CHAPTER LXXIII.
PHINEAS FINN RETURNS TO HIS DUTIES.
The election at Tankerville took place during the last week in July;and as Parliament was doomed to sit that year as late as the 10thof August, there was ample time for Phineas to present himself andtake the oaths before the Session was finished. He had calculatedthat this could hardly be so when the matter of re-election wasfirst proposed to him, and had hoped that his reappearance might bedeferred till the following year. But there he was, once more memberfor Tankerville, while yet there was nearly a fortnight's work to bedone, pressed by his friends, and told by one or two of those whom hemost trusted, that he would neglect his duty and show himself to bea coward, if he abstained from taking his place. "Coward is a hardword," he said to Mr. Low, who had used it.
"So men think when this or that other man is accused of running awayin battle or the like. Nobody will charge you with cowardice of thatkind. But there is moral cowardice as well as physical."
"As when a man lies. I am telling no lie."
"But you are afraid to meet the eyes of your fellow-creatures."
"Yes, I am. You may call me a coward if you like. What matters thename, if the charge be true? I have been so treated that I am afraidto meet the eyes of my fellow-creatures. I am like a man who has hadhis knees broken, or his arms cut off. Of course I cannot be the sameafterwards as I was before." Mr. Low said a great deal more to him onthe subject, and all that Mr. Low said was true; but he was somewhatrough, and did not succeed. Barrington Erle and Lord Cantrip alsotried their eloquence upon him; but it was Mr. Monk who at last drewfrom him a promise that he would go down to the House and be swornin early on a certain Tuesday afternoon. "I am quite sure of this,"Mr. Monk had said, "that the sooner you do it the less will be theannoyance. Indeed there will be no trouble in the doing of it. Thetrouble is all in the anticipation, and is therefore only increasedand prolonged by delay." "Of course it is your duty to go at once,"Mr. Monk had said again, when his friend argued that he had neverundertaken to sit before the expiration of Parliament. "You didconsent to be put in nomination, and you owe your immediate servicesjust as does any other member."
"If a man's grandmother dies he is held to be exempted."
"But your grandmother has not died, and your sorrow is not of thekind that requires or is supposed to require retirement." He gave wayat last, and on the Tuesday afternoon Mr. Monk called for him at Mrs.Bunce's house, and went down with him to Westminster. They reachedtheir destination somewhat too soon, and walked the length ofWestminster Hall two or three times while Phineas tried to justifyhimself. "I don't think," said he, "that Low quite understands myposition when he calls me a coward."
"I am sure, Phineas, he did not mean to do that."
"Do not suppose that I am angry with him. I owe him a great deal toomuch for that. He is one of the few friends I have who are entitledto say to me just what they please. But I think he mistakes thematter. When a man becomes crooked from age it is no good telling himto be straight. He'd be straight if he could. A man can't eat hisdinner with a diseased liver as he could when he was well."
"But he may follow advice as to getting his liver in order again."
"And so am I following advice. But Low seems to think the diseaseshouldn't be there. The disease is there, and I can't banish it bysimply saying that it is not there. If they had hung me outright itwould be almost as reasonable to come and tell me afterwards to shakemyself and be again alive. I don't think that Low realises what it isto stand in the dock for a week together, with the eyes of all menfixed on you, and a conviction at your heart that every one therebelieves you to have been guilty of an abominable crime of which youknow yourself to have been innocent. For weeks I lived under thebelief that I was to be made away by the hangman, and to leave behindme a name that would make every one who has known me shudder."
"God in His mercy has delivered you from that."
"He has;--and I am thankful. But my back is not strong enough to bearthe weight without bending under it. Did you see Ratler going in?There is a man I dread. He is intimate enough with me to congratulateme, but not friend enough to abstain, and he will be sure to saysomething about his murdered colleague. Very well;--I'll follow you.Go up rather quick, and I'll come close after you." Whereupon Mr.Monk entered between the two lamp-posts in the hall, and, hurryingalong the passages, soon found himself at the door of the House.Phineas, with an effort at composure, and a smile that was almostghastly at the door-keeper, who greeted him with some muttered wordof recognition, held on his way close behind his friend, and walkedup the House hardly conscious that the benches on each side wereempty. There were not a dozen members present, and the Speaker hadnot as yet taken the chair. Mr. Monk stood by him while he took theoath, and in two minutes he was on a back seat below the gangway,with his friend by him, while the members, in slowly increasingnumbers, took their seats. Then there were prayers, and as yet not asingle man had spoken to him. As soon as the doors were again opengentlemen streamed in, and some few whom Phineas knew well came andsat near him. One or two shook hands with him, but no one said a wordto him of the trial. No one at least did so in this early stage ofthe day's proceedings; and after half an hour he almost ceased to beafraid.
Then came up an irregular debate on the great Church question of theday, as to which there had been no cessation of the badgering withwhich Mr. Gresham had been attacked since he came into office. Hehad thrown out Mr. Daubeny by opposing that gentleman's stupendousmeasure for disestablishing the Church of England altogether,although,--as was almost daily asserted by Mr. Daubeny and hisfriends,--he was himself in favour of such total disestablishment.Over and over again Mr. Gresham had acknowledged that he was infavour of disestablishment, protesting that he had opposed Mr.Daubeny's Bill without any reference to its merits,--solely onthe ground that such a measure should not be accepted from such aquarter. He had been stout enough, and, as his enemies had said,insolent enough, in making these assurances. But still he was accusedof keeping his own hand dark, and of omitting to say what bill hewould himself propose to bring in respecting the Church in the nextSession. It was essentially necessary,--so said Mr. Daubeny and hisfriends,--that the country should know and discuss the proposedmeasure during the vacation. There was, of course, a good deal ofretaliation. Mr. Daubeny had not given the country, or even his ownparty, much time to discuss his Church Bill. Mr. Gresham assured Mr.Daubeny that he would not feel himself equal to producing a measurethat should change the religious position of every individual in thecountry, and annihilate the traditions and systems of centuries,altogether complete out of his own unaided brain; and he went onto say that were he to do so, he did not think that he should findhimself supported in such an effort by the friends with whom heusually worked. On this occasion he declared that the magnitude ofthe subject and the immense importance of the interests concernedforbade him to anticipate the passing of any measure of generalChurch reform in the next Session. He was undoubtedly in favour ofChurch reform, but was by no means sure that the question was onewhich required immediate settlement. Of this he was sure,--thatnothing in the way of legislative indiscretion could be so injuriousto the country, as any attempt at a hasty and ill-considered measureon this most momentous of all questions.
The debate was irregular, as it originated with a question asked byone of Mr. Daubeny's supporters,--but it was allowed to proceed for awhile. In answer to Mr. Gresham, Mr. Daubeny himself spoke, accusingMr. Gresham of almost every known Parliamentary vice in having talkedof a measure coming, like Minerva, from his, Mr. Daubeny's, ownbrain. The plain and simple words by which such an accusation mightnaturally be refuted would be unparliamentary; but it would not beunparliamentary to say that it was reckless, unfounded, absurd,monstrous, and incredible. Then there were various very spiritedreferences to Church matters, which concern us chiefly becauseMr. Daubeny congratulated the House upon seeing a Roman Catholicgentleman with whom they were all well acquainted, and whose presencein the House was desir
ed by each side alike, again take his seat foran English borough. And he hoped that he might at the same time takethe liberty of congratulating that gentleman on the courage and manlydignity with which he had endured the unexampled hardships of thecruel position in which he had been placed by an untoward combinationof circumstances. It was thought that Mr. Daubeny did the thing verywell, and that he was right in doing it;--but during the doing ofit poor Phineas winced in agony. Of course every member was lookingat him, and every stranger in the galleries. He did not know atthe moment whether it behoved him to rise and make some gesture tothe House, or to say a word, or to keep his seat and make no sign.There was a general hum of approval, and the Prime Minister turnedround and bowed graciously to the newly-sworn member. As he saidafterwards, it was just this which he had feared. But there mustsurely have been something of consolation in the general respectwith which he was treated. At the moment he behaved with naturalinstinctive dignity, though himself doubting the propriety of his ownconduct. He said not a word, and made no sign, but sat with his eyesfixed upon the member from whom the compliment had come. Mr. Daubenywent on with his tirade, and was called violently to order. TheSpeaker declared that the whole debate had been irregular, but hadbeen allowed by him in deference to what seemed to be the generalwill of the House. Then the two leaders of the two parties composedthemselves, throwing off their indignation while they coveredthemselves well up with their hats,--and, in accordance with theorder of the day, an honourable member rose to propose a pet measureof his own for preventing the adulteration of beer by the publicans.He had made a calculation that the annual average mortality ofEngland would be reduced one and a half per cent., or in other wordsthat every English subject born would live seven months longer if theaction of the Legislature could provide that the publicans shouldsell the beer as it came from the brewers. Immediately there wassuch a rush of members to the door that not a word said by thephilanthropic would-be purifier of the national beverage could beheard. The quarrels of rival Ministers were dear to the House, and aslong as they could be continued the benches were crowded by gentlemenenthralled by the interest of the occasion. But to sink from thatto private legislation about beer was to fall into a bathos whichgentlemen could not endure; and so the House was emptied, and atabout half-past seven there was a count-out. That gentleman whosestatistics had been procured with so much care, and who had been atwork for the last twelve months on his effort to prolong the livesof his fellow-countrymen, was almost broken-hearted. But he knew theworld too well to complain. He would try again next year, if by dintof energetic perseverance he could procure a day.
Mr. Monk and Phineas Finn, behaving no better than the others,slipped out in the crowd. It had indeed been arranged that theyshould leave the House early, so that they might dine together atMr. Monk's house. Though Phineas had been released from his prisonnow for nearly a month, he had not as yet once dined out of his ownrooms. He had not been inside a club, and hardly ventured during theday into the streets about Pall Mall and Piccadilly. He had beenfrequently to Portman Square, but had not even seen Madame Goesler.Now he was to dine out for the first time; but there was to be noguest but himself.
"It wasn't so bad after all," said Mr. Monk, when they were seatedtogether.
"At any rate it has been done."
"Yes;--and there will be no doing of it over again. I don't like Mr.Daubeny, as you know; but he is happy at that kind of thing."
"I hate men who are what you call happy, but who are never inearnest," said Phineas.
"He was earnest enough, I thought."
"I don't mean about myself, Mr. Monk. I suppose he thought that itwas suitable to the occasion that he should say something, and hesaid it neatly. But I hate men who can make capital out of occasions,who can be neat and appropriate at the spur of the moment,--having,however, probably had the benefit of some forethought,--but whosewords never savour of truth. If I had happened to have been hung atthis time,--as was so probable,--Mr. Daubeny would have devoted oneof his half hours to the composition of a dozen tragic words whichalso would have been neat and appropriate. I can hear him say themnow, warning young members around him to abstain from embitteredwords against each other, and I feel sure that the funereal graceof such an occasion would have become him even better than thegenerosity of his congratulations."
"It is rather grim matter for joking, Phineas."
"Grim enough; but the grimness and the jokes are always runningthrough my mind together. I used to spend hours in thinking what mydear friends would say about it when they found that I had been hungin mistake;--how Sir Gregory Grogram would like it, and whether menwould think about it as they went home from The Universe at night.I had various questions to ask and answer for myself,--whether theywould pull up my poor body, for instance, from what unhallowed groundis used for gallows corpses, and give it decent burial, placing 'M.P.for Tankerville' after my name on some more or less explicit tablet."
"Mr. Daubeny's speech was, perhaps, preferable on the whole."
"Perhaps it was;--though I used to feel assured that the explicittablet would be as clear to my eyes in purgatory as Mr. Daubeny'swords have been to my ears this afternoon. I never for a momentdoubted that the truth would be known before long,--but did doubt sovery much whether it would be known in time. I'll go home now, Mr.Monk, and endeavour to get the matter off my mind. I will resolve,at any rate, that nothing shall make me talk about it any more."