The Prime Minister. Anthony Trollope
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in or out quite independently of his wife.”
“You’d like him to be in office?”
“No, indeed! Why should I? He would be more often at the House, and keep later hours, and be always away all the morning into the bargain. But I shall like him to do as he likes himself.”
“Fancy thinking of all that. I’d sit up all night every night of my life.—I’d listen to every debate in the House myself,—to have Plantagenet Prime Minister. I like to be busy. Well now, if it does come off—”
“It isn’t settled, then?”
“How can one hope that a single journey will settle it, when those other men have been going backwards and forwards between Windsor and London, like buckets in a well, for the last three weeks? But if it is settled, I mean to have a cabinet of my own, and I mean that you shall do the foreign affairs.”
“You’d better let me be at the exchequer. I’m very good at accounts.”
“I’ll do that myself. The accounts that I intend to set a-going would frighten any one less audacious. And I mean to be my own home secretary, and to keep my own conscience,—and to be my own master of the ceremonies certainly. I think a small cabinet gets on best. Do you know,—I should like to put the Queen down.”
“What on earth do you mean?”
“No treason; nothing of that kind. But I should like to make Buckingham Palace second-rate; and I’m not quite sure but I can. I dare say you don’t quite understand me.”
“I don’t think that I do, Lady Glen.”
“You will some of these days. Come in tomorrow before lunch. I suppose I shall know all about it then, and shall have found that my basket of crockery has been kicked over and every thing smashed.”
Chapter VII.
Another Old Friend
At about nine the Duke had returned, and was eating his very simple dinner in the breakfast-room,—a beefsteak and a potato, with a glass of sherry and Apollinaris water. No man more easily satisfied as to what he eat and drank lived in London in those days. As regarded the eating and drinking he dined alone, but his wife sat with him and waited on him, having sent the servant out of the room. “I have told her Majesty that I would do the best I could,” said the Duke.
“Then you are Prime Minister.”
“Not at all. Mr. Daubeny is Prime Minister. I have undertaken to form a ministry, if I find it practicable, with the assistance of such friends as I possess. I never felt before that I had to lean so entirely on others as I do now.”
“Lean on yourself only. Be enough for yourself.”
“Those are empty words, Cora;—words that are quite empty. In one sense a man should always be enough for himself. He should have enough of principle and enough of conscience to restrain him from doing what he knows to be wrong. But can a shipbuilder build his ship singlehanded, or the watchmaker make his watch without assistance? On former occasions such as this, I could say, with little or no help from without, whether I would or would not undertake the work that was proposed to me, because I had only a bit of the ship to build, or a wheel of the watch to make. My own efficacy for my present task depends entirely on the cooperation of others, and unfortunately upon that of some others with whom I have no sympathy, nor have they with me.”
“Leave them out,” said the Duchess boldly.
“But they are men who will not be left out, and whose services the country has a right to expect.”
“Then bring them in, and think no more about it. It is no good crying for pain that cannot be cured.”
“Cooperation is difficult without community of feeling. I find myself to be too stubborn-hearted for the place. It was nothing to me to sit in the same Cabinet with a man I disliked when I had not put him there myself. But now—. As I have travelled up I have almost felt that I could not do it! I did not know before how much I might dislike a man.”
“Who is the one man?”
“Nay;—whoever he be, he will have to be a friend now, and therefore I will not name him, even to you. But it is not one only. If it were one, absolutely marked and recognised, I might avoid him. But my friends, real friends, are so few! Who is there besides the Duke on whom I can lean with both confidence and love?”
“Lord Cantrip.”
“Hardly so, Cora. But Lord Cantrip goes out with Mr. Gresham. They will always cling together.”
“You used to like Mr. Mildmay.”
“Mr. Mildmay,—yes! If there could be a Mr. Mildmay in the Cabinet, this trouble would not come upon my shoulders.”
“Then I’m very glad that there can’t be a Mr. Mildmay. Why shouldn’t there be as good fish in the sea as ever were caught out of it?”
“When you’ve got a good fish you like to make as much of it as you can.”
“I suppose Mr. Monk will join you.”
“I think we shall ask him. But I am not prepared to discuss men’s names as yet.”
“You must discuss them with the Duke immediately.”
“Probably;—but I had better discuss them with him before I fix my own mind by naming them even to you.”
“You’ll bring Mr. Finn in, Plantagenet?”
“Mr. Finn!”
“Yes;—Phineas Finn,—the man who was tried.”
“My dear Cora, we haven’t come down to that yet. We need not at any rate trouble ourselves about the small fishes till we are sure that we can get big fishes to join us.”
“I don’t know why he should be a small fish. No man has done better than he has; and if you want a man to stick to you—”
“I don’t want a man to stick to me. I want a man to stick to his country.”
“You were talking about sympathy.”
“Well, yes;—I was. But do not name any one else just at present. The Duke will be here soon, and I would be alone till he comes.”
“There is one thing I want to say, Plantagenet.”
“What is it?”
“One favour I want to ask.”
“Pray do not ask anything for any man just at present.”
“It is not anything for any man.”
“Nor for any woman.”
“It is for a woman,—but one whom I think you would wish to oblige.”
“Who is it?” Then she curtseyed, smiling at him drolly, and put her hand upon her breast. “Something for you! What on earth can you want that I can do for you?”
“Will you do it,—if it be reasonable?”
“If I think it reasonable, I certainly will do it.”
Then her manner changed altogether, and she became serious and almost solemn. “If, as I suppose, all the great places about her Majesty be changed, I should like to be Mistress of the Robes.”
“You!” said he, almost startled out of his usual quiet demeanour.
“Why not I? Is not my rank high enough?”
“You burden yourself with the intricacies and subserviences, with the tedium and pomposities of Court life! Cora, you do not