Endymion - Benjamin Disraeli
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"I am a candidate, but without a seat to captivate at present," said
Endymion; "but I am not without hopes of making some arrangement."
"Well, you must tell me what your colours are."
"And will you wear them?"
"Most certainly; and I will work you a banner if you be victorious."
"I think I must win with such a prospect."
"I hope you will win in everything."
When the ladies retired, Berengaria came and sate by the side of Lady
Roehampton.
"What a dreary dinner!" she said.
"Do you think so?"
"Well, perhaps it was my own fault. Perhaps I am not in good cue, but
everything seems to me to go wrong."
"Things sometimes do go wrong, but then they get right."
"Well, I do not think anything will ever get right with me."
"Dear Lady Montfort, how can you say such things? You who have, and have
always had, the world at your feet--and always will have."
"I do not know what you mean by having the world at my feet. It seems
to me that I have no power whatever--I can do nothing. I am vexed about
this business of your brother. Our people are so stupid. They have no
resource. When I go to them and ask for a seat, I expect a seat, as I
would a shawl at Howell and James' if I asked for one. Instead of that
they only make difficulties. What our party wants is a Mr. Tadpole; he
out-manoeuvres them in every corner."
"Well, I shall be deeply disappointed--deeply pained," said Lady
Roehampton, "if Endymion is not in this parliament, but if we fail I
will not utterly despair. I will continue to do what I have done all my
life, exert my utmost will and power to advance him."
"I thought I had will and power," said Lady Montfort, "but the conceit
is taken out of me. Your brother was to me a source of great interest,
from the first moment that I knew him. His future was an object in life,
and I thought I could mould it. What a mistake! Instead of making his
fortune I have only dissipated his life."
"You have been to him the kindest and the most valuable of friends, and
he feels it."
"It is no use being kind, and I am valuable to no one. I often think if
I disappeared to-morrow no one would miss me."
"You are in a morbid mood, dear lady. To-morrow perhaps everything will
be right, and then you will feel that you are surrounded by devoted
friends, and by a husband who adores you."
Lady Montfort gave a scrutinising glance at Lady Roehampton as she said
this, then shook her head. "Ah! there it is, dear Myra. You judge from
your own happiness; you do not know Lord Montfort. You know how I love
him, but I am perfectly convinced he prefers my letters to my society."
"You see what it is to be a Madame de Sevigne," said Lady Roehampton,
trying to give a playful tone to the conversation.
"You jest," said Lady Montfort; "I am quite serious. No one can deceive
me; would that they could! I have the fatal gift of reading persons, and
penetrating motives, however deep or complicated their character, and
what I tell you about Lord Montfort is unhappily too true."
In the meantime, while this interesting conversation was taking place,
the gentleman who had been the object of Lady Montfort's eulogium, the
gentleman who always out-manoeuvred her friends at every corner, was,
though it was approaching midnight, walking up and down Carlton Terrace
with an agitated and indignant countenance, and not alone.
"I tell you, Mr. Waldershare, I know it; I have it almost from Lord
Beaumaris himself; he has declined to support our man, and no doubt will
give his influence to the enemy."
"I do not believe that Lord Beaumaris has made any engagement whatever."
"A pretty state of affairs!" exclaimed Mr. Tadpole. "I do not know what
the world has come to. Here are gentlemen expecting high places in the
Household, and under-secretaryships of state, and actually giving away
our seats to our opponents."
"There is some family engagement about this seat between the Houses of
Beaumaris and Montfort, and Lord Beaumaris, who is a young man, and
who does not know as much about these things as you and I do, naturally
wants not to make a mistake. But he has promised nothing and nobody.
I know, I might almost say I saw the letter, that he wrote to Lord
Montfort this day, asking for an interview to-morrow morning on the
matter, and Lord Montfort has given him an appointment for to-morrow.
This I know."
"Well, I must leave it to you," said Mr. Tadpole. "You must remember
what we are fighting for. The constitution is at stake."
"And the Church," said Waldershare.
"And the landed interest, you may rely upon it," said Mr. Tadpole.
"And your Lordship of the Treasury _in posse_, Tadpole. Truly it is a
great stake."
CHAPTER LXXI
The interview between the heads of the two great houses of Montfort and
Beaumaris, on which the fate of a ministry might depend, for it should
always be recollected that it was only by a majority of one that Sir
Robert Peel had necessitated the dissolution of parliament, was not
carried on exactly in the spirit and with the means which would have
occurred to and been practised by the race of Tadpoles and Tapers.
Lord Beaumaris was a very young man, handsome, extremely shy, and one
who had only very recently mixed with the circle in which he was born.
It was under the influence of Imogene that, in soliciting an interview
with Lord Montfort, he had taken for him an unusual, not to say
unprecedented step. He had conjured up to himself in Lord Montfort the
apparition of a haughty Whig peer, proud of his order, prouder of his
party, and not over-prejudiced in favour of one who had quitted
those sacred ranks, freezing with arrogant reserve and condescending
politeness. In short, Lord Beaumaris was extremely nervous when, ushered
by many servants through many chambers, there came forward to receive
him the most sweetly mannered gentleman alive, who not only gave him
his hand, but retained his guest's, saying, "We are a sort of cousins, I
believe, and ought to have been acquainted before, but you know perhaps
my wretched state," though what that was nobody exactly did know,
particularly as Lord Montfort was sometimes seen wading in streams
breast-high while throwing his skilful line over the rushing waters. "I
remember your grandfather," he said, "and with good cause. He pouched me
at Harrow, and it was the largest pouch I ever had. One does not forget
the first time one had a five-pound note."
And then when Lord Beaumaris, blushing and with much hesitation, had
stated the occasion of his asking for the interview that they might
settle together about the representation of Northborough in harmony with
the old understanding between the families which he trusted would always
be maintained, Lord Montfort assured him that he was personally obliged
to him by his always supporting Odo, regretted that Odo would retire,
and then said if Lord Beaumaris had any brother, cousin, or friend to
bring forward, he need hardly say Lord Beaumaris might count upon him.
"I am a Whig," he continued, "and so was your father, but I am not
particularly pleased with the sayings and doings of my people. Between
ourselves, I think they have been in a little too long, and if they do
anything very strong, if, for instance, they give office to O'Connell,
I should not be at all surprised if I were myself to sit on the cross
benches."
It seems there was no member of the Beaumaris family who wished at
this juncture to come forward, and being assured of this, Lord Montfort
remarked there was a young man of promise who much wished to enter the
House of Commons, not unknown, he believed, to Lord Beaumaris, and that
was Mr. Ferrars. He was the son of a distinguished man, now departed,
who in his day had been a minister of state. Lord Montfort was quite
ready to support Mr. Ferrars, if Lord Beaumaris approved of the
selection, but he placed himself entirely in his hands.
Lord Beaumaris, blushing, said he quite approved of the selection; knew
Mr. Ferrars very well, and liked him very much; and if Lord Montfort
sanctioned it, would speak to Mr. Ferrars himself. He believed Mr.
Ferrars was a Liberal, but he agreed with Lord Montfort, that in these
days gentlemen must be all of the same opinion if not on the same side,
and so on. And then they talked of fishing appropriately to a book of
very curious flies that was on the table, and they agreed if possible
to fish together in some famous waters that Lord Beaumaris had in
Hampshire, and then, as he was saying farewell, Lord Montfort added,
"Although I never pay visits, because really in my wretched state I
cannot, there is no reason why our wives should not know each other.
Will you permit Lady Montfort to have the honour of paying her respects
to Lady Beaumaris?"
Talleyrand or Metternich could not have conducted an interview more
skilfully. But these were just the things that Lord Montfort did not
dislike doing. His great good nature was not disturbed by a single
inconvenient circumstance, and he enjoyed the sense of his adroitness.
The same day the cards of Lord and Lady Montfort were sent to Piccadilly
Terrace, and on the next day the cards of Lord and Lady Beaumaris were
returned to Montfort House. And on the following day, Lady Montfort,
accompanied by Lady Roehampton, would find Lady Beaumaris at home, and
after a charming visit, in which Lady Montfort, though natural to the
last degree, displayed every quality which could fascinate even a woman,
when she put her hand in that of Imogene to say farewell, added, "I am
delighted to find that we are cousins."
A few days after this interview, parliament was dissolved. It was the
middle of a wet June, and the season received its _coup de grace_.
Although Endymion had no rival, and apparently no prospect of a contest,
his labours as a candidate were not slight. The constituency was
numerous, and every member of it expected to be called upon. To each Mr.
Ferrars had to expound his political views, and to receive from each a
cordial assurance of a churlish criticism. All this he did and endured,
accompanied by about fifty of the principal inhabitants, members of his
committee, who insisted on never leaving his side, and prompting him
at every new door which he entered with contradictory reports of the
political opinions of the indweller, or confidential informations how
they were to be managed and addressed.
The principal and most laborious incidents of the day were festivals
which they styled luncheons, when the candidate and the ambulatory
committee were quartered on some principal citizen with an elaborate
banquet of several courses, and in which Mr. Ferrars' health was always
pledged in sparkling bumpers. After the luncheon came two or three
more hours of what was called canvassing; then, in a state of horrible
repletion, the fortunate candidate, who had no contest, had to dine with
another principal citizen, with real turtle soup, and gigantic turbots,
_entrees_ in the shape of volcanic curries, and rigid venison, sent as
a compliment by a neighbouring peer. This last ceremony was necessarily
hurried, as Endymion had every night to address in some ward a body of
the electors.
When this had been going on for a few days, the borough was suddenly
placarded with posting bills in colossal characters of true blue,
warning the Conservative electors not to promise their votes, as a
distinguished candidate of the right sort would certainly come forward.
At the same time there was a paragraph in a local journal that a member
of a noble family, illustrious in the naval annals of the country,
would, if sufficiently supported, solicit the suffrages of the
independent electors.
"We think, by the allusion to the navy, that it must be Mr. Hood of
Acreley," said Lord Beaumaris' agent to Mr. Ferrars, "but he has not
the ghost of a chance. I will ride over and see him in the course of the
day."
This placard was of course Mr. Tadpole's last effort, but that worthy
gentleman soon forgot his mortification about Northborough in the
general triumph of his party. The Whigs were nowhere, though Mr. Ferrars
was returned without opposition, and in the month of August, still
wondering at the rapid, strange, and even mysterious incidents, that had
so suddenly and so swiftly changed his position and prospects in life,
took his seat in that House in whose galleries he had so long humbly
attended as the private secretary of a cabinet minister.
His friends were still in office, though the country had sent up a
majority of ninety against them, and Endymion took his seat behind the
Treasury bench, and exactly behind Lord Roehampton. The debate on the
address was protracted for three nights, and then they divided at three
o'clock in the morning, and then all was over. Lord Roehampton, who had
vindicated the ministry with admirable vigour and felicity, turned round
to Endymion, and smiling said in the sweetest tone, "I did not enlarge
on our greatest feat, namely, that we had governed the country for two
years without a majority. Peel would never have had the pluck to do
that."
Notwithstanding the backsliding of Lord Beaumaris and the unprincipled
conduct of Mr. Waldershare, they were both rewarded as the latter
gentleman projected--Lord Beaumaris accepted a high post in the
Household, and Mr. Waldershare was appointed Under-Secretary of State
for Foreign Affairs. Tadpole was a little glum about it, but it was
inevitable. "The fact is," as the world agreed, "Lady Beaumaris is the
only Tory woman. They have nobody who can receive except her."
The changes in the House of Commons were still greater than those in
the administration. Never were so many new members, and Endymion watched
them, during the first days, and before the debate on the address,
taking the oaths at the table in batches with much interest. Mr.
Bertie Tremaine was returned, and his brother, Mr. Tremaine Bertie. Job
Thornberry was member for a manufacturing town, with which he was not
otherwise connected. Hortensius was successful, and Mr. Vigo for a
metropolitan borough, but what pleased Endymion more than anything was
the return of his valued friend Trenchard, who a short time before had
acceded to the paternal estate; all these gentlemen were Liberals, and
were destined to sit on the same side of the House as Endymion.
After the fatal vote, the Whigs all left town. Society in general had
been greatly dispersed, but parliament had to remain sitting until
October.
"We are going to Princedown," Lady Montfort said one day to Endymion,
"and we had counted on seeing you there, but I have been thinking much
of your position since, and I am persuaded, that we must sacrifice
pleasure to higher objects. This is really a crisis in your life, and
much, perhaps everything, depends on your not making a mistake now.
What I want to see you is a great statesman. This is a political economy
parliament, both sides alike thinking of the price of corn and all that.
Finance and commerce are everybody's subjects, and are most convenient
to make speeches about for men who cannot speak French and who have
had no education. Real politics are the possession and distribution of
power. I want to see you give your mind to foreign affairs. There
you will have no rivals. There are a great many subjects which Lord
Roehampton cannot take up, but which you could very properly, and you
will have always the benefit of his counsel, and, when necessary, his
parliamentary assistance; but foreign affairs are not to be mastered
by mere reading. Bookworms do not make chancellors of state. You must
become acquainted with the great actors in the great scene. There is
nothing like personal knowledge of the individuals who control the high
affairs. That has made the fortune of Lord Roehampton. What I think you
ought to do, without doubt ought to do, is to take advantage of this
long interval before the meeting of parliament, and go to Paris. Paris
is now the Capital of Diplomacy. It is not the best time of the year to
go there, but you will meet a great many people of the diplomatic world,
and if the opportunity offers, you can vary the scene, and go to some
baths which princes and ministers frequent. The Count of Ferroll is now
at Paris, and minister for his court. You know him; that is well. But
he is my greatest friend, and, as you know, we habitually correspond. He
will do everything for you, I am sure, for my sake. It is not pleasant
to be separated; I do not wish to conceal that; I should have enjoyed
your society at Princedown, but I am doing right, and you will some day
thank me for it. We must soften the pang of separation by writing to
each other every day, so when we meet again it will only be as if we had
parted yesterday. Besides--who knows?--I may run over myself to Paris in
the winter. My lord always liked Paris; the only place he ever did, but
I am not very sanguine he will go; he is so afraid of being asked to
dinner by our ambassador."
CHAPTER LXXII
In all lives, the highest and the humblest, there is a crisis in the
formation of character, and in the bent of the disposition. It comes
from many causes, and from some which on the surface are apparently even
trivial. It may be a book, a speech, a sermon; a man or a woman; a
great misfortune or a burst of prosperity. But the result is the same; a
sudden revelation to ourselves of our secret purpose, and a recognition
of our perhaps long shadowed, but now masterful convictions.
A crisis of this kind occurred to Endymion the day when he returned to
his chambers, after having taken the oaths and his seat in the House of
Commons. He felt the necessity of being alone. For nearly the last three
months he had been the excited actor in a strange and even mysterious
drama. There had been for him no time to reflect; all he could aim
at was to comprehend, and if possible control, the present and urgent
contingency; he had been called upon, almost unceasingly, to do or to
say something sudden and unexpected; and it was only now, when the
crest of the ascent had been reached, that he could look around him and
consider the new world opening to his gaze.
The greatest opportunity that can be offered to an Englishman was now
his--a seat in the House of Commons. It was his almost in the first
bloom of youth, and yet after advantageous years of labour and political
training, and it was combined with a material independence on which he
never could have counted. A love of power, a passion for distinction, a
noble pride, which had been native to his early disposition, but which
had apparently been crushed by the enormous sorrows and misfortunes of
his childhood, and which had vanished, as it were, before the sweetness
of that domestic love which had been the solace of his adversity, now
again stirred their dim and mighty forms in his renovated, and, as it
were, inspired consciousness. "If this has happened at twenty-two,"
thought Endymion, "what may not occur if the average life of man be
allotted to me? At any rate, I will never think of anything else. I
have a purpose in life, and I will fulfil it. It is a charm that its
accomplishment would be the most grateful result to the two beings I
most love in the world."
So when Lady Montfort shortly after opened her views to Endymion as to
his visiting Paris, and his purpose in so doing, the seeds were thrown
on a willing soil, and he embraced her counsels with the deepest
interest. His intimacy with the Count of Ferroll was the completing
event of this epoch of his life.
Their acquaintance had been slight in England, for after the Montfort
Tournament the Count had been appointed to Paris, where he was required;
but he received Endymion with a cordiality which contrasted with his
usual demeanour, which, though frank, was somewhat cynical.
"This is not a favourable time to visit Paris," he said, "so far as
society is concerned. There is some business stirring in the diplomatic
world, which has re-assembled the fraternity for the moment, and the
King is at St. Cloud, but you may make some acquaintances which may be
desirable, and at any rate look about you and clear the ground for the
coming season. I do not despair of our dear friend coming over in the
winter. It is one of the hopes that keep me alive. What a woman! You
may count yourself fortunate in having such a friend. I do. I am not
particularly fond of female society. Women chatter too much. But I
prefer the society of a first-rate woman to that of any man; and Lady
Montfort is a first-rate woman--I think the greatest since Louise of
Savoy; infinitely beyond the Princess d'Ursins."
The "business that was then stirring in the diplomatic world," at a
season when the pleasures of Parisian society could not distract him,
gave Endymion a rare opportunity of studying that singular class of
human beings which is accustomed to consider states and nations as
individuals, and speculate on their quarrels and misunderstandings, and
the remedies which they require, in a tongue peculiar to themselves, and
in language which often conveys a meaning exactly opposite to that which
it seems to express. Diplomacy is hospitable, and a young Englishman
of graceful mien, well introduced, and a member of the House of
Commons--that awful assembly which produces those dreaded blue books
which strike terror in the boldest of foreign statesmen--was not only
received, but courted, in the interesting circle in which Endymion found
himself.
There he encountered men grey with the fame and wisdom of half a century
of deep and lofty action, men who had struggled with the first Napoleon,
and had sat in the Congress of Vienna; others, hardly less celebrated,
who had been suddenly borne to high places by the revolutionary wave
of 1830, and who had justly retained their exalted posts when so many
competitors with an equal chance had long ago, with equal justice,
subsided into the obscurity from which they ought never to have emerged.
Around these chief personages were others not less distinguished by
their abilities, but a more youthful generation, who knew how to wait,
and were always prepared or preparing for the inevitable occasion when
it arrived--fine and trained writers, who could interpret in sentences
of graceful adroitness the views of their chiefs; or sages in
precedents, walking dictionaries of diplomacy, and masters of every
treaty; and private secretaries reading human nature at a glance, and
collecting every shade of opinion for the use and guidance of their
principals.
Whatever their controversies in the morning, their critical interviews
and their secret alliances, all were smiles and graceful badinage at
the banquet and the reception; as if they had only come to Paris to show
their brilliant uniforms, their golden fleeces, and their grand crosses,
and their broad ribbons with more tints than the iris.
"I will not give them ten years," said the Count of Ferroll, lighting
his cigarette, and addressing Endymion on their return from one of these
assemblies; "I sometimes think hardly five."
"But where will the blow come from?"
"Here; there is no movement in Europe except in France, and here it will
always be a movement of subversion."
"A pretty prospect!"
"The sooner you realise it the better. The system here is supported by
journalists and bankers; two influential classes, but the millions care
for neither; rather, I should say, dislike both."
"Will the change affect Europe?"
"Inevitably. You rightly say Europe, for that is a geographical
expression. There is no State in Europe; I exclude your own country,
which belongs to every division of the globe, and is fast becoming more
commercial than political, and I exclude Russia, for she is essentially
oriental, and her future will be entirely the East."
"But there is Germany!"
"Where? I cannot find it on the maps. Germany is divided into various
districts, and when there is a war, they are ranged on different
sides. Notwithstanding our reviews and annual encampments, Germany is
practically as weak as Italy. We have some kingdoms who are allowed
to play at being first-rate powers; but it is mere play. They no more
command events than the King of Naples or the Duke of Modena."
"Then is France periodically to overrun Europe?"
"So long as it continues to be merely Europe."
A close intimacy occurred between Endymion and the Count of Ferroll. He
not only became a permanent guest at the official residence, but when
the Conference broke up, the Count invited Endymion to be his companion
to some celebrated baths, where they would meet not only many of his
late distinguished colleagues, but their imperial and royal masters,
seeking alike health and relaxation at this famous rendezvous.
"You will find it of the first importance in public life," said the
Count of Ferroll, "to know personally those who are carrying on
the business of the world; so much depends on the character of an
individual, his habits of thought, his prejudices, his superstitions,
his social weaknesses, his health. Conducting affairs without this
advantage is, in effect, an affair of stationery; it is pens and paper
who are in communication, not human beings."