THE HORNS.
The first months of the session went on very much as the last session had gone.The ministry did nothing brilliant.As far as the outer world could see, they seemed to be firm enough.There was no opposing party in the House strong enough to get a vote against them on any subject.Outsiders, who only studied politics in the columns of their newspapers, imagined the Coalition to be very strong.But they who were inside, members themselves, and the club quidnuncs who were always rubbing their shoulders against members, knew better.The opposition to the Coalition was within the Coalition itself.Sir Orlando Drought had not been allowed to build his four ships, and was consequently eager in his fears that the country would be invaded by the combined forces of Germany and France, that India would be sold by those powers to Russia, that Canada would be annexed to the States, that a great independent Roman Catholic hierarchy would be established in Ireland, and that Malta and Gibraltar would be taken away from us;--all of which evils would be averted by the building of four big ships.A wet blanket of so terrible a size was in itself pernicious to the Cabinet, and heartrending to the poor Duke.But Sir Orlando could do worse even than this.As he was not to build his four ships, neither should Mr Monk be allowed to readjust the country suffrage.When the skeleton of Mr Monk's scheme was discussed in the Cabinet, Sir Orlando would not agree to it.The gentlemen, he said, who had joined the present Government with him, would never consent to a measure which would be so utterly destructive of the county's interest.If Mr Monk insisted on his measure in its proposed form, he must, with very great regret, place his resignation in the Duke's hands, and he believed that his friends would find themselves compelled to follow the same course.Then our Duke consulted the old Duke.The old Duke's advice was the same as ever.The Queen's Government was the main object.The present ministry enjoyed the support of the country, and he considered it the duty of the First Lord of the Treasury to remain at his post.The country was in no hurry, and the question of suffrages in the counties might still be delayed.
Then he added a little counsel which might be called quite private, as it was certainly intended for no other ears than those of his younger friend.'Give Sir Orlando rope enough and he'll hang himself.His own party are becoming tired of him.If you quarrel with him this session, Drummond, and Ramsden, and Beeswax, would go out with him, and the Government would be broken up; but next session you may get rid of him safely.'
'I wish it were broken up,' said the Prime Minister.
'You have your duty to do by the country and the Queen, and you mustn't regard your own wishes.Next session, let Monk be ready with his bill again,--the same measure exactly.Let Sir Orlando resign then if he will.Should he do so I doubt whether anyone would go with him.Drummond does not like him much better than do you and I do.' The poor Prime Minister was forced to obey.
The old Duke was his only trusted counsellor, and he found himself constrained by his conscience to do as that counsellor counselled him.When, however, Sir Orlando, in his place as Leader of the House, in answer to some question from a hot and disappointed Radical, averred that the whole of Her Majesty's Government had been quite in unison on this question of the country's suffrage, he was hardly able to restrain himself.'If there be a difference of opinion they must be kept in the background,' said the Duke of St Bungay.'Nothing can justify a direct falsehood,' said the Duke of Omnium.Thus it came to pass that the only real measure which the Government had in hand was one by which Phineas Finn hoped so to increase the power of Irish municipalities as to make the Home Rulers believe that a certain amount of Home Rule was being conceded to them.It was not a great measure, and poor Phineas Finn hardly believed in it.And thus the Duke's ministry came to be called the Faineants.
But the Duchess, though she had been much snubbed, still persevered.Now and again she would declare herself to be broken-hearted, and would say that things might go their own way, that she would send in her resignation, that she would retire into private life, and milk cows, that she would shake hands with no more parliamentary cads and "cadesses",--a word which her Grace condescended to coin for her own use, that she would spend the next three years in travelling about the world; and lastly, that, let there come whatever of it whatever might, Sir Orlando Drought should never again be invited into any house of which she was the mistress.This last threat, which was perhaps the most indiscreet of them all, she absolutely made good--thereby adding very greatly to her husband's difficulties.
But by the middle of June the parties at the house in Carlton Terrace were as frequent and as large as ever.Indeed it was all party with her.The Duchess possessed a pretty little villa down at Richmond, on the river, called The Horns, and gave parties there when there were none in London.She had picnics, and flower parties, and tea parties, and afternoons, and evenings, on the lawn,--till half London was always on its way to Richmond or back again.How she worked! And yet from day to day she swore that the world was ungrateful.Everybody went.She was so far successful that nobody thought of despising her parties.It was quite the thing to go to the Duchess's, whether at Richmond or in London.But people abused her and laughed at her.They said that she intrigued to get political support for her husband,--and worse than that, they said that she failed.She did not fail altogether.The world was not taken captive as she had intended.
