Endymion - Benjamin Disraeli
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"I wish Endymion had married," replied Myra.
"Well; I do not see how that would help affairs," said Lady Montfort.
"Besides, I dislike married men. They are very uninteresting."
"I mean, I wish," said Lady Roehampton musingly, "that he had made a
great match."
"That is not very easy," said Lady Montfort, "and great matches
are generally failures. All the married heiresses I have known have
shipwrecked."
"And yet it is possible to marry an heiress and love her," said Myra.
"It is possible, but very improbable."
"I think one might easily love the person who has just left the room."
"Miss Neuchatel?"
"Adriana. Do not you agree with me?"
"Miss Neuchatel will never marry," said Lady Montfort, "unless she loses
her fortune."
"Well; do you know, I have sometimes thought that she liked Endymion?
I never could encourage such a feeling; and Endymion, I am sure, would
not. I wish, I almost wish," added Lady Roehampton, trying to speak
with playfulness, "that you would use your magic influence, dear Lady
Montfort, and bring it about. He would soon get into parliament then."
"I have tried to marry Miss Neuchatel once," said Lady Montfort, with a
mantling cheek, "and I am glad to say I did not succeed. My match-making
is over."
There was a dead silence; one of those still moments which almost seem
inconsistent with life, certainly with the presence of more than one
human being. Lady Roehampton seemed buried in deep thought. She was
quite abstracted, her eyes fixed, and fixed upon the ground. All the
history of her life passed through her brain--all the history of their
lives; from the nursery to this proud moment, proud even with all its
searching anxiety. And yet the period of silence could be counted almost
by seconds. Suddenly she looked up with a flushed cheek and a dazed
look, and said, "It must be done."
Lady Montfort sprang forward with a glance radiant with hope and energy,
and kissed her on both cheeks. "Dearest Lady Roehampton," she exclaimed,
"dearest Myra! I knew you would agree with me. Yes! it must be done."
"You will see him perhaps before I do?" inquired Myra rather
hesitatingly.
"I see him every day at the same time," replied Lady Montfort. "He
generally walks down to the House of Commons with Mr. Wilton, and when
they have answered questions, and he has got all the news of the lobby,
he comes to me. I always manage to get home from my drive to give him
half an hour before dinner."
CHAPTER LXVI
Lady Montfort drove off to the private residence of the Secretary of
the Treasury, who was of course in the great secret. She looked over his
lists, examined his books, and seemed to have as much acquaintance with
electioneering details as that wily and experienced gentleman himself.
"Is there anything I can do?" she repeatedly inquired; "command me
without compunction. Is it any use giving any parties? Can I write any
letters? Can I see anybody?"
"If you could stir up my lord a little?" said the secretary inquiringly.
"Well, that is difficult," said Lady Montfort, "perhaps impossible. But
you have all his influence, and when there is a point that presses you
must let me know."
"If he would only speak to his agents?" said the secretary, "but they
say he will not, and he has a terrible fellow in ----shire, who I hear
is one of the stewards for a dinner to Sir Robert."
"I have stopped all that," said Lady Montfort. "That was Odo's doing,
who is himself not very sound; full of prejudices about O'Connell, and
all that stuff. But he must go with his party. You need not fear about
him."
"Well! it is a leap in the dark," said the secretary.
"Oh! no," said Lady Montfort, "all will go right. A starving people must
be in favour of a government who will give them bread for nothing. By
the by, there is one thing, my dear Mr. Secretary, you must remember. I
must have one seat, a certain seat, reserved for my nomination."
"A certain seat in these days is a rare gem," said the secretary.
"Yes, but I must have it nevertheless," said Lady Montfort. "I don't
care about the cost or the trouble--but it must be certain."
Then she went home and wrote a line to Endymion, to tell him that it was
all settled, that she had seen his sister, who agreed with her that it
must be done, and that she had called on the Secretary of the Treasury,
and had secured a certain seat. "I wish you could come to luncheon," she
added, "but I suppose that is impossible; you are always so busy. Why
were you not in the Foreign Office? I am now going to call on the Tory
women to see how they look, but I shall be at home a good while before
seven, and of course count on seeing you."
In the meantime, Endymion by no means shared the pleasurable excitement
of his fair friend. His was an agitated walk from the Albany to
Whitehall, where he resumed his duties moody and disquieted. There was a
large correspondence this morning, which was a distraction and a relief,
until the bell of Mr. Sidney Wilton sounded, and he was in attendance on
his chief.
"It is a great secret," said Mr. Wilton, "but I think I ought to tell
you; instead of resigning, the government have decided to dissolve. I
think it a mistake, but I stand by my friends. They believe the Irish
vote will be very large, and with cheap bread will carry us through.
I think the stronger we shall be in Ireland the weaker we shall be in
England, and I doubt whether our cheap bread will be cheap enough. These
Manchester associations have altered the aspect of affairs. I have been
thinking a good deal about your position. I should like, before we broke
up, to have seen you provided for by some permanent office of importance
in which you might have been useful to the state, but it is difficult to
manage these things suddenly. However, now we have time at any rate to
look about us. Still, if I could have seen you permanently attached
to this office in a responsible position, I should have been glad. I
impressed upon the chief yesterday that you are most fit for it."
"Oh! do not think of me, dear sir; you have been always too kind to me.
I shall be content with my lot. All I shall regret is ceasing to serve
you."
Lady Montfort's carriage drove up to Montfort House just as Endymion
reached the door. She took his arm with eagerness; she seemed breathless
with excitement. "I fear I am very late, but if you had gone away I
should never have pardoned you. I have been kept by listening to all the
new appointments from Lady Bellasyse. They quite think we are out; you
may be sure I did not deny it. I have so much to tell you. Come into my
lord's room; he is away fishing. Think of fishing at such a crisis! I
cannot tell you how pleased I was with my visit to Lady Roehampton. She
quite agreed with me in everything. 'It must be done,' she said. How
every right! and I have almost done it. I will have a certain seat; no
chances. Let us have something to fall back upon. If not in office we
shall be in opposition. All men must sometime or other be in opposition.
There you will form yourself. It is a great thing to have had some
official experience. It will save you from mares' nests, and I will give
parties without end, and never rest till I see you prime minister."
So she threw herself into her husband's easy chair, tossed her parasol
on the table, and then she said, "But what is the matter with you,
Endymion? you look quite sad. You do not mean you really take our
defeat--which is not certain yet--so much to heart. Believe me,
opposition has its charms; indeed, I sometimes think the principal
reason why I have enjoyed our ministerial life so much is, that it has
been from the first a perpetual struggle for existence."
"I do not pretend to be quite indifferent to the probably impending
change," said Endymion, "but I cannot say there is anything about it
which would affect my feelings very deeply."
"What is it, then?"
"It is this business about which you and Myra are so kindly interesting
yourselves," said Endymion with some emotion; "I do not think I could go
into parliament."
"Not go into parliament!" exclaimed Lady Montfort. "Why, what are men
made for except to go into parliament? I am indeed astounded."
"I do not disparage parliament," said Endymion; "much the reverse. It
is a life that I think would suit me, and I have often thought the day
might come"----
"The day has come," said Lady Montfort, "and not a bit too soon. Mr. Fox
went in before he was of age, and all young men of spirit should do the
same. Why! you are two-and-twenty!"
"It is not my age," said Endymion hesitatingly; "I am not afraid about
that, for from the life which I have led of late years, I know a good
deal about the House of Commons."
"Then what is it, dear Endymion?" said Lady Montfort impatiently.
"It will make a great change in my life," said Endymion calmly, but with
earnestness, "and one which I do not feel justified in accepting."
"I repeat to you, that you need give yourself no anxiety about the
seat," said Lady Montfort. "It will not cost you a shilling. I and your
sister have arranged all that. As she very wisely said, 'It must be
done,' and it is done. All you have to do is to write an address, and
make plenty of speeches, and you are M.P. for life, or as long as you
like."
"Possibly; a parliamentary adventurer, I might swim or I might sink; the
chances are it would be the latter, for storms would arise, when those
disappear who have no root in the country, and no fortune to secure them
breathing time and a future."
"Well, I did not expect, when you handed me out of my carriage to-day,
that I was going to listen to a homily on prudence."
"It is not very romantic, I own," said Endymion, "but my prudence is
at any rate not a commonplace caught up from copy-books. I am only
two-and-twenty, but I have had some experience, and it has been very
bitter. I have spoken to you, dearest lady, sometimes of my earlier
life, for I wished you to be acquainted with it, but I observed also you
always seemed to shrink from such confidence, and I ceased from touching
on what I saw did not interest you."
"Quite a mistake. It greatly interested me. I know all about you and
everything. I know you were not always a clerk in a public office, but
the spoiled child of splendour. I know your father was a dear good man,
but he made a mistake, and followed the Duke of Wellington instead of
Mr. Canning. Had he not, he would probably be alive now, and certainly
Secretary of State, like Mr. Sidney Wilton. But _you_ must not make a
mistake, Endymion. My business in life, and your sister's too, is to
prevent your making mistakes. And you are on the eve of making a very
great one if you lose this golden opportunity. Do not think of the past;
you dwell on it too much. Be like me, live in the present, and when you
dream, dream of the future."
"Ah! the present would be adequate, it would be fascination, if I always
had such a companion as Lady Montfort," said Endymion, shaking his head.
"What surprises me most, what indeed astounds me, is that Myra should
join in this counsel--Myra, who knows all, and who has felt it perhaps
deeper even than I did. But I will not obtrude these thoughts on
you, best and dearest of friends. I ought not to have made to you the
allusions to my private position which I have done, but it seemed to me
the only way to explain my conduct, otherwise inexplicable."
"And to whom ought you to say these things if not to me," said Lady
Montfort, "whom you called just now your best and dearest friend? I wish
to be such to you. Perhaps I have been too eager, but, at any rate, it
was eagerness for your welfare. Let us then be calm. Speak to me as
you would to Myra. I cannot be your twin, but I can be your sister in
feeling."
He took her hand and gently pressed it to his lips; his eyes would have
been bedewed, had not the dreadful sorrows and trials of his life much
checked his native susceptibility. Then speaking in a serious tone,
he said, "I am not without ambition, dearest Lady Montfort; I have had
visions which would satisfy even you; but partly from my temperament,
still more perhaps from the vicissitudes of my life, I have considerable
waiting powers. I think if one is patient and watches, all will come of
which one is capable; but no one can be patient who is not independent.
My wants are moderate, but their fulfilment must be certain. The
break-up of the government, which deprives me of my salary as a private
secretary, deprives me of luxuries which I can do without--a horse,
a brougham, a stall at the play, a flower in my button-hole--but my
clerkship is my freehold. As long as I possess it, I can study, I can
work, I can watch and comprehend all the machinery of government. I can
move in society, without which a public man, whatever his talents or
acquirements, is in life playing at blind-man's buff. I must sacrifice
this citadel of my life if I go into parliament. Do not be offended,
therefore, if I say to you, as I shall say to Myra, I have made up my
mind not to surrender it. It is true I have the misfortune to be a year
older than Charles Fox when he entered the senate, but even with this
great disadvantage I am sometimes conceited enough to believe that I
shall succeed, and to back myself against the field."
CHAPTER LXVII
Mr. Waldershare was delighted when the great secret was out, and he
found that the ministry intended to dissolve, and not resign. It was on
a Monday that Lord John Russell made this announcement, and Waldershare
met Endymion in the lobby of the House of Commons. "I congratulate you,
my dear boy; your fellows, at least, have pluck. If they lose, which I
think they will, they will have gained at least three months of power,
and irresponsible power. Why! they may do anything in the interval, and
no doubt will. You will see; they will make their chargers consuls. It
beats the Bed-Chamber Plot, and I always admired that. One hundred days!
Why, the Second Empire lasted only one hundred days. But what days! what
excitement! They were worth a hundred years at Elba."
"Your friends do not seem quite so pleased as you are," said Endymion.
"My friends, as you call them, are old fogies, and want to divide the
spoil among the ancient hands. It will be a great thing for Peel to get
rid of some of these old friends. A dissolution permits the powerful to
show their power. There is Beaumaris, for example; now he will have an
opportunity of letting them know who Lord Beaumaris is. I have a dream;
he must be Master of the Horse. I shall never rest till I see Imogene
riding in that golden coach, and breaking the line with all the honours
of royalty."
"Mr. Ferrars," said the editor of a newspaper, seizing his watched-for
opportunity as Waldershare and Endymion separated, "do you think you
could favour me this evening with Mr. Sidney Wilton's address? We have
always supported Mr. Wilton's views on the corn laws, and if put clearly
and powerfully before the country at this junction, the effect might be
great, perhaps even, if sustained, decisive."
Eight-and-forty hours and more had elapsed since the conversation
between Endymion and Lady Montfort; they had not been happy days. For
the first time during their acquaintance there had been constraint and
embarrassment between them. Lady Montfort no longer opposed his views,
but she did not approve them. She avoided the subject; she looked
uninterested in all that was going on around her; talked of joining her
lord and going a-fishing; felt he was right in his views of life. "Dear
Simon was always right," and then she sighed, and then she shrugged
her pretty shoulders. Endymion, though he called on her as usual, found
there was nothing to converse about; politics seemed tacitly forbidden,
and when he attempted small talk Lady Montfort seemed absent--and once
absolutely yawned.
What amazed Endymion still more was, that, under these rather
distressing circumstances, he did not find adequate support and sympathy
in his sister. Lady Roehampton did not question the propriety of his
decision, but she seemed quite as unhappy and as dissatisfied as Lady
Montfort.
"What you say, dearest Endymion, is quite unanswerable, and I alone
perhaps can really know that; but what I feel is, I have failed in life.
My dream was to secure you greatness, and now, when the first occasion
arrives, it seems I am more than powerless."
"Dearest sister! you have done so much for me."
"Nothing," said Lady Roehampton; "what I have done for you would have
been done by every sister in this metropolis. I dreamed of other things;
I fancied, with my affection and my will, I could command events, and
place you on a pinnacle. I see my folly now; others have controlled your
life, not I--as was most natural; natural, but still bitter."
"Dearest Myra!"
"It is so, Endymion. Let us deceive ourselves no longer. I ought not
to have rested until you were in a position which would have made you a
master of your destiny."
"But if there should be such a thing as destiny, it will not submit to
the mastery of man."
"Do not split words with me; you know what I mean; you feel what I mean;
I mean much more than I say, and you understand much more than I say. My
lord told me to ask you to dine with us, if you called, but I will not
ask you. There is no joy in meeting at present. I feel as I felt in our
last year at Hurstley."
"Oh! don't say that, dear Myra!" and Endymion sprang forward and kissed
her very much. "Trust me; all will come right; a little patience, and
all will come right."
"I have had patience enough in life," said Lady Roehampton; "years of
patience, the most doleful, the most dreary, the most dark and tragical.
And I bore it all, and I bore it well, because I thought of you, and
had confidence in you, and confidence in your star; and because, like
an idiot, I had schooled myself to believe that, if I devoted my will to
you, that star would triumph."
So, the reader will see, that our hero was not in a very serene and
genial mood when he was buttonholed by the editor in the lobby, and, it
is feared, he was unusually curt with that gentleman, which editors do
not like, and sometimes reward with a leading article in consequence,
on the character and career of our political chief, perhaps with some
passing reference to jacks-in-office, and the superficial impertinence
of private secretaries. These wise and amiable speculators on public
affairs should, however, sometimes charitably remember that even
ministers have their chagrins, and that the trained temper and
imperturbable presence of mind of their aides-de-camp are not absolutely
proof to all the infirmities of human nature.
Endymion had returned home from the lobby, depressed and dispirited. The
last incident of our life shapes and colours our feelings. Ever since
he had settled in London, his life might be said to have been happy,
gradually and greatly prosperous. The devotion of his sister and the
eminent position she had achieved, the friendship of Lady Montfort, and
the kindness of society, who had received him with open arms, his easy
circumstances after painful narrowness of means, his honourable and
interesting position--these had been the chief among many other causes
which had justly rendered Endymion Ferrars a satisfied and contented
man. And it was more than to be hoped that not one of these sources
would be wanting in his future. And yet he felt dejected, even to
unhappiness. Myra figured to his painful consciousness only as deeply
wounded in her feelings, and he somehow the cause; Lady Montfort, from
whom he had never received anything but smiles and inspiring kindness,
and witty raillery, and affectionate solicitude for his welfare,
offended and estranged. And as for society, perhaps it would make
a great difference in his position if he were no longer a private
secretary to a cabinet minister and only a simple clerk; he could not,
even at this melancholy moment, dwell on his impending loss of income,
though that increase at the time had occasioned him, and those who loved
him, so much satisfaction. And yet was he in fault? Had his decision
been a narrow-minded and craven one? He could not bring himself to
believe so--his conscience assured him that he had acted rightly. After
all that he had experienced, he was prepared to welcome an obscure, but
could not endure a humiliating position.
It was a long summer evening. The House had not sat after the
announcement of the ministers. The twilight lingered with a charm almost
as irresistible as among woods and waters. Endymion had been engaged
to dine out, but had excused himself. Had it not been for the Montfort
misunderstanding, he would have gone; but that haunted him. He had not
called on her that day; he really had not courage to meet her. He was
beginning to think that he might never see her again; never, certainly,
on the same terms. She had the reputation of being capricious, though
she had been constant in her kindness to him. Never see her again, or
only see her changed! He was not aware of the fulness of his misery
before; he was not aware, until this moment, that unless he saw her
every day life would be intolerable.
He sat down at his table, covered with notes in every female handwriting
except the right one, and with cards of invitation to banquets and balls
and concerts, and "very earlies," and carpet dances--for our friend
was a very fashionable young man--but what is the use of even being
fashionable, if the person you love cares for you no more? And so out of
very wantonness, instead of opening notes sealed or stamped with every
form of coronet, he took up a business-like epistle, closed only with
a wafer, and saying in drollery, "I should think a dun," he took out a
script receipt for 20,000 pounds consols, purchased that morning in
the name of Endymion Ferrars, Esq. It was enclosed in half a sheet of
note-paper, on which were written these words, in a handwriting which
gave no clue of acquaintanceship, or even sex: "Mind--you are to send me
your first frank."
CHAPTER LXVIII
It was useless to ask who could it be? It could only be one person; and
yet how could it have been managed? So completely and so promptly! Her
lord, too, away; the only being, it would seem, who could have effected
for her such a purpose, and he the last individual to whom, perhaps, she
would have applied. Was it a dream? The long twilight was dying away,
and it dies away in the Albany a little sooner than it does in Park
Lane; and so he lit the candles on his mantel-piece, and then again
unfolded the document carefully, and read it and re-read it. It was not
a dream. He held in his hand firmly, and read with his eyes clearly,
the evidence that he was the uncontrolled master of no slight amount of
capital, and which, if treated with prudence, secured to him for life an
absolute and becoming independence. His heart beat and his cheek glowed.
What a woman! And how true were Myra's last words at Hurstley, that
women would be his best friends in life! He ceased to think; and,
dropping into his chair, fell into a reverie, in which the past and
the future seemed to blend, with some mingling of a vague and almost
ecstatic present. It was a dream of fair women, and even fairer
thoughts, domestic tenderness and romantic love, mixed up with strange
vicissitudes of lofty and fiery action, and passionate passages of
eloquence and power. The clock struck and roused him from his musing.
He fell from the clouds. Could he accept this boon? Was his doing so
consistent with that principle of independence on which he had resolved
to build up his life? The boon thus conferred might be recalled and
returned; not legally indeed, but by a stronger influence than any
law--the consciousness on his part that the feeling of interest in his
life which had prompted it might change--would, must change. It was the
romantic impulse of a young and fascinating woman, who had been to him
invariably kind, but who had a reputation for caprice, which was not
unknown to him. It was a wild and beautiful adventure; but only that.
He walked up and down his rooms for a long time, sometimes thinking,
sometimes merely musing; sometimes in a pleased but gently agitated
state of almost unconsciousness. At last he sate down at his
writing-table, and wrote for some time; and then directing the letter
to the Countess of Montfort, he resolved to change the current of his
thoughts, and went to a club.
Morning is not romantic. Romance is the twilight spell; but morn is
bright and joyous, prompt with action, and full of sanguine hope. Life
has few difficulties in the morning, at least, none which we cannot
conquer; and a private secretary to a minister, young and prosperous, at
his first meal, surrounded by dry toast, all the newspapers, and piles
of correspondence, asking and promising everything, feels with pride and
delight the sense of powerful and responsible existence. Endymion had
glanced at all the leading articles, had sorted in the correspondence
the grain from the chaff, and had settled in his mind those who must be
answered and those who must be seen. The strange incident of last
night was of course not forgotten, but removed, as it were, from his
consciousness in the bustle and pressure of active life, when his
servant brought him a letter in a handwriting he knew right well. He
would not open it till he was alone, and then it was with a beating
heart and a burning cheek.