THE DUCHESS'S MIND IS TROUBLED.
It is hardly possible that one man should turn another out of his house without any people knowing it, and when the one person is a Prime Minister and the other such as Major Pountney, the affair is likely to be talked about very widely.The Duke of course never opened his mouth on the subject, except in answer to questions from the Duchess; but all the servants knew it.
'Pritchard tells me you have sent that wretched man out of the house with a flea in his ear,' said the Duchess.
'I sent him out of the house, certainly.'
'He was hardly worth your anger.'
'He is not at all worth my anger;--but I could not sit down to dinner with a man who insulted me.'
'What did he say, Plantagenet? I know it was something about Silverbridge.' To this question the Duke gave no answer, but in respect to Silverbridge he was stern as adamant.Two days after the departure of the Major it was known in Silverbridge generally that in the event of there being an election the Duke's agent would not as usual suggest a nominee.There was a paragraph on the subject in the County paper, and another in the London "Evening Pulpit".The Duke of Omnium,--that he might show his respect to the law, not only as to the letter of the law, but as to the spirit also,--had made it known to his tenantry in and round Silverbridge generally that he would in no way influence their choice of candidate in the event of an election.But these newspapers did not say a word about Major Pountney.
The clubs of course knew all about it, and no man at any club ever knew more than Captain Gunner.Soon after Christmas he met his friend the Major on the steps of the new military club, The Active Service, which was declared by many men in the army to have left all the other military clubs 'absolutely nowhere'.
'Halloa, Punt!' he said, 'you seem to have made a mess of it at last down at the Duchess's.'
'I wonder what you know about it.'
'You had to come away pretty quick, I take it.'
'Of course I came away pretty quick.' So much as that the Major was aware must be known.There were details which he could deny safely, as it would be impossible that they should be supported by evidence, but there were matters which must be admitted.
'I'll bet a fiver that beyond that you know nothing about it.'
'The Duke ordered you off, I take it.'
'After a fashion he did.There are circumstances in which a man cannot help himself.' This was diplomatical because it left the Captain to suppose that the Duke was the man who could not help himself.
'Of course I was not there,' said Gunner, 'and I can't absolutely know, but I suppose you had been interfering with the Duchess about Silverbridge.Glencora will bear a great deal,--but since she has taken up politics, by George, you had better not touch her there.' At last it came to be believed that the Major had been turned out by the order of the Duchess because he had ventured to put himself forward as an opponent to Ferdinand Lopez, and the Major felt himself really grateful to his friend the Captain for this arrangement of the story.And there came at last to be mixed up with the story some half-understood innuendo that the Major's jealousy against Lopez had been of a double nature,--in reference both to the Duchess and the borough,--so that he escaped from much of that disgrace which naturally attracts itself to a man who has been kicked out of another man's house.There was a mystery;--and when there is a mystery a man should never be condemned.Where there is a woman in the case a man cannot be expected to tell the truth.As for calling out or in any punishing the Prime Minister, that of course was out of the question.And so it went on till at last the Major was almost proud of what he had done, and talked about it willingly with mysterious hints, in which practice made him perfect.
But with the Duchess the affair was very serious, so much so that she was driven to call in for advice,--not only from her constant friend, Mrs Finn, but afterwards from Barrington Erle, from Phineas Finn, and lastly even from the Duke of St Bungay, to whom she was hardly willing to subject herself, the Duke being the special friend of her husband.But the matter became so important to her that she was unable to trifle with it.At Gatherum the expulsion of Major Pountney soon became a forgotten affair.When the Duchess learned the truth she quite approved of the expulsion, only hinting to Barrington Erle that the act of kicking out should have been more absolutely practical.And the loss of Silverbridge, though it hurt her sorely, could be endured.She must write to her friend Ferdinand Lopez, when the time should come, excusing herself as best she might, and must lose the exquisite delight of making a Member of Parliament out of her own hand.The newspapers, however, had taken that matter up in the proper spirit, and political capital might to some extent be made of it.The loss of Silverbridge, though it bruised, broke no bones.But the Duke again expressed himself with unusual sternness respecting her ducal hospitalities, and had reiterated the declaration of his intention to live out the remainder of his period of office in republican simplicity.'We have tried it and it has failed, and let there be an end of it,'
he said to her.Simple and direct disobedience to such an order was as little in her way as simple or direct obedience.She knew her husband well, and knew how he could be managed and how he could not be managed.When he declared that there should be 'an end of it',--meaning an end of the very system by which she hoped to perpetuate his power,--she did not dare argue with him.
