Endymion - Benjamin Disraeli
Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39
"All four!"
"Yes; Lord Dudley, Lord Palmerston, and Charles Grant follow Huskisson.
I do not believe the first ever meant to go, but the Duke would not
listen to his hypocritical explanations, and the rest have followed. I
am surprised about Lord Dudley, as I know he loved his office."
"I am alarmed," said Mrs. Ferrars.
"Not the slightest cause for fear," exclaimed the intrepid Zenobia. "It
must have happened sooner or later. I am delighted at it. We shall now
have a cabinet of our own. They never would have rested till they had
brought in some Whigs, and the country hates the Whigs. No wonder, when
we remember that if they had had their way we should have been wearing
sabots at this time, with a French prefect probably in Holland House."
"And whom will they put in the cabinet?" inquired Mrs. Ferrars.
"Our good friends, I hope," said Zenobia, with an inspiring smile; "but
I have heard nothing about that yet. I am a little sorry about Lord
Dudley, as I think they have drawn him into their mesh; but as for the
other three, especially Huskisson and Lord Palmerston, I can tell you
the Duke has never had a quiet moment since they joined him. We shall
now begin to reign. The only mistake was ever to have admitted them. I
think now we have got rid of Liberalism for ever."
CHAPTER VI
Mr. Ferrars did not become a cabinet minister, but this was a vexation
rather than a disappointment, and transient. The unexpected vacancies
were filled by unexpected personages. So great a change in the frame
of the ministry, without any promotion for himself, was on the first
impression not agreeable, but reflection and the sanguine wisdom of
Zenobia soon convinced him that all was for the best, that the thought
of such rapid preferment was unreasonable, and that time and the due
season must inevitably bring all that he could desire, especially as
any term to the duration of the ministry was not now to be foreseen:
scarcely indeed possible. In short, it was shown to him that the
Tory party, renovated and restored, had entered upon a new lease of
authority, which would stamp its character on the remainder of the
nineteenth century, as Mr. Pitt and his school had marked its earlier
and memorable years.
And yet this very reconstruction of the government necessarily led to
an incident which, in its consequences, changed the whole character of
English politics, and commenced a series of revolutions which has not
yet closed.
One of the new ministers who had been preferred to a place which Mr.
Ferrars might have filled was an Irish gentleman, and a member for one
of the most considerable counties in his country. He was a good speaker,
and the government was deficient in debating power in the House of
Commons; he was popular and influential.
The return of a cabinet minister by a large constituency was more
appreciated in the days of close boroughs than at present. There was a
rumour that the new minister was to be opposed, but Zenobia laughed
the rumour to scorn. As she irresistibly remarked at one of her evening
gatherings, "Every landowner in the county is in his favour; therefore
it is impossible." The statistics of Zenobia were quite correct, yet
the result was different from what she anticipated. An Irish lawyer,
a professional agitator, himself a Roman Catholic and therefore
ineligible, announced himself as a candidate in opposition to the new
minister, and on the day of election, thirty thousand peasants, setting
at defiance all the landowners of the county, returned O'Connell at the
head of the poll, and placed among not the least memorable of historical
events--the Clare election.
This event did not, however, occur until the end of the year 1828, for
the state of the law then prevented the writ from being moved until that
time, and during the whole of that year the Ferrars family had pursued
a course of unflagging display. Courage, expenditure, and tact combined,
had realised almost the height of that social ambition to which Mrs.
Ferrars soared. Even in the limited and exclusive circle which then
prevailed, she began to be counted among the great dames. As for the
twins, they seemed quite worthy of their beautiful and luxurious mother.
Proud, wilful, and selfish, they had one redeeming quality, an intense
affection for each other. The sister seemed to have the commanding
spirit, for Endymion was calm, but if he were ruled by his sister, she
was ever willing to be his slave, and to sacrifice every consideration
to his caprice and his convenience.
The year 1829 was eventful, but to Ferrars more agitating than anxious.
When it was first known that the head of the cabinet, whose colleague
had been defeated at Clare, was himself about to propose the
emancipation of the Roman Catholics, there was a thrill throughout the
country; but after a time the success of the operation was not doubted,
and was anticipated as a fresh proof of the irresistible fortunes of the
heroic statesman. There was some popular discontent in the country
at the proposal, but it was mainly organised and stimulated by the
Dissenters, and that section of Churchmen who most resembled them.
The High Church party, the descendants of the old connection which had
rallied round Sacheverell, had subsided into formalism, and shrank from
any very active co-operation with their evangelical brethren.
The English Church had no competent leaders among the clergy. The spirit
that has animated and disturbed our latter times seemed quite dead, and
no one anticipated its resurrection. The bishops had been selected from
college dons, men profoundly ignorant of the condition and the wants of
the country. To have edited a Greek play with second-rate success, or
to have been the tutor of some considerable patrician, was the
qualification then deemed desirable and sufficient for an office, which
at this day is at least reserved for eloquence and energy. The social
influence of the episcopal bench was nothing. A prelate was rarely seen
in the saloons of Zenobia. It is since the depths of religious
thought have been probed, and the influence of woman in the spread
and sustenance of religious feeling has again been recognised, that
fascinating and fashionable prelates have become favoured guests in the
refined saloons of the mighty, and, while apparently indulging in the
vanities of the hour, have re-established the influence which in old
days guided a Matilda or the mother of Constantine.
The end of the year 1829, however, brought a private event of moment to
the Ferrars family. The elder Mr. Ferrars died. The world observed at
the time how deeply affected his son was at this event. The relations
between father and son had always been commendable, but the world was
hardly prepared for Mr. Ferrars, junior, being so entirely overwhelmed.
It would seem that nothing but the duties of public life could have
restored him to his friends, and even these duties he relinquished
for an unusual time. The world was curious to know the amount of his
inheritance, but the proof of the will was unusually delayed, and public
events soon occurred which alike consigned the will and the will-maker
to oblivion.
CHAPTER VII
The Duke of Wellington applied himself to the treatment of the critical
circumstances of 1830 with that blended patience and quickness of
perception to which he owed the success of so many campaigns. Quite
conscious of the difficulties he had to encounter, he was nevertheless
full of confidence in his ability to control them. It is probable that
the paramount desire of the Duke in his effort to confirm his power was
to rally and restore the ranks of the Tory party, disturbed rather than
broken up by the passing of the Relief Bill. During the very heat of
the struggle it was significantly observed that the head of the powerful
family of Lowther, in the House of Commons, was never asked to resign
his office, although he himself and his following voted invariably
against the Government measure. The order the day was the utmost
courtesy to the rebels, who were treated, as some alleged, with more
consideration than the compliant. At the same time the desire of the
Whigs to connect, perhaps even to merge themselves with the ministerial
ranks, was not neglected. A Whig had been appointed to succeed
the eccentric and too uncompromising Wetherell in the office of
attorney-general, other posts had been placed at their disposal, and one
even, an old companion in arms of the Duke, had entered the cabinet.
The confidence in the Duke's star was not diminished, and under
ordinary circumstances this balanced strategy would probably have
been successful. But it was destined to cope with great and unexpected
events.
The first was the unexpected demise of the crown. The death of King
George the Fourth at the end of the month of June, according to the then
existing constitution, necessitated a dissolution of parliament, and so
deprived the minister of that invaluable quality of time, necessary
to soften and win back his estranged friends. Nevertheless, it is not
improbable, that the Duke might still have succeeded, had it not been
for the occurrence of the French insurrection of 1830, in the very heat
of the preparations for the general election in England. The Whigs who
found the Duke going to the country without that reconstruction of his
ministry on which they had counted, saw their opportunity and seized it.
The triumphant riots of Paris were dignified into "the three glorious
days," and the three glorious days were universally recognised as
the triumph of civil and religious liberty. The names of Polignac
and Wellington were adroitly connected together, and the phrase
Parliamentary Reform began to circulate.
It was Zenobia's last reception for the season; on the morrow she was
about to depart for her county, and canvass for her candidates. She was
still undaunted, and never more inspiring. The excitement of the times
was reflected in her manner. She addressed her arriving guests as they
made their obeisance to her, asked for news and imparted it before she
could be answered, declared that nothing had been more critical
since '93, that there was only one man who was able to deal with the
situation, and thanked Heaven that he was not only in England, but in
her drawing-room.
Ferrars, who had been dining with his patron, Lord Pomeroy, and had
the satisfaction of feeling, that at any rate his return to the new
parliament was certain, while helping himself to coffee could not
refrain from saying in a low tone to a gentleman who was performing the
same office, "Our Whig friends seem in high spirits, baron."
The gentleman thus addressed was Baron Sergius, a man of middle age. His
countenance was singularly intelligent, tempered with an expression
mild and winning. He had attended the Congress of Vienna to represent
a fallen party, a difficult and ungracious task, but he had shown
such high qualities in the fulfilment of his painful duties--so much
knowledge, so much self-control, and so much wise and unaffected
conciliation--that he had won universal respect, and especially with the
English plenipotentiaries, so that when he visited England, which he did
frequently, the houses of both parties were open to him, and he was as
intimate with the Whigs as he was with the great Duke, by whom he was
highly esteemed.
"As we have got our coffee, let us sit down," said the baron, and they
withdrew to a settee against the wall.
"You know I am a Liberal, and have always been a Liberal," said the
baron; "I know the value of civil and religious liberty, for I was
born in a country where we had neither, and where we have since enjoyed
either very fitfully. Nothing can be much drearier than the present lot
of my country, and it is probable that these doings at Paris may help my
friends a little, and they may again hold up their heads for a time; but
I have seen too much, and am too old, to indulge in dreams. You are a
young man and will live to see what I can only predict. The world is
thinking of something else than civil and religious liberty. Those are
phrases of the eighteenth century. The men who have won these 'three
glorious days' at Paris, want neither civilisation nor religion. They
will not be content till they have destroyed both. It is possible that
they may be parried for a time; that the adroit wisdom of the house of
Orleans, guided by Talleyrand, may give this movement the resemblance,
and even the character, of a middle-class revolution. It is no such
thing; the barricades were not erected by the middle class. I know these
people; it is a fraternity, not a nation. Europe is honeycombed with
their secret societies. They are spread all over Spain. Italy is
entirely mined. I know more of the southern than the northern nations;
but I have been assured by one who should know that the brotherhood are
organised throughout Germany and even in Russia. I have spoken to
the Duke about these things. He is not indifferent, or altogether
incredulous, but he is so essentially practical that he can only deal
with what he sees. I have spoken to the Whig leaders. They tell me that
there is only one specific, and that a complete one--constitutional
government; that with representative institutions, secret societies
cannot co-exist. I may be wrong, but it seems to me that with these
secret societies representative institutions rather will disappear."
CHAPTER VIII
What unexpectedly took place in the southern part of England, and
especially in the maritime counties, during the autumn of 1830, seemed
rather to confirm the intimations of Baron Sergius. The people in the
rural districts had become disaffected. Their discontent was generally
attributed to the abuses of the Poor Law, and to the lowness of
their wages. But the abuses of the Poor Law, though intolerable, were
generally in favour of the labourer, and though wages in some parts
were unquestionably low, it was observed that the tumultuous assemblies,
ending frequently in riot, were held in districts where this cause did
not prevail. The most fearful feature of the approaching anarchy was the
frequent acts of incendiaries. The blazing homesteads baffled the feeble
police and the helpless magistrates; and the government had reason to
believe that foreign agents were actively promoting these mysterious
crimes.
Amid partial discontent and general dejection came the crash of the
Wellington ministry, and it required all the inspiration of Zenobia
to sustain William Ferrars under the trial. But she was undaunted and
sanguine as a morning in spring. Nothing could persuade her that the
Whigs could ever form a government, and she was quite sure that the
clerks in the public offices alone could turn them out. When the Whig
government was formed, and its terrible programme announced, she laughed
it to scorn, and derided with inexhaustible merriment the idea of the
House of Commons passing a Reform Bill. She held a great assembly the
night that General Gascoyne defeated the first measure, and passed an
evening of ecstasy in giving and receiving congratulations. The morrow
brought a graver brow, but still an indomitable spirit, and through all
these tempestuous times Zenobia never quailed, though mobs burnt the
castles of dukes and the palaces of bishops.
Serious as was the state of affairs to William Ferrars, his condition
was not so desperate as that of some of his friends. His seat at least
was safe in the new parliament that was to pass a Reform Bill. As
for the Tories generally, they were swept off the board. Scarcely a
constituency, in which was a popular element, was faithful to them. The
counties in those days were the great expounders of popular principles,
and whenever England was excited, which was rare, she spoke through her
freeholders. In this instance almost every Tory knight of the shire lost
his seat except Lord Chandos, the member for Buckinghamshire, who owed
his success entirely to his personal popularity. "Never mind," said
Zenobia, "what does it signify? The Lords will throw it out."
And bravely and unceasingly she worked for this end. To assist this
purpose it was necessary that a lengthened and powerful resistance to
the measure should be made in the Commons; that the public mind should
be impressed with its dangerous principles, and its promoters cheapened
by the exposure of their corrupt arrangements and their inaccurate
details. It must be confessed that these objects were resolutely kept
in view, and that the Tory opposition evinced energy and abilities
not unworthy of a great parliamentary occasion. Ferrars particularly
distinguished himself. He rose immensely in the estimation of the House,
and soon the public began to talk of him. His statistics about the
condemned boroughs were astounding and unanswerable: he was the only man
who seemed to know anything of the elements of the new ones. He was as
eloquent too as exact,--sometimes as fervent as Burke, and always as
accurate as Cocker.
"I never thought it was in William Ferrars," said a member, musingly, to
a companion as they walked home one night; "I always thought him a good
man of business, and all that sort of thing--but, somehow or other, I
did not think this was in him."
"Well, he has a good deal at stake, and that brings it out of a fellow,"
said his friend.
It was, however, pouring water upon sand. Any substantial resistance
to the measure was from the first out of the question. Lord Chandos
accomplished the only important feat, and that was the enfranchisement
of the farmers. This perpetual struggle, however, occasioned a vast deal
of excitement, and the actors in it often indulged in the wild credulity
of impossible expectations. The saloon of Zenobia was ever thronged, and
she was never more confident than when the bill passed the Commons. She
knew that the King would never give his assent to the bill. His
Majesty had had quite enough of going down in hackney coaches to carry
revolutions. After all, he was the son of good King George, and the
court would save the country, as it had often done before. "But it will
not come to that," she added. "The Lords will do their duty."
"But Lord Waverley tells me," said Ferrars, "that there are forty of
them who were against the bill last year who will vote for the second
reading."
"Never mind Lord Waverley and such addlebrains," said Zenobia, with a
smile of triumphant mystery. "So long as we have the court, the Duke,
and Lord Lyndhurst on our side, we can afford to laugh at such conceited
poltroons. His mother was my dearest friend, and I know he used to have
fits. Look bright," she continued; "things never were better. Before a
week has passed these people will be nowhere."
"But how it is possible?"
"Trust me."
"I always do--and yet"----
"You never were nearer being a cabinet minister," she said, with a
radiant glance.
And Zenobia was right. Though the government, with the aid of the
waverers, carried the second reading of the bill, a week afterwards,
on May 7, Lord Lyndhurst rallied the waverers again to his standard and
carried his famous resolution, that the enfranchising clauses should
precede the disenfranchisement in the great measure. Lord Grey and his
colleagues resigned, and the King sent for Lord Lyndhurst. The bold
chief baron advised His Majesty to consult the Duke of Wellington, and
was himself the bearer of the King's message to Apsley House. The Duke
found the King "in great distress," and he therefore did not hesitate in
promising to endeavour to form a ministry.
"Who was right?" said Zenobia to Mr. Ferrars. "He is so busy he could
not write to you, but he told me to tell you to call at Apsley House at
twelve to-morrow. You will be in the cabinet."
"I have got it at last!" said Ferrars to himself. "It is worth living
for and at any peril. All the cares of life sink into insignificance
under such circumstances. The difficulties are great, but their very
greatness will furnish the means of their solution. The Crown cannot be
dragged in the mud, and the Duke was born for conquest."
A day passed, and another day, and Ferrars was not again summoned. The
affair seemed to hang fire. Zenobia was still brave, but Ferrars, who
knew her thoroughly, could detect her lurking anxiety. Then she told him
in confidence that Sir Robert made difficulties, "but there is nothing
in it," she added. "The Duke has provided for everything, and he means
Sir Robert to be Premier. He could not refuse that; it would be almost
an act of treason." Two days after she sent for Mr. Ferrars, early
in the morning, and received him in her boudoir. Her countenance was
excited, but serious. "Don't be alarmed," she said; "nothing will
prevent a government being formed, but Sir Robert has thrown us over;
I never had confidence in him. It is most provoking, as Mr. Baring had
joined us, and it was such a good name for the City. But the failure of
one man is the opportunity of another. We want a leader in the House of
Commons. He must be a man who can speak; of experience, who knows the
House, its forms, and all that. There is only one man indicated. You
cannot doubt about him. I told you honours would be tumbling on your
head. You are the man; you are to have one of the highest offices in the
cabinet, and lead the House of Commons."
"Peel declines," said Ferrars, speaking slowly and shaking his head.
"That is very serious."
"For himself," said Zenobia, "not for you. It makes your fortune."
"The difficulties seem too great to contend with."
"What difficulties are there? You have got the court, and you have got
the House of Lords. Mr. Pitt was not nearly so well off, for he had
never been in office, and had at the same time to fight Lord North and
that wicked Mr. Fox, the orator of the day, while you have only got Lord
Althorp, who can't order his own dinner."
"I am in amazement," said Ferrars, and he seemed plunged in thought.
"But you do not hesitate?"
"No," he said, looking up dreamily, for he had been lost in abstraction;
and speaking in a measured and hollow voice, "I do not hesitate." Then
resuming a brisk tone he said, "This is not an age for hesitation; if
asked, I will do the deed."
At this moment there was a tap at the door, and the groom of the
chambers brought in a note for Mr. Ferrars, which had been forwarded
from his own residence, and which requested his presence at Apsley
House. Having read it, he gave it to Zenobia, who exclaimed with
delight, "Do not lose a moment. I am so glad to have got rid of Sir
Robert with his doubts and his difficulties. We want new blood."
That was a wonderful walk for William Ferrars, from St. James' Square to
Apsley House. As he moved along, he was testing his courage and capacity
for the sharp trials that awaited him. He felt himself not unequal
to conjectures in which he had never previously indulged even in
imagination. His had been an ambitious, rather than a soaring spirit. He
had never contemplated the possession of power except under the aegis of
some commanding chief. Now it was for him to control senates and guide
councils. He screwed himself up to the sticking-point. Desperation is
sometimes as powerful an inspirer as genius.
The great man was alone,--calm, easy, and courteous. He had sent for
Mr. Ferrars, because having had one interview with him, in which his
co-operation had been requested in the conduct of affairs, the Duke
thought it was due to him to give him the earliest intimation of the
change of circumstances. The vote of the house of Commons on the motion
of Lord Ebrington had placed an insurmountable barrier to the formation
of a government, and his Grace had accordingly relinquished the
commission with which he had been entrusted by the King.
CHAPTER IX
Availing himself of his latch-key, Ferrars re-entered his home
unnoticed. He went at once to his library, and locked the door of the
apartment. There sitting before his desk, he buried his face in his
hands and remained in that posture for a considerable time.
They were tumultuous and awful thoughts that passed over his brain.
The dreams of a life were dissipated, and he had to encounter the stern
reality of his position--and that was Ruin. He was without hope and
without resource. His debts were vast; his patrimony was a fable; and
the mysterious inheritance of his wife had been tampered with. The
elder Ferrars had left an insolvent estate; he had supported his son
liberally, but latterly from his son's own resources. The father had
made himself the principal trustee of the son's marriage settlement. His
colleague, a relative of the heiress, had died, and care was taken that
no one should be substituted in his stead. All this had been discovered
by Ferrars on his father's death, but ambition, and the excitement of
a life of blended elation and peril, had sustained him under the
concussion. One by one every chance had vanished: first his private
means and then his public prospects; he had lost office, and now he was
about to lose parliament. His whole position, so long, and carefully,
and skilfully built up, seemed to dissolve and dissipate into
insignificant fragments. And now he had to break the situation to his
wife. She was to become the unprepared partner of the secret which had
gnawed at his heart for years, during which to her his mien had often
been smiling and always serene. Mrs. Ferrars was at home, and alone,
in her luxurious boudoir, and he went to her at once. After years
of dissimulation, now that all was over, Ferrars could not bear the
suspense of four-and-twenty hours.