Phineas Redux

Kensington and New Brompton were a trouble to him, as he found it impossible to lay down a limit in that direction which would not exclude him from things which he fain would not exclude. There are dinners given at South Kensington which such a man as Mr. Maule cannot afford not to eat. In Park Lane he knocked at the door of a very small house⁠—a house that might almost be called tiny by comparison of its dimensions with those around it, and then asked for Madame Goesler. Madame Goesler had that morning gone into the country. Mr. Maule in his blandest manner expressed some surprise, having understood that she had not long since returned from Harrington Hall. To this the servant assented, but went on to explain that she had been in town only a day or two when she was summoned down to Matching by a telegram. It was believed, the man said, that the Duke of Omnium was poorly. “Oh! indeed;⁠—I am sorry to hear that,” said Mr. Maule, with a wry face. Then, with steps perhaps a little less careful, he walked back across the park to his club. On taking up the evening paper he at once saw a paragraph stating that the Duke of Omnium’s condition today was much the same as yesterday; but that he had passed a quiet night. That very distinguished but now aged physician, Sir Omicron Pie, was still staying at Matching Priory. “So old Omnium is going off the hooks at last,” said Mr. Maule to a club acquaintance.

The club acquaintance was in Parliament, and looked at the matter from a strictly parliamentary point of view. “Yes, indeed. It has given a deal of trouble.”

Mr. Maule was not parliamentary, and did not understand. “Why trouble⁠—except to himself? He’ll leave his Garter and strawberry-leaves, and all his acres behind him.”

“What is Gresham to do about the Exchequer when he comes in? I don’t know whom he’s to send there. They talk of Bonteen, but Bonteen hasn’t half weight enough. They’ll offer it to Monk, but Monk’ll never take office again.”

“Ah, yes. Planty Pall was Chancellor of the Exchequer. I suppose he must give that up now?”

The parliamentary acquaintance looked up at the unparliamentary man with that mingled disgust and pity which parliamentary gentlemen and ladies always entertain for those who have not devoted their minds to the constitutional forms of the country. “The Chancellor of the Exchequer can’t very well sit in the House of Lords, and Palliser can’t very well help becoming Duke of Omnium. I don’t know whether he can take the decimal coinage question with him, but I fear not. They don’t like it at all in the city.”

“I believe I’ll go and play a rubber of whist,” said Mr. Maule. He played his whist, and lost thirty points without showing the slightest displeasure, either by the tone of his voice or by any grimace of his countenance. And yet the money which passed from his hands was material to him. But he was great at such efforts as these, and he understood well the fluctuations of the whist table. The half-crowns which he had paid were only so much invested capital.

He dined at his club this evening, and joined tables with another acquaintance who was not parliamentary. Mr. Parkinson Seymour was a man much of his own stamp, who cared not one straw as to any difficulty which the Prime Minister might feel in filling the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer. There were men by dozens ready and willing, and no doubt able⁠—or at any rate, one as able as the other⁠—to manage the taxes of the country. But the blue ribbon and the Lord Lieutenancy of Barsetshire were important things⁠—which would now be in the gift of Mr. Daubeny; and Lady Glencora would at last be a duchess⁠—with much effect on Society, either good or bad. And Planty Pall would be a duke, with very much less capability, as Mr. Parkinson Seymour thought, for filling that great office, than that which the man had displayed who was now supposed to be dying at Matching. “He has been a fine old fellow,” said Mr. Parkinson Seymour.

“Very much so. There ain’t many of that stamp left.”

“I don’t know one,” continued the gentleman, with enthusiasm. “They all go in for something now, just as Jones goes in for being a bank clerk. They are politicians, or gamblers, or, by heaven, tradesmen, as some of them are. The Earl of Tydvil and Lord Merthyr are in partnership together working their own mines⁠—by the Lord, with a regular deed of partnership, just like two cheesemongers. The Marquis of Maltanops has a share in a bitter beer house at Burton. And the Duke of Discount, who married old Ballance’s daughter, and is brother-in-law to young George Advance, retains his interest in the house in Lombard Street. I know it for a fact.”

“Old Omnium was above that kind of thing,” said Mr. Maule.

“Lord bless you;⁠—quite another sort of man. There is nothing left like it now. With a princely income I don’t suppose he ever put by a shilling in his life. I’ve heard it said that he couldn’t afford to marry, living in the manner in which he chose to live. And he understood what dignity meant. None of them understand that now. Dukes are as common as dogs in the streets, and a marquis thinks no more of himself than a market-gardener. I’m very sorry the old duke should go. The nephew may be very good at figures, but he isn’t fit to fill his uncle’s shoes. As for Lady Glencora, no doubt as things go now she’s very popular, but she’s more like a dairymaid than a duchess to my way of thinking.”

There was not a club in London, and hardly a drawing-room in which something was not said that day in consequence of the two bulletins which had appeared as to the condition of the old