Once Again in Portman Square

On the Wednesday in Easter week Lord Brentford and Lady Laura Kennedy reached Portman Square from Dresden, and Phineas, who had remained in town, was summoned thither by a note written at Dover. "We arrived here to-day, and shall be in town to-morrow afternoon, between four and five. Papa wants to see you especially. Can you manage to be with us in the Square at about eight? I know it will be inconvenient, but you will put up with inconvenience. I don't like to keep Papa up late; and if he is tired he won't speak to you as he would if you came early.--L. K." Phineas was engaged to dine with Lord Cantrip; but he wrote to excuse himself,--telling the simple truth. He had been asked to see Lord Brentford on business, and must obey the summons.

He was shown into a sitting-room on the ground floor, which he had always known as the Earl's own room, and there he found Lord Brentford alone. The last time he had been there he had come to plead with the Earl on behalf of Lord Chiltern, and the Earl had then been a stern self-willed man, vigorous from a sense of power, and very able to maintain and to express his own feelings. Now he was a broken-down old man,--whose mind had been, as it were, unbooted and put into moral slippers for the remainder of its term of existence upon earth. He half shuffled up out of his chair as Phineas came up to him, and spoke as though every calamity in the world were oppressing him. "Such a pa.s.sage! Oh, very bad, indeed! I thought it would have been the death of me. Laura thought it better to come on."

The fact, however, had been that the Earl had so many objections to staying at Calais, that his daughter had felt herself obliged to yield to him.

"You must be glad at any rate to have got home," said Phineas.

"Home! I don't know what you call home. I don't suppose I shall ever feel any place to be home again."

"You'll go to Saulsby;--will you not?"

"How can I tell? If Chiltern would have kept the house up, of course I should have gone there. But he never would do anything like anybody else. Violet wants me to go to that place they've got there, but I shan't do that."

"It's a comfortable house."

"I hate horses and dogs, and I won't go."

There was nothing more to be said on that point. "I hope Lady Laura is well."

"No, she's not. How should she be well? She's anything but well.

She'll be in directly, but she thought I ought to see you first. I suppose this wretched man is really mad."

"I am told so."

"He never was anything else since I knew him. What are we to do now?

Forster says it won't look well to ask for a separation only because he's insane. He tried to shoot you?"

"And very nearly succeeded."

"Forster says that if we do anything, all that must come out."

"There need not be the slightest hesitation as far as I am concerned, Lord Brentford."

"You know he keeps all her money."

"At present I suppose he couldn't give it up."

"Why not? Why shouldn't he give it up? G.o.d bless my soul! Forty thousand pounds and all for nothing. When he married he declared that he didn't care about it! Money was nothing to him! So she lent it to Chiltern."

"I remember."

"But they hadn't been together a year before he asked for it. Now there it is;--and if she were to die to-morrow it would be lost to the family. Something must be done, you know. I can't let her money go in that way."

"You'll do what Mr. Forster suggests, no doubt."

"But he won't suggest anything. They never do. He doesn't care what becomes of the money. It never ought to have been given up as it was."

"It was settled, I suppose."

"Yes;--if there were children. And it will come back to her if he dies first. But mad people never do die. That's a well-known fact.

They've nothing to trouble them, and they live for ever. It'll all go to some cousin of his that n.o.body ever saw."

"Not as long as Lady Laura lives."

"But she does not get a penny of the income;--not a penny. There never was anything so cruel. He has published all manner of accusations against her."

"n.o.body believes a word of that, my lord."

"And then when she is dragged forward by the necessity of vindicating her character, he goes mad and keeps all her money! There never was anything so cruel since the world began."

This continued for half-an-hour, and then Lady Laura came in. Nothing had come, or could have come, from the consultation with the Earl.

Had it gone on for another hour, he would simply have continued to grumble, and have persevered in insisting upon the hardships he endured. Lady Laura was in black, and looked sad, and old, and careworn; but she did not seem to be ill. Phineas could not but think at the moment how entirely her youth had pa.s.sed away from her. She came and sat close by him, and began at once to speak of the late debate. "Of course they'll go out," she said.

"I presume they will."

"And our party will come in."

"Oh, yes;--Mr. Gresham, and the two dukes, and Lord Cantrip,--with Legge Wilson, Sir Harry Coldfoot, and the rest of them."

"And you?"

Phineas smiled, and tried to smile pleasantly, as he answered, "I don't know that they'll put themselves out by doing very much for me."

"They'll do something."

"I fancy not. Indeed, Lady Laura, to tell the truth at once, I know that they don't mean to offer me anything."

"After making you give up your place in Ireland?"

"They didn't make me give it up. I should never dream of using such an argument to any one. Of course I had to judge for myself. There is nothing to be said about it;--only it is so." As he told her this he strove to look light-hearted, and so to speak that she should not see the depth of his disappointment;--but he failed altogether. She knew him too well not to read his whole heart in the matter.

"Who has said it?" she asked.

"n.o.body says things of that kind, and yet one knows."

"And why is it?"

"How can I say? There are various reasons,--and, perhaps, very good reasons. What I did before makes men think that they can't depend on me. At any rate it is so."

"Shall you not speak to Mr. Gresham?"

"Certainly not."

"What do you say, Papa?"

"How can I understand it, my dear? There used to be a kind of honour in these things, but that's all old-fashioned now. Ministers used to think of their political friends; but in these days they only regard their political enemies. If you can make a Minister afraid of you, then it becomes worth his while to buy you up. Most of the young men rise now by making themselves thoroughly disagreeable. Abuse a Minister every night for half a session, and you may be sure to be in office the other half,--if you care about it."