finger into the public pie. He was not a rich man, though he had made calico and had got into Parliament. And though he claimed to be a thoroughgoing Radical, he was a man who liked to live with aristocrats, and was fond of listening to the whispers of such as the Duke of St 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. “Goodness me! who is Mr Bott?” “He is member for St Helens,” said Mr Palliser. “A very serviceable man in his way.” “And what am I to do with him?” asked Lady Glencora. “I don’t know that you can do anything with him. He is a man who has a great deal of business, and I dare say he will spend most of his time in the library.” So Mr Bott arrived. But though a huge pile of letters and papers came to him every morning by post, he unfortunately did not seem to spend much of his time in the library. Perhaps he had not found the clue to that lost apartment. Twice he went out shooting, but as on the first day he shot the keeper, and on the second very nearly shot the Duke, he gave that up. Hunting he declined, though much pressed to make an essay in that art by Jeffrey Palliser. He seemed to spend his time, as Lady Glencora said, in standing about,—except at certain times when he was closeted with Mr Palliser, and when, it may be presumed, he made himself useful. On such days he would be seen at the hour of lunch with fingers much stained with ink, and it was generally supposed that on those occasions he had been counting up taxes and calculating the effect of great financial changes. He was a tall, wiry, strong man, with a bald head and bristly red beard, which, however, was cut off from his upper and under lip. This was unfortunate, as had he hidden his mouth he would not have been in so marked a degree an ugly man. His upper lip was very long, and his mouth was mean. But he had found that without the help of a razor to these parts he could not manage his soup to his satisfaction, and preferring cleanliness to beauty had shaved himself accordingly.
“I shouldn’t dislike Mr Bott so much,” Lady Glencora said to her husband, “if he didn’t rub his hands and smile so often, and seem to be going to say something when he really is not going to say anything.”
“I don’t think you need trouble yourself about him, my dear,” Mr Palliser had answered.
“But when he looks at me in that way, I can’t help stopping, as I think he is going to speak; and then he always says, ‘Can I do anything for you, Lady Glencowrer?’“
She instantly saw that her husband did not like this. “Don’t be angry with me, dear,” she said. “You must admit that he is rather a bore.”
“I am not at all angry, Glencora,” said the husband; “and if you insist upon it, I will see that he leaves;—and in such case will of course never ask him again. But that might be prejudicial to me, as he is a man whom I trust in politics, and who may perhaps be serviceable to me.”
Of course Lady Glencora declared that Mr Bott might remain as long as he and her husband desired, and of course she mentioned his name no more to Mr Palliser; but from that time forth she regarded Mr Bott as an enemy, and felt also that Mr Bott regarded her in the same light.
When it was known among outside politicians that the Duke of St Bungay was staying at Matching Priory, outside politicians became more sure than ever that Mr Palliser would be the new Chancellor of the Exchequer. The old minister and the young minister were of course arranging matters together. But I doubt whether Mr Palliser and the Duke ever spoke on any such topic during the entire visit. Though Mr Bott was occasionally closeted with Mr Palliser, the Duke never troubled himself with such closetings. He went out shooting—on his pony, read his newspaper, wrote his notes, and looked with the eye of a connoisseur over all Mr Palliser’s farming apparatus. “You seem to have a good man, I should say,” said the Duke. “What! Hubbings? Yes;—he was a legacy from my uncle when he gave me up the Priory.” “A very good man, I should say. Of course he won’t make it pay; but he’ll make it look as though it did;—which is the next best thing. 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.
But Mr Bott was sometimes honoured by a few words with the Duke.
“We shall muster pretty strong, your Grace,” Mr Bott had said to him one day before dinner.
“That depends on how the changes go,” said the Duke.
“I suppose there will be a change?”
“Oh yes; there’ll be a change,—certainly, I should say. And it will be in your direction.”
“And in Palliser’s?”
“Yes; I should think so;—that is, if it suits him. By-the-by, Mr Bott—” Then there was a little whispered communication, in which perhaps Mr Bott was undertaking some commission of that nature which Lady Glencora had called “telling.”
Chapter XXV.
in Which Much of the History of the Pallisers Is Told
At the end of ten days Alice found herself quite comfortable at Matching Priory. She had now promised to remain there till the second week of December, at which time she was to go to Vavasor Hall,—there to meet her father and Kate. The Pallisers were to pass their Christmas with the Duke of Omnium in Barsetshire. “We always are to do that,” said Glencora. “It is the state occasion at Gatherum Castle, but it only lasts for one week. Then we go somewhere else. Oh dear!”
“Why do you say ‘oh dear’?”
“Because—; I don’t think I mean to tell you.”
“Then I’m sure I won’t ask.”
“That’s so like you, Alice. But I can be as firm as you, and I’m sure I won’t tell you unless you do ask.” But Alice did not ask, and it was not long before Lady Glencora’s firmness gave way.
But, as I have said, Alice had become quite comfortable at Matching Priory. Perhaps she was already growing upwards towards the light. At any rate she could listen with pleasure to the few words the Duke would say to her. She could even chat a little to the Duchess,—so that her Grace had observed to Lady Glencora that “her cousin was a very nice person,—a very nice person indeed. What a pity it was that she had been so illtreated by that gentleman in Oxfordshire!” Lady Glencora had to explain that the gentleman lived in Cambridgeshire, and that he, at any rate, had not treated anybody ill. “Do you mean that she—jilted him?” said the Duchess, almost whistling, and opening her eyes very wide. “Dear me, I’m sorry for that. I shouldn’t have thought it.” And when she next spoke to Alice she assumed rather a severe tone of emphasis;—but this was soon abandoned when Alice listened to her with complacency.
Alice also had learned to ride,—or
