|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Prime Minister
A >> Anthony Trollope >> The Prime Minister Pages: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 This etext was prepared by KENNETH DAVID COOPER
THE PRIME MINISTER
by Anthony Trollope
TABLE OF CONTENTS
VOLUME I
1 Ferdinand Lopez
2 Everett Wharton
3 Mr Abel Wharton QC
4 Mrs Roby
5 'No one knows anything about him.'
6 An Old Friend Goes to Windsor
7 Another Old Friend
8 The Beginning of a New Career
9 Mrs Dicks' Dinner Party - No 1
10 Mrs Dicks' Dinner Party - No 2
11 Carlton Terrace
12 The Gathering of Clouds
13 Mr Wharton Complains
14 A Lover's Perseverance
15 Arthur Fletcher
16 Never Run Away!
17 Good-bye
18 The Duke of Omnium Thinks of Himself
19 Vulgarity
20 Sir Orlando's Policy
VOLUME II
21 The Duchess's New Swan
22 St James's Park
23 Surrender
24 The Marriage
25 The Beginning of the Honeymoon
26 The End of the Honeymoon
27 The Duke's Misery
28 The Duchess is Much Troubled
29 The Two Candidates for Silverbridge
30 'Yes; - a lie!'
31 'Yes; - with a horsewhip in my hand'
32 'What business is it of yours?'
33 Showing that a Man Should not Howl
34 The Silverbridge Election
35 Lopez Back in London
36 The Jolly Blackbird
37 The Horns
38 Sir Orlando Retires
39 'Get round him'
40 'Come and try it'
VOLUME III
41 The Value of a Thick Skin
42 Retribution
43 Kauri Gum
44 Mr Wharton Thinks of a New Will
45 Mrs Sexty Parker
46 'He wants to get rich too quick'
47 As for Love!
48 'Has he ill-treated you?'
49 Where is Guatemala?
50 Mr Slide's Revenge
51 Coddling the Prime Minister
52 'I can sleep here tonight, I suppose?'
53 Mr Hartlepool
54 Lizzie
55 Mrs Parker's Sorrows
56 What the Duchess Thought of Her Husband
57 The Explanation
58 'Quite settled'
59 The First and the Last
60 The Tenway Junction
VOLUME III
61 The Widow and her Friends
62 Phineas Finn Has a Book to Read
63 The Duchess and her Friend
64 The New K.G.
65 There Must Be Time
66 The End of the Session
67 Mrs Lopez Prepares to Move
68 The Prime Minister's Political Creed
69 Mrs Parker's Fate
70 At Wharton
71 The Ladies at Longbarns Doubt
72 'He thinks that our days are numbered'
73 Only the Duke of Omnium
74 'I am disgraced and shamed'
75 The Great Wharton Alliance
76 Who Will it Be?
77 The Duchess in Manchester Square
78 The New Ministry
79 The Wharton Wedding
80 The Last Meeting at Matching
The Prime Minister
VOLUME I
CHAPTER 1
FERDINAND LOPEZ.
It is a certainty of service to a man to know who were his
grandfathers and who were his grandmothers if he entertain an
ambition to move in the upper circles of society, and also of
service to be able to speak of them as of persons who were
themselves somebodies in their time. No doubt we all entertain
great respect for those who by their own energies have raised
themselves in the world; and when we hear that the son of a
washerwoman has become Lord Chancellor or Archbishop of
Canterbury we do, theoretically and abstractedly, feel a higher
reverence for such self-made magnate than for one who has been as
it were born into forensic or ecclesiastical purple. But not the
less must the offspring of the washerwoman have had very much
trouble on the subject of his birth, unless he has been, when
young as well as when old, a very great man indeed. After the
goal has been absolutely reached, and the honour and the titles
and the wealth actually won, a man may talk with some humour,
even with some affection, of the maternal tub;--but while the
struggle is going on, with the conviction strong upon the
struggler that he cannot be altogether successful unless he be
esteemed a gentleman, not to be ashamed, not to conceal the old
family circumstances, not at any rate to be silent, is difficult.
And the difficulty is certainly not less if fortunate
circumstances rather than hard work and intrinsic merit have
raised above his natural place an aspirant to high social
position. Can it be expected that such a one when dining with a
duchess shall speak of his father's small shop, or bring into the
light of day his grandfather's cobbler's awl? And yet it is so
difficult to be altogether silent! It may not be necessary for
any of us to be always talking of our own parentage. We may be
generally reticent as to our uncles and aunts, and may drop even
our brothers and sisters in our ordinary conversation. But if a
man never mentions his belongings among those with whom he lives,
he becomes mysterious, and almost open to suspicion. It begins
to be known that nobody knows anything of such a man, and even
friends become afraid. It is certainly convenient to be able to
allude, if it be but once in a year, to some blood relation.
Ferdinand Lopez, who in other respects had much in his
circumstances on which to congratulate himself, suffered trouble
in his mind respecting his ancestors such as I have endeavoured
to describe. He did not know very much himself, but what little
he did know he kept altogether to himself. He had no father or
mother, no uncle, aunt, brother or sister, no cousin even whom he
could mention in a cursory way to his dearest friend. He
suffered no doubt;--but with Spartan consistency he so hid his
trouble from the world that no one knew that he suffered. Those
with whom he lived, and who speculated often and wondered much as
to who he was never dreamed that the silent man's reticence was a
burden to himself. At no special conjuncture of his life, at no
period which could be marked with the finger of the observer, did
he glaringly abstain from any statement which at the moment might
be natural. He never hesitated, blushed, or palpably laboured at
concealment; but the fact remained that though a great many men
and not a few women knew Ferdinand Lopez very well, none of them
knew whence he had come, or what was his family.
He was a man, however, naturally reticent, who never alluded to
his own affairs unless in pursuit of some object the way to which
was clear before his eyes. Silence therefore on a matter which
is common in the mouths of most men was less difficult to him
than to another, and the result less embarrassing. Dear old
Jones, who tells his friends at the club of every pound that he
loses or wins at the races, who boasts of Mary's favours and
mourns over Lucy's coldness almost in public, who issues
bulletins on the state of his purse, his stomach, his stable, and
his debts, could not with any amount of care keep from us the
fact that his father was an attorney's clerk, and made his first
money by discounting small bills. Everybody knows it, and Jones,
who like popularity, grieves at the unfortunate publicity. But
Jones is relieved from a burden which would have broken his poor
shoulders, and which even Ferdinand Lopez, who is a strong man,
often finds it hard to bear without wincing.
It was admitted on all sides that Ferdinand Lopez was a
'gentleman'. Johnson says that any other derivation of this
difficult word than that which causes it to signify 'a man of
ancestry' is whimsical. There are many who, in defining the term
for their own use, still adhere to Johnson's dictum;--but they
adhere to it with certain unexpressed allowances for possible
exceptions. The chances are very much in favour of the well-born
man, but exceptions may exist. It was not generally believed
that Ferdinand Lopez was well born;--but he was a gentleman.
And this most precious rank was acceded to him although he was
employed,--or at least had been employed,--on business which
does not of itself give such a warrant of position as is supposed
to be afforded by the bar and the church, by the military
services and by physic. He had been on the Stock Exchange, and
still in some manner, not clearly understood by his friends, did
business in the City.
At the time with which we are now concerned Ferdinand Lopez was
thirty-three years old, and as he had begun life early he had
been long before the world. It was known of him that he had been
at a good English private school, and it was reported, on the
solitary evidence of one of who had been there as his
schoolfellow, that a rumour was current in the school that his
school bills were paid by an old gentleman who was not related to
him. Thence, at the age of seventeen, he had been sent to a
German university, and at the age of twenty-one had appeared in
London, in a stockbroker's office, where he was soon known as an
accomplished linguist, and as a very clever fellow,--precocious,
not given to many pleasures, apt for work, but considered hardly
trustworthy by employers, not as being dishonest, but as having a
taste for being a master rather than a servant. Indeed his
period of servitude was very short. It was not in his nature to
be active on behalf of others. He was soon active for himself,
and at one time it was supposed that he was making a fortune.
Then it was known that he had left his regular business, and it
was supposed that he had lost all that he had ever made or had
ever possessed. But nobody, not even his own bankers, or his own
lawyer,--not even the old woman who looked after his linen,--
ever really knew the state of his affairs.
He was certainly a handsome man,--his beauty being of a sort
which men are apt to deny and women to admit lavishly. He was
nearly six feet tall, very dark and very thin, with regular well-
cut features, indicating little to the physiognomist unless it be
the great gift of self-possession. His hair was cut short, and
he wore no beard beyond an absolutely black moustache. His teeth
were perfect, in form and in whiteness,--a characteristic which
though it may be a valued item in a general catalogue of personal
attraction, does not generally recommend a man to the unconscious
judgment of his acquaintance. But about the mouth and chin of
this man there was a something of a softness, perhaps in the play
of his lips, perhaps in the dimple, which in some degree lessened
the feeling of hardness which was produced by the square brow and
bold, unflinching, combative eyes. They who knew him and like
him were reconciled by the lower face. The greater number who
knew him and did not like him, felt and resented,--even though
in nine cases out of ten they might, express no resentment even
to themselves,--the pugnacity of his steady glance.
For he was essentially one of those men who are always, in the
inner workings of their minds, defending themselves and attacking
others. He could not give a penny to a woman at a crossing
without a look which argued at full length her injustice in
making her demand, and his freedom from all liability let him
walk the crossing as often as he might. He could not seat
himself in a railway carriage without a lesson to his opposite
neighbour that in all the mutual affairs of travelling,
arrangement of feet, disposition of bags, and opening of windows,
it would be that neighbour's duty to submit and his to exact. It
was, however, for the spirit rather than for the thing itself
that he combatted. The woman with the broom got her penny. The
opposite gentleman when once by a glance he had expressed
submission was allowed his own way with the legs and with the
window. I would not say that Ferdinand Lopez was prone to do
ill-natured things; but he was imperious, and he had learned to
carry his empire in his eye.
The reader must submit to be told one or two further and still
smaller details respecting the man, and then the man shall be
allowed to make his own way. No one of those around him knew how
much care he took to dress himself well, or how careful he was
that no one should know it. His very tailor regarded him as
being simply extravagant in the number of his coats and trousers,
and his friends looked upon him as one of those fortunate beings
to whose nature belongs a facility of being well dressed, or
almost an impossibility of being ill dressed. We all know the
man,--a little man generally, who moves seldom and softly,--who
looks always as though he had just been sent home in a bandbox.
Ferdinand Lopez was not a little man, and moved freely enough;
but never, at any moment,--going into the city or coming out of
it, on horseback or on foot, at home over his book or after the
mazes of the dance,--was he dressed otherwise than with perfect
care. Money and time did it, but folk thought that it grew with
him, as did his hair and his nails. And he always rode a horse
which charmed good judges of what a park nag should be;--not a
prancing, restless, giggling, sideway-going, useless garran, but
an animal well made, well bitted, with perfect paces, on whom a
rider if it pleased him could be as quiet as a statue in a
monument. It often did please Ferdinand Lopez to be quiet on
horseback; and yet he did not look like a statue, for it was
acknowledged through all London that he was a good horseman. He
lived luxuriously too,--though whether at his ease or not nobody
knew,--for he kept a brougham of his own, and during the hunting
season, he had two horses down at Leighton. There had once been
a belief abroad that he was ruined, but they who interest
themselves in such matters had found out,--or at any rate
believed that they had found out,--that he paid his tailor
regularly: and now there prevailed an opinion that Ferdinand
Lopez was a monied man.
It was known to some few that he occupied rooms in a flat at
Westminster,--but to very few exactly where the rooms were
situate. Among all his friends no one was known to have entered
them. In a moderate way he was given to hospitality,--that is
to infrequent but when the occasion came, to graceful
hospitality. Some club, however, or tavern perhaps, in the
summer, some river bank would be chosen as the scene of these
festivities. To a few,--if, as suggested, amidst summer flowers
on the water's edge to men and women mixed,--he would be a
courtly and efficient host; for he had the rare gift of doing
such things well.
Hunting was over, and the east wind was still blowing, and a
great portion of the London world was out of town taking its
Easter holiday, when on an unpleasant morning, Ferdinand Lopez
travelled into the city by the Metropolitan railway from
Westminster Bridge. It was his custom to go thither when he did
go,--not daily like a man of business, but as chance might
require, like a capitalist or a man of pleasure,--in his own
brougham. But on this occasion he walked down the river side,
and then walked from the Mansion House into a dingy little court
called Little Tankard Yard, near the Bank of England, and going
through a narrow dark long passage got into a little office at
the back of a building, in which there sat at a desk a greasy
gentleman with a new hat on one side of his head, who might
perhaps be about forty years old. The place was very dark, and
the man was turning over the leaves of a ledger. A stranger to
city ways might probably have said that he was idle, but he was
no doubt filling his mind with that erudition which would enable
him to earn his bread. On the other side of the desk there was a
little boy copying letters. These were Mr Sextus Parker,--
commonly called Sexty Parker,--his clerk. Mr Parker was a
gentleman very well known and at the present moment favourably
esteemed on the Stock Exchange. 'What, Lopez!' said he.
'Uncommon glad to see you. What can I do for you?'
'Just come inside,--will you?' said Lopez. Now within Mr
Parker's very small office there was a smaller office, in which
there were a safe, a small rickety Pembroke table, two chairs,
and an old washing-stand with a tumbled towel. Lopez led the way
into this sanctum as though he knew the place well, and Sexty
Parker followed him.
'Beastly day, isn't it?' said Sexty.
'Yes,--a nasty east wind.'
'Cutting one in two, with a hot sun at the same time. One ought
to hybernate at this time of the year.'
'Then why don't you hybernate?' said Lopez.
'Business is too good. That's about it. A man has to stick to
it when it does come. Everybody can't do like you;--give up
regular work, and make a better thing of an hour now and an hour
then, just as it pleases you. I shouldn't dare go in for that
kind of thing.
'I don't suppose you or any one else know what I go in for,' said
Lopez, with a look that indicated offence.
'Nor don't care,' said Sexty;--'only hope it's something good,
for your sake.' Sexty Parker had known Mr Lopez well, now for
some years, and being an overbearing man himself,--somewhat even
of a bully if the truth be spoken,--and by no means apt to give
way unless hard pressed, had often tried his 'hand' on his
friend, as he himself would have said. But I doubt whether he
could remember any instance in which he could congratulate
himself on success. He was trying his hand again now, but did it
with a faltering voice, having caught a glance of his friend's
eye.
'I dare say not,' said Lopez. Then he continued without changing
his voice or the nature of his eye. 'I'll tell you what I want
you to do now. I want your name to this bill for three months.'
Sexty Parker opened his mouth and his eyes, and took the bit of
paper that was tendered to him. It was a promissory note for 750
pounds, which, if signed by him, would at the end of the
specified period make him liable for that sum were it not
otherwise paid. His friend Mr Lopez was indeed applying to him
for the assistance of his name in raising a loan to the amount of
the sum named. This was a kind of favour which a man should ask
almost on his knees,--and which, if so asked, Mr Sextus Parker
would certainly refuse. And here was Ferdinand Lopez asking it,
who, Sextus Parker had latterly regarded as an opulent man,--and
asking it not at all on his knees, but, as one might say, at the
muzzle of a pistol. 'Accommodation bill!' said Sexty. 'Why, you
ain't hard up, are you?'
'I'm not going just at present to tell you much about my affairs,
and yet I expect you to do what I ask you. I don't suppose you
doubt my ability to raise 750 pounds.'
'Oh, dear, no,' said Sexty, who had been looked at and who had not
borne the inspection well.
'And I don't suppose you would refuse me even if I were hard up,
as you call it.' There had been affairs before between the two
men in which Lopez had probably been the stronger, and the memory
of them, added to the inspection which was still going on, was
heavy upon poor Sexty.
'Oh, dear, no;--I wasn't thinking of refusing, I suppose a
fellow may be a little surprised at such a thing.'
'I don't know why you should be surprised, as such things are
very common. I happen to have taken a share in a loan a little
beyond my immediate means, and therefore want a few hundreds.
There is no one I can ask with a better grace than you. If you
ain't--afraid about it, just sign it.'
'Oh, I ain't afraid,' said Sexty, taking his pen and writing his
name across the bill. But even before the signature was
finished, when his eye was taken away from the face of his
companion and fixed upon the disagreeable piece of paper beneath
his hand, he repented of what he was doing. He almost arrested
his signature half-way. He did hesitate, but had not pluck
enough to stop his hand. 'It does seem to be an odd
transaction all the same,' he said as he leaned back in his
chair.
'It's the commonest thing in the world,' said Lopez picking up
the bill in a leisurely way, folding it and putting it into his
pocket-book. 'Have our names never been together on a bit of
paper before?'
'When we both had something to make by it.'
'You've nothing to make and nothing to lose by this. Good day
and many thanks,--though I don't think so much of the affair as
you seem to do.' Then Ferdinand Lopez took his departure, and
Sexty Parker was left alone in bewilderment.
'By George,--that's queer,' he said to himself. 'Who'd have
thought of Lopez being hard up for a few hundred pounds? But it
must be all right. He wouldn't have come in that fashion, if it
hadn't been all right. I oughtn't to have done it though! A man
ought never to do that kind of thing,--never,--never!' And Mr
Sextus Parker was much discontented with himself, so that when he
got home that evening to the wife of his bosom and his little
family at Ponders End, he by no means made himself agreeable to
them. For that sum of 750 pounds sat upon his bosom as he ate
his supper, and lay upon his chest as he slept,--like a
nightmare.
CHAPTER 2
EVERETT WHARTON.
On that same day Lopez dined with his friend Everett Wharton at a
new club, called the Progress, of which they were both members.
The Progress was certainly a new club, having as yet been open
hardly more than three years; but still it was old enough to have
seen many of the hopes of its early youth become dim with age and
inaction. For the Progress had intended to do great things for
the Liberal Party,--or rather for political liberality in
general,--and had in truth done little or nothing. It had been
got up with considerable enthusiasm, and for a while certain
fiery politicians had believed that through the instrumentality
of this institution men of genius and spirit, and natural power,
but without wealth,--meaning always themselves,--would be
supplied with sure seats in Parliament and a probably share in
the Government. But no such results had been achieved. There
had been a want of something,--some deficiency felt but not yet
defined,--which had hitherto been fatal. The young men said it
was because no old stager who knew the way of pulling the wires
would come forward and put the club in the proper groove. The
old men said it was because the young men were pretentious
puppies. It was, however, not to be doubted that the party of
Progress had become slack, and that the Liberal politicians of
the country, although a special new club had been opened for the
furtherance of their views, were not at present making much way.
'What we want is organization,' said one of the leading young
men. But the organization was not as yet forthcoming.
The club, nevertheless, went on its way, like other clubs, and
men dined and smoked and played billiards and pretended to read.
Some few energetic members still hoped that a good day would come
in which their grand ideas might be realized,--but as regarded
the members generally, they were content to eat and drink and
play billiards. It was a fairly good club,--with a sprinkling
of Liberal lordlings, a couple of dozen of members of Parliament
who had been made to believe that they would neglect their party
duties unless they paid their money, and the usual assortment of
barristers, attorneys, city merchants, and idle men. It was good
enough, at any rate, for Ferdinand Lopez, who was particular
about his dinner, and had an opinion of his own about wines. He
had been heard to assert that, for real quiet comfort, there was
not a club in London equal to it, but his hearers were not aware
that in the past days he had been black-balled at the T and the
G. These were accidents which Lopez had a gift of keeping in
the background. His present companion, Everett Wharton, had, as
well himself, been an original member;--and Wharton had been one
of those who had hoped to find in the club a stepping-stone to
high political life, and who now talked often with idle energy of
the need for organization.
'For myself,' said Lopez, 'I can conceive no vainer object of
ambition than a seat in the British Parliament. What does any
man gain by it? The few are successful work very hard for little
pay and no thanks,--or nearly equally hard for no pay and as
little thanks. The many who fail sit idly for hours, undergoing
the weary task of listening to platitudes, and enjoy in return
the now absolutely valueless privilege of having MP written on
their letters.'
'Somebody must make the laws for the country.'
'I don't see the necessity. I think the country would do
uncommonly well if it were to know that no old law would be
altered or new law made for the next twenty years.'
'You wouldn't have repealed the corn laws?'
'There are no corn laws to repeal now.'
'Nor modify the income tax?'
'I would modify nothing. But at any rate, whether laws are to be
altered or to be left, it is a comfort to me that I need not put
my finger into that pie. There is one benefit indeed in being in
the House.'
'You can't be arrested.'
'Well;--that, as far as it goes, and one other. It assists a
man in getting a seat as the director of certain companies.
People are still such asses that they trust a Board of Directors
made up of members of Parliament, and therefore of course members
are made welcome. But if you want to get into the House, why
don't you arrange it with your father, instead of waiting for
what the club may do for you?'
'My father wouldn't pay a shilling for such a purpose. He was
never in the House himself.'
'And therefore despises it.'
'A little of that, perhaps. No man ever worked harder than he
did, or, in his way, more successfully; and having seen one after
another of his juniors become members of Parliament, while he
stuck to the attorneys, there is perhaps a little jealousy about
it.'
Pages: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60
|
|
|
|
|
|