Phineas Redux

“He has got some permanent place,” said Mr. Ratler, who was living on the well-founded hope of being a Treasury Secretary under the new dispensation; “and of course he won’t leave it.”

It must be acknowledged that Mr. Ratler, than whom no judge in such matters possessed more experience, had always been afraid of Phineas Finn.

“He’ll lave it fast enough, if you’ll make it worth his while,” said the Honourable Laurence Fitzgibbon, who also had his expectations.

“But he married when he went away, and he can’t afford it,” said Mr. Bonteen, another keen expectant.

“Devil a bit,” said the Honourable Laurence; “or, anyways, the poor thing died of her first baby before it was born. Phinny hasn’t an impidiment, no more than I have.”

“He’s the best Irishman we ever got hold of,” said Barrington Erle⁠—“present company always excepted, Laurence.”

“Bedad, you needn’t except me, Barrington. I know what a man’s made of, and what a man can do. And I know what he can’t do. I’m not bad at the outside skirmishing. I’m worth me salt. I say that with a just reliance on me own powers. But Phinny is a different sort of man. Phinny can stick to a desk from twelve to seven, and wish to come back again after dinner. He’s had money left him, too, and ’d like to spend some of it on an English borough.”

Phineas Finn, when last seen by the public, was departing from parliamentary life in London to the enjoyment of a modest place under Government in his own country, with something of a shattered ambition. After various turmoils he had achieved a competency, and had married the girl of his heart. But now his wife was dead, and he was again alone in the world. One of his friends had declared that money had been left to him. That was true, but the money had not been much. Phineas Finn had lost his father as well as his wife, and had inherited about four thousand pounds. He was not at this time much over thirty; and it must be acknowledged in regard to him that, since the day on which he had accepted place and retired from London, his very soul had sighed for the lost glories of Westminster and Downing Street.

There are certain modes of life which, if once adopted, make contentment in any other circumstances almost an impossibility. In old age a man may retire without repining, though it is often beyond the power even of the old man to do so; but in youth, with all the faculties still perfect, with the body still strong, with the hopes still buoyant, such a change as that which had been made by Phineas Finn was more than he, or than most men, could bear with equanimity. He had revelled in the gaslight, and could not lie quiet on a sunny bank. To the palate accustomed to high cookery, bread and milk is almost painfully insipid.

He rose so suddenly from his chair that the man did not dare to ask him whether he would not sit over his wine. A suggestion that way was indeed made, would he “visit the laird out o’ hand, or would he bide awee?” Phineas decided on visiting the laird out of hand, and was at once led across the hall, down a back passage which he had never before traversed, and introduced to the chamber which had ever been known as the “laird’s ain room.” Here Robert Kennedy rose to receive him.

Phineas knew the man’s age well. He was still under fifty, but he looked as though he were seventy. He had always been thin, but he was thinner now than ever. He was very grey, and stooped so much, that though he came forward a step or two to greet his guest, it seemed as though he had not taken the trouble to raise himself to his proper height. “You find me a much altered man,” he said. The change had been so great that it was impossible to deny it, and Phineas muttered something of regret that his host’s health should be so bad. “It is trouble of the mind⁠—not of the body, Mr. Finn. It is her doing⁠—her doing. Life is not to me a light thing, nor are the obligations of life light. When I married a wife, she became bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh. Can I lose my bones and my flesh⁠—knowing that they are not with God but still subject elsewhere to the snares of the devil, and live as though I were a sound man? Had she died I could have borne it.

“It was, and has been, and still will be my strong, unalterable, unquenchable love for you. How could I behave to that other man with even seeming tenderness when my mind was always thinking of you, when my heart was always fixed upon you? But you have been so simple, so little given to vanity,”⁠—she leaned upon his arm as she spoke⁠—“so pure and so manly, that you have not believed this, even when I told you. Has it not been so?”

“I do not wish to believe it now.”

“But you do believe it? You must and shall believe it. I ask for nothing in return. As my God is my judge, if I thought it possible that your heart should be to me as mine is to you, I could have put a pistol to my ear sooner than speak as I have spoken.” Though she paused for some word from him he could not utter a word. He remembered many things, but even to her in his present mood he could not allude to them;⁠—how he had kissed her at the Falls, how she had bade him not come back to the house because his presence to her was insupportable; how she had again encouraged him to come, and had then forbidden him to accept even an invitation to dinner from her husband. And he remembered too the fierceness of her anger to him when he told her of his love for Violet Effingham.

“I can have nothing to do with it, Mr. Kennedy.”

“Then, sir, you shall abide my wrath.” With that he sprang quickly round, grasping at something which lay upon a shelf near him, and Phineas saw that he was armed with a pistol. Phineas, who had hitherto been seated, leaped to his legs; but the pistol in a moment was at his head, and the madman pulled at the trigger. But the mechanism of the instrument required that some bolt should be loosed before the hammer would fall upon the nipple, and the unhandy wretch for an instant fumbled over the work so that Phineas, still facing his enemy, had time to leap backwards towards the door. But Kennedy, though he was awkward, still succeeded in firing before our friend could leave the room. Phineas heard the thud of the bullet, and knew that it must have passed near his head. He was not struck, however; and the man, frightened at his own deed, abstained from the second shot, or loitered long enough in his remorse to enable his prey to escape. With three or four steps Phineas leaped down the stairs, and, finding the front door closed, took shelter within Mrs. Macpherson’s bar. “The man is mad,” he said; “did you not hear the shot?” The woman was too frightened to reply, but stood trembling, holding Phineas by the arm. There was nobody in the house, she said, but she and the two lasses. “Nae doobt the Laird’s by ordinaire,” she said at last.