Palliser

“ Remember how much such a one as you owes to his country." Then the Duke went, and Mr. Palliser was alone.
He had not been alone before since the revelation which had been made to him by his wife, and the words she had spoken were still sounding in his ears. "I do love Burgo Fitzgerald;—I do! I do! I do!" They were not pleasant words for a young husband to hear. Men there are, no doubt, whose nature would make them more miserable under the infliction than it had made Plantagenet Palliser. ”

“ Strangeways had at first meant only eccentricity. The veriest chance had led Palliser to find himself regarding the opening up of possible vistas.
From a certain window in a certain wing of the house a much-praised view was to be seen. Nothing was more natural than that on the occasion of a curious sunset Palliser should, in coming from his room, decide to take a look at it. As he [Pg 773] passed through a corridor Pearson came out of a room near him.
“How is Mr. Strangeways to-day?” Palliser asked.
“Not quite so well, I am afraid, sir,” was the answer. ”

“ He could not work and wait and make himself agreeable to those around him, holding his vexation within his own bosom. He was dark and sullen to his chief, and almost insolent to the Duke of Omnium. Our old friend Plantagenet Palliser was a man who hardly knew insolence when he met it. There was such an absence about him of all self-consciousness, he was so little given to think of his own personal demeanour and outward trappings,—that he never brought himself to question the manners of others to him. ”

“ I could never get rent out of land that I farmed myself,—never." "I suppose not," said Mr. Palliser, who did not care much about it. The Duke would have talked to him by the hour together about farming had Mr. Palliser been so minded; but he talked to him very little about politics. Nor during the whole time of his stay at Matching did the Duke make any other allusion to Mr. Palliser's hopes as regarded the ministry, than that in which he had told Lady Glencora at the dinner-table that her husband's ambition was the highest by which any man could be moved. ”

“ There was a pause of a second. “Gee!” he said, “gee! this not hearing a thing about Ann! I’ve got to keep going to stand it. Well, Strangeways gives me some work to do. And I’ve got Palliser. He’s a little sunbeam.”
A man-servant approaching to suggest a possible need of hot tea started at hearing his grace break into a sudden and plainly involuntary crow of glee. He had not heard that one before, either. Palliser as a little sunbeam brightening the pathway of T. Tembarom was, in the particular existing circumstances, all that could be desired of fine humor. ”

“ Lady Dumbello had smiled whenever Mr. Plantagenet Palliser had spoken to her. Mr. Palliser had confessed to himself that politics were not enough for him, and that Love was necessary to make up the full complement of his happiness. Lord Dumbello had frowned laterly when his eyes fell on the tall figure of the duke's heir; and the duke himself,—that potentate, generally so mighty in his silence,—the duke himself had spoken. Lady De Courcy and Lady Clandidlem were, both of them, absolutely certain that the thing had been fully arranged. ”

“ Palliser did not answer at once, and the Duke thought that he saw some sign of hesitation. "I suppose it would not be possible that I should speak to Lady Glencora?"
"It could be of no avail, Duke. She would only declare, at the first word, that she would remain in London; but it would not be the less my duty on that account to take her abroad."
"Well; I can't say. Of course, I can't say. Such an opportunity may not come twice in a man's life. And at your age too! You are throwing away from you the finest political position that the world can offer to the ambition of any man. ”

“ Alfred should have all—love, wealth, title; and then Lady Palliser could no longer object; but he must wait—it might be for a few days, perhaps only a few hours—nay, the sooner the better; why should he live but to cause and to endure misery? Endure!—did he endure? Can powerlessness to resist the decrees of fate, while yet the heart and feelings openly and wilfully rebel against them, be called endurance? ”

“ "He is such a gentleman;—and, at the same time, the most abstract and the most concrete man that I know."
"Abstract and concrete!"
"You are bound to use adjectives of that sort now, Miss Palliser, if you mean to be anybody in conversation." ”

“ I wonder whether Jeffrey Palliser did think much of the difference between his present position and that which would have been his had Lady Glencora been the happy possessor of a cradle up-stairs with a boy in it. I suppose he must have done so. It is hardly possible that any man should not be alive to the importance of such a chance. His own present position was one of the most unfortunate which can fall to the lot of a man. His father, the Duke's youngest brother, had left him about six hundred a year, and had left him also a taste for living with people of six thousand. ”

“ Maule, "if all that we hear be true." Madame Goesler, without a smile and equally without a frown, looked as though the meaning of Mr. Maule's words had escaped her. "A grand old gentleman! I don't know that anybody will ever say as much for his heir."
"The men are very different."
"Very different indeed. I dare say that Mr. Palliser, as Mr. Palliser, has been a useful man. But so is a coal-heaver a useful man. The grace and beauty of life will be clean gone when we all become useful men." ”

“ Tembarom answered. [Pg 419] “I earned twenty-five per in New York by getting names down fine.”
“The Talchesters are really all rather taking. Talchester is Lord Pevensy’s family name,” Palliser explained. “They are girls who have pretty little noses and bright complexions and eyes. Lady Gwynedd and Lady Honora both have quite fascinating dimples.”
“Dimples!” exclaimed his companion. “Good business.”
“Do you like dimples particularly?” Palliser inquired with an impartial air.
“I’d always make a bee-line for a dimple,” replied Mr. Temple Barholm. “Clear the way when I start.” ”

“ He did not sigh like a furnace, nor open his eyes upon her as though there were two suns in the firmament above her head, nor did he beat his breast or tear his hair. Mr. Palliser had been brought up in a school which delights in tranquillity, and never allows its pupils to commit themselves either to the sublime or to the ridiculous. ”

“ He notes that the mules, of course, must be fed on cottonwood bark,301 since the grass was now deeply covered with snow. Palliser’s dog—Ishmah by name—like his master, had to depend for food on the rifle. Shortly after starting, Palliser and his two companions separated, he and the dog to go up the river to Fort Mackenzie alone. He travelled chiefly on the ice, using due care to avoid the air-holes which are so frequent and so dangerous, and never leaving the river for any great distance. In the valley, shelter from the terrible storms of the high prairie may always be found. ”

“ Bungay was rather afraid.
"I hope we may be warm here too," said Lady Glencora.
"But not deliciously warm," said Mrs. Conway Sparkes.
"It makes me tremble in every limb when Mrs. Sparkes attacks her," Lady Glencora said to Alice in Alice's own room that night, "for I know she'll tell the Duke; and he'll tell that tall man with red hair whom you see standing about, and the tall man with red hair will tell Mr. Palliser, and then I shall catch it."
"And who is the tall man with red hair?"
"He's a political link between the Duke and Mr. Palliser. His name is Bott, and he's a Member of Parliament." ”

“ Palliser.
Lady Glencora, as she went on quickly, got hold of her husband's hand, and caressed it. "You are so good," said she. "Don't let him out of your sight. There; he is going. I will go home with Mr. Grey. I will be ever so good; I will, indeed. You know what he'll want, and for my sake you'll let him have it. But don't let him gamble. If you could only get him home to England, and then do something. You owe him something, Plantagenet; do you not?"
"If money can do anything, he shall have it." ”

“ When they reached London they first heard the news from Mr. Vavasor, who on this occasion condescended to meet them at the railway. "The Duke has got an heir," he said, before the carriage-door was open;—"born this morning!" One might have supposed that it was the Duke's baby, and not the baby of Lady Glencora and Mr. Palliser. There was a note from Mr. Palliser to Mr. Grey. "Thank God!" said the note, "Lady Glencora and the boy"—Mr. Palliser had scorned to use the word child—"Lady Glencora and the boy are quite as well as can be expected. ”

“ One feels that one scarcely deserves it.”
CHAPTER XXVII
“Mr. Temple Barholm seems in better spirits,” Lady Mallowe said to Captain Palliser as they walked on the terrace in the starlight dusk after dinner.
Captain Palliser took his cigar from his mouth and looked at the glowing end of it.
“Has it struck you that he has been in low spirits?” he inquired speculatively. “One does not usually connect him with depression.”
“Certainly not with depression. He's an extraordinary creature. One would think he would perish from lack of the air he is used to breathing—New York air.” ”

“ Bungay or Mr. Palliser. It was supposed that he did understand something of finance. He was at any rate great in figures; and as he was possessed of much industry, and was obedient withal, he was a man who might make himself useful to a Chancellor of the Exchequer ambitious of changes.
There are men who get into such houses as Matching Priory and whose presence there is a mystery to many;—as to whom the ladies of the house never quite understand why they are entertaining such a guest. "And Mr. Bott is coming," Mr. Palliser had said to his wife. "Mr. Bott!" Lady Glencora had answered. ”

“ He went on in smooth, casual laudation:
“No American takes hold of a scheme of this sort until he knows jolly well what he’s going to get out of it. You were shrewd enough,” he added significantly, “about Hutchinson’s affair. You ‘got in on the ground floor’ there. That was New York forethought, by Jove!”
Tembarom shuffled a little in his chair, and grinned a faint, pleased grin.
“I’m a man of the world, my boy—the business world,” Palliser commented, hoping that he concealed his extreme satisfaction. “I know New York, though I haven’t lived there. I’m only hoping to. ”

“ But the Duke or Planty Palliser among them should do one of two things. They should either stand by the hunting, or they should let it alone;—and they should say what they mean. I like to know my friends, and I like to know my enemies."
"I am sure the Duke is not your enemy, Lord Chiltern."
"These Pallisers have always been running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. They are great aristocrats, and yet are always going in for the people. I'm told that Planty Pall calls fox-hunting barbarous. Why doesn't he say so out loud, and stub up Trumpeton Wood and grow corn?" ”

“ And yet, I believe, I have not earned for myself the reputation of being subject to the voices of men. You think that I am asking much of you; but you should remember that hitherto I have given much and have asked nothing. I expect you to oblige me in this matter."
Then Mr. Plantagenet Palliser left the room, knowing that he had been threatened. What the duke had said amounted to this.—If you go on dangling after Lady Dumbello, I'll stop the seven thousand a year which I give you. ”

“ So too Plantagenet Palliser had no original among the well-born, scientific financiers of the House of Commons in Trollope’s time, but merely personifies his creator’s notion of the pattern gentleman, the soul of honour and of chivalrous consideration in his treatment equally of Lady Glencora’s flirtations when his bride-elect and of her ill-devised socio-political strategies after she has become Duchess of Omnium. At each stage of his development from the Planty Pal of Can You Forgive Her? ”

“ I think that Plantagenet Palliser, Duke of Omnium, is a perfect gentleman. If he be not, then am I unable to describe a gentleman. She is by no means a perfect lady; but if she be not all over a woman, then am I not able to describe a woman. I do not think it probable that my name will remain among those who in the next century will be known as the writers of English prose fiction;—but if it does, that permanence of success will probably rest on the character of Plantagenet Palliser, Lady Glencora, and the Rev. ”

“ Fothergill wrote to me," said Adelaide;—"the man who is so wicked about the foxes."
"I don't care a straw about Mr. Fothergill; and now my mouth is closed against your uncle. But it's quite frightful to think that a Duke of Omnium must die like anybody else."
"The Duke is dead;—long live the Duke," said Lady Chiltern. "I wonder how Mr. Palliser will like it."
"Men always do like it, I suppose," said Adelaide.
"Women do," said Lord Chiltern. "Lady Glencora will be delighted to reign,—though I can hardly fancy her by any other name. By the bye, Adelaide, I have got a letter for you." ”

“ The time had been when the loveliness of the infant, held on the knee purposely for effect, had added interest to the matured and lustrous charms of the beautiful mother: but now that mother and daughter had become two distinct objects, and that the eye of the beholder not unfrequently passed with hasty indifference over the still striking countenance of the former, to pause in evident delight on the fresher charms of the latter, an irksome sense of secret mortification incessantly assailed Lady Palliser. ”