The Prime Minister. Anthony Trollope
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to do so in any manner that shall seem feasible. I must be off now. The Duke is to be here this evening. They had better have dinner ready for me whenever I may be able to eat it.” Then he took his departure before she could say another word.
When the Duchess was alone she took to thinking of the whole thing in a manner which they who best knew her would have thought to be very unusual with her. She already possessed all that rank and wealth could give her, and together with those good things a peculiar position of her own, of which she was proud, and which she had made her own not by her wealth or rank, but by a certain fearless energy and power of raillery which never deserted her. Many feared her and she was afraid of none, and many also loved her,—whom she also loved, for her nature was affectionate. She was happy with her children, happy with her friends, in the enjoyment of perfect health, and capable of taking an exaggerated interest in anything that might come uppermost for the moment. One would have been inclined to say that politics were altogether unnecessary to her, and that as Duchess of Omnium, lately known as Lady Glencora Palliser, she had a wider and a pleasanter influence than could belong to any woman as wife of a Prime Minister. And she was essentially one of those women who are not contented to be known simply as the wives of their husbands. She had a celebrity of her own, quite independent of his position, and which could not be enhanced by any glory or any power added to him. Nevertheless, when he left her to go down to the Queen with the prospect of being called upon to act as chief of the incoming ministry, her heart throbbed with excitement. It had come at last, and he would be, to her thinking, the leading man in the greatest kingdom in the world.
But she felt in regard to him somewhat as did Lady Macbeth towards her lord.
“What thou would’st highly,
That would’st thou holily.”
She knew him to be full of scruples, unable to bend when aught was to be got by bending, unwilling to domineer when men might be brought to subjection only by domination. The first duty never could be taught to him. To win support by smiles when his heart was bitter within him would never be within the power of her husband. He could never be brought to buy an enemy by political gifts,—would never be prone to silence his keenest opponent by making him his right hand supporter. But the other lesson was easier and might she thought be learned. Power is so pleasant that men quickly learn to be greedy in the enjoyment of it, and to flatter themselves that patriotism requires them to be imperious. She would be constant with him day and night to make him understand that his duty to his country required him to be in very truth its chief ruler. And then with some knowledge of things as they are,—and also with much ignorance,—she reflected that he had at his command a means of obtaining popularity and securing power, which had not belonged to his immediate predecessors, and had perhaps never to the same extent been at the command of any minister in England. His wealth as Duke of Omnium had been great; but hers, as available for immediate purposes, had been greater even than his. After some fashion, of which she was profoundly ignorant, her own property was separated from his and reserved to herself and her children. Since her marriage she had never said a word to him about her money,—unless it were to ask that something out of the common course might be spent on some, generally absurd, object. But now had come the time for squandering money. She was not only rich but she had a popularity that was exclusively her own. The new Prime Minister and the new Prime Minister’s wife should entertain after a fashion that had never yet been known even among the nobility of England. Both in town and country those great mansions should be kept open which were now rarely much used because she had found them dull, cold, and comfortless. In London there should not be a Member of Parliament whom she would not herself know and influence by her flattery and grace,—or if there were men whom she could not influence, they should live as men tabooed and unfortunate. Money mattered nothing. Their income was enormous, and for a series of years,—for half-a-dozen years if the game could be kept up so long,—they could spend treble what they called their income without real injury to their children. Visions passed through her brain of wondrous things which might be done,—if only her husband would be true to his own greatness.
The Duke had left her about two. She did not stir out of the house that day, but in the course of the afternoon she wrote a line to a friend who lived not very far from her. The Duchess dwelt in Carlton Terrace, and her friend in Park Lane. The note was as follows:—
Dear M.,
Come to me at once. I am too excited to go to you.
Yours,
G.
This was addressed to one Mrs. Finn, a lady as to whom chronicles also have been written, and who has been known to the readers of such chronicles as a friend dearly loved by the Duchess. As quickly as she could put on her carriage garments and get herself taken to Carlton Terrace, Mrs. Finn was there. “Well, my dear, how do you think it’s all settled at last?” said the Duchess. It will probably be felt that the new Prime Minister’s wife was indiscreet, and hardly worthy of the confidence placed in her by her husband. But surely we all have some one friend to whom we tell everything, and with the Duchess Mrs. Finn was that one friend.
“Is the Duke to be Prime Minister?”
“How on earth should you have guessed that?”
“What else could make you so excited? Besides, it is by no means strange. I understand that they have gone on trying the two old stagers till it is useless to try them any longer; and if there is to be a fresh man, no one would be more likely than the Duke.”
“Do you think so?”
“Certainly. Why not?”
“He has frittered away his political position by such meaningless concessions. And then he had never done anything to put himself forward,—at any rate since he left the House of Commons. Perhaps I haven’t read things right,—but I was surprised, very much surprised.”
“And gratified?”
“Oh yes. I can tell you everything, because you will neither misunderstand me nor tell tales of me. Yes,—I shall like him to be Prime Minister, though I know that I shall have a bad time of it myself.”
“Why a bad time?”
“He is so hard to manage. Of course I don’t mean about politics. Of course it must be a mixed kind of thing at first, and I don’t care a straw whether it run to Radicalism or Toryism. The country goes on its own way, either for better or for worse, whichever of them are in. I don’t think it makes any difference as to what sort of laws are passed. But among ourselves, in our set, it makes a deal of difference who gets the garters, and the counties, who are made barons and then earls, and whose name stands at the head of everything.”
“That is your way of looking at politics?”
“I own it to you;—and I must teach it to him.”
“You never will do that, Lady Glen.”
“Never is a long word. I mean to try. For look back and tell me of any Prime Minister who has become sick of his power. They become sick of the want of power when it’s falling away from them,—and then they affect to disdain and put aside the thing they can no longer enjoy. Love of power is a kind of feeling which comes to a man as he grows older.”
“Politics with the Duke have been simple patriotism,” said Mrs. Finn.
“The patriotism may remain, my dear, but not the simplicity. I don’t want him to sell his country to Germany, or to turn it into an American republic in order that he may be president. But when he gets the reins in his hands, I want him to keep them there. If he’s so much honester than other people, of course he’s the best man for the place. We must make him believe that the very existence of the country depends on his firmness.”
“To tell you the truth, Lady Glen, I don’t think you’ll ever make the Duke believe anything. What he believes, he believes either from very old habit, or from the working of his own mind.”
“You’re always singing his praises, Marie.”
“I don’t know that there is any special praise in what