington Hall. When the end of August comes, a Master of Hounds—who is really a master—is wanted at home. Nothing short of an embassy on behalf of the great coverts of his country would have kept this master away at present; and now, his diplomacy having succeeded, he hurried back to make the most of its results. Lady Chiltern, before she went, made a little speech to Phineas Finn.
“You’ll come to us in the winter, Mr. Finn?”
“I should like.”
“You must. No one was truer to you than we were, you know. Indeed, regarding you as we do, how should we not have been true? It was impossible to me that my old friend should have been—”
“Oh, Lady Chiltern!”
“Of course you’ll come. You owe it to us to come. And may I say this? If there be anybody to come with you, that will make it only so much the better. If it should be so, of course there will be letters written?” To this question, however, Phineas Finn made no answer.
LXXVI
Madame Goesler’s Legacy
One morning, very shortly after her return to Harrington, Lady Chiltern was told that Mr. Spooner of Spoon Hall had called, and desired to see her. She suggested that the gentleman had probably asked for her husband—who, at that moment, was enjoying his recovered supremacy in the centre of Trumpeton Wood; but she was assured that on this occasion Mr. Spooner’s mission was to herself. She had no quarrel with Mr. Spooner, and she went to him at once. After the first greeting he rushed into the subject of the great triumph. “So we’ve got rid of Mr. Fothergill, Lady Chiltern.”
“Yes; Mr. Fothergill will not, I believe, trouble us any more. He is an old man, it seems,
