Our pages have lately been taken up almost exclusively with the troubles of Phineas Finn, and indeed have so far not unfairly represented the feelings and interest of people generally at the time. Not to have talked of Phineas Finn from the middle of May to the middle of July in that year would have exhibited great ignorance or a cynical disposition. But other things went on also. Moons waxed and waned; children were born; marriages were contracted; and the hopes and fears of the little world around did not come to an end because Phineas Finn was not to be hung. Among others who had interests of their own there was poor Adelaide Palliser, whom we last saw under the affliction of Mr Spooner’s love — but who before that had encountered the much deeper affliction of a quarrel with her own lover. She had desired him to free her — and he had gone. Indeed, as to his going at that moment there had been no alternative, as he considered himself to have been turned out of Lord Chiltern’s house. The red-headed lord, in the fierceness of his defence of Miss Palliser, had told the lover that under such and such circumstances he could not be allowed to remain at Harrington Hall. Lord Chiltern had said something about “his roof’. Now, when a host questions the propriety of a guest remaining under his roof, the guest is obliged to go. Gerard Maule had gone; and, having offended his sweetheart by a most impolite allusion to Boulogne, had been forced to go as a rejected lover. From that day to this he had done nothing — not because he was contented with the lot assigned to him, for every morning, as he lay on his bed, which he usually did till twelve, he swore to himself that nothing should separate him from Adelaide Palliser — but simply because to do nothing was customary with him. “What is a man to do?” he not unnaturally asked his friend Captain Boodle at the club. “Let her out on the grass for a couple of months”, said Captain Boodle, “and she’ll come up as clean as a whistle. When they get these humours there’s nothing like giving them a run.” Captain Boodle undoubtedly had the reputation of being very great in council on such matters; but it must not be supposed that Gerard Maule was contented to take his advice implicitly. He was unhappy, ill at ease, half conscious that he ought to do something, full of regrets — but very idle.
In the meantime Miss Palliser, who had the finer nature of the two, suffered grievously. The Spooner affair was but a small addition to her misfortune. She could get rid of Mr Spooner — of any number of Mr Spooners: but how should she get back to her the man she loved? When young ladies quarrel with their lovers it is always presumed, especially in books, that they do not wish to get them back. It is to be understood that the loss to them is as nothing. Miss Smith begs that Mr Jones may be assured that he is not to consider her at all. If he is pleased to separate, she will be at any rate quite as well pleased — probably a great deal better. No doubt she had loved him with all her heart, but that will make no difference to her, if he wishes — to be off. Upon the whole Miss Smith thinks that she would prefer such an arrangement, in spite of her heart. Adelaide Palliser had said something of the kind. As Gerard Maule had regarded her as a “trouble”, and had lamented that prospect of “Boulogne” which marriage had presented to his eyes, she had dismissed him with a few easily spoken words. She had assured him that no such troubles need weigh upon him. No doubt they had been engaged — but, as far as she was concerned, the remembrance of that need not embarrass him. And so she and Lord Chiltern between them had sent him away. But how was she to get him back again?
When she came to think it over, she acknowledged to herself that it would be all the world to her to have him back. To have him at all had been all the world to her. There had been nothing peculiarly heroic about him, nor had she ever regarded him as a hero. She had known his faults and weaknesses, and was probably aware that he was inferior to herself in character and intellect. But, nevertheless, she had loved him. To her he had been, though not heroic, sufficiently a man to win her heart. He was a gentleman, pleasant-mannered, pleasant to look at, pleasant to talk to, not educated in the high sense of the word, but never making himself ridiculous by ignorance. He was the very antipodes of a Spooner, and he was — or rather had been — her lover. She did not wish to change. She did not recognise the possibility of changing. Though she had told him that he might go if he pleased, to her his going would be the loss of everything. What would life be without a lover — without the prospect of marriage? And there could be no other lover. There could be no further prospect should he take her at her word.
Of all this Lord Chiltern understood nothing, but Lady Chiltern understood it all. To his thinking the young man had behaved so badly that it was incumbent on them all to send him away and so have done with him. If the young man wanted to quarrel with anyone, there was he to be quarrelled with. The thing was a trouble, and the sooner they got to the end of it the better. But Lady Chiltern understood more than that. She could not prevent the quarrel as it came — or was coming; but she knew that “the quarrel of lovers is the renewal of love’. At any rate, the woman always desires that it may be so, and endeavours to reconcile the parted ones. “You’ll see him in London,” Lady Chiltern had said to her friend.
“I do not want to see him,” said Adelaide proudly.
“But he’ll want to see you, and then — after a time — you’ll want to see him. I don’t believe in quarrels, you know.”
“It is better that we should part, Lady Chiltern, if marrying will cause him — dismay. I begin to feel that we are too poor to be married.”
“A great deal poorer people than you are married every day. Of course people can’t be equally rich. You’ll do very well if you’ll only be patient, and not refuse to speak to him when he comes to you.” This was said at Harrington after Lady Chiltern had returned from her first journey up to London. That visit had been very short, and Miss Palliser had been left alone at the hall. We already know how Mr Spooner took advantage of her solitude. After that, Miss Palliser was to accompany the Chilterns to London, and she was there with them when Phineas Finn was acquitted. By that time she had brought herself to acknowledge to her friend Lady Chiltern that it would perhaps be desirable that Mr Maule should return. If he did not do so, and that at once, there must come an end to her life in England. She must go away to Italy — altogether beyond the reach of Gerard Maule. In such case all the world would have collapsed for her, and she would become the martyr of a shipwreck. And yet the more that she confessed to herself that she loved the man so well that she could not part with him, the more angry she was with him for having told her that, when married, they must live at Boulogne.
The house in Portman Square had been practically given up by Lord Brentford to his son; but nevertheless the old Earl and Lady Laura had returned to it when they reached England from Dresden. It was, however, large, and now the two families — if the Earl and his daughter can be called a family — were lodging there together. The Earl troubled them but little, living mostly in his own rooms, and Lady Laura never went out with them. But there was something in the presence of the old man and the widow which prevented the house from being gay as it might have been. There were no parties in Portman Square. Now and then a few old friends dined there; but at the present moment Gerard Maule could not be admitted as an old friend. When Adelaide had been a fortnight in London she had not as yet seen Gerard Maule or heard a word from him. She had been to balls and concerts, to dinner parties and the play; but no one had as yet brought them together. She did know that he was in town. She was able to obtain so much information of him as that. But he never came to Portman Square, and had evidently concluded that the quarrel — was to be a quarrel.
Among other balls in London that July there had been one at the Duchess of Omnium’s. This had been given after the acquittal of Phineas Finn, though fixed before that great era. “Nothing on earth should have made me have it while he was in prison,” the Duchess had said. But Phineas was acquitted, and cakes and ale again became permissible. The ball had been given, and had been very grand. Phineas had been asked, but of course had not gone. Madame Goesler, who was a great heroine since her successful return from Prague, had shown herself there for a few minutes. Lady Chiltern had gone, and of course taken Adelaide. “We are first cousins,” the Duke said to Miss Palliser — for the Duke did steal a moment from his work in which to walk through his wife’s drawing-room. Adelaide smiled and nodded, and looked pleased as she gave her hand to her great relative. “I hope we shall see more of each other than we have done,” said the Duke. “We have all been sadly divided, haven’t we?” Then he said a word to his wife, expressing his opinion that Adelaide Palliser was a nice girl, and asking her to be civil to so near a relative.
The Duchess had heard all about Gerard Maule and the engagement. She always did hear all about everything. And on this evening she asked a question or two from Lady Chiltern. “Do you know”, she said, “I have an appointment tomorrow with your husband?”
“I did not know — but I won’t interfere to prevent it, now you are generous enough to tell me.”
“I wish you would, because I don’t know what to say to him. He is to come about that horrid wood, where the foxes won’t get themselves born and bred as foxes ought to do. How can I help it? I’d send down a whole Lying-in Hospital for the foxes if I thought that that would do any good.”
“Lord Chiltern thinks it’s the shooting.”
“But where is a person to shoot if he mayn’t shoot in his own woods? Not that the Duke cares about the shooting for himself. He could not hit a pheasant sitting on a haystack, and wouldn’t know one if he saw it. And he’d rather that there wasn’t such a thing as a pheasant in the world. He cares for nothing but farthings. But what is a man to do? Or, rather, what is a woman to do? — for he tells me that I must settle it.”
“Lord Chiltern says that Mr Fothergill has the foxes destroyed. I suppose Mr Fothergill may do as he pleases if the Duke gives him permission.”
“I hate Mr Fothergill, if that’ll do any good,” said the Duchess; “and we wish we could get rid of him altogether. But that, you know, is impossible. When one has an old man on one’s shoulders one never can get rid of him. He is my incubus; and then you see Trumpeton Wood is such a long way from us at Matching that I can’t say I want the shooting for myself. And I never go to Gatherum if I can help it. Suppose we made out that the Duke wanted to let the shooting?”
“Lord Chiltern would take it at once.”
“But the Duke wouldn’t really let it, you know. I’ll lay awake at night and think about it. And now tell me about Adelaide Palliser. Is she to be married?”
“I hope so — sooner or later.”
“There’s a quarrel or something — isn’t there? She’s the Duke’s ............