Framley Parsonage, Anthony Trollope [popular e readers txt] 📗

And then, too, there came upon him a blow which somewhat modified his triumph⁠—a cruel, dastard blow, from a hand which should have been friendly to him, from one to whom he had fondly looked to buoy him up in the great course that was before him. It had been said by his friends that in obtaining Harold Smith’s services the Prime Minister had infused new young healthy blood into his body. Harold himself had liked the phrase, and had seen at a glance how it might have been made to tell by some friendly Supplehouse or the like. But why should a Supplehouse out of Elysium be friendly to a Harold Smith within it? Men lapped in Elysium, steeped to the neck in bliss, must expect to see their friends fall off from them. Human nature cannot stand it. If I want to get anything from my old friend Jones, I like to see him shoved up into a high place. But if Jones, even in his high place, can do nothing for me, then his exaltation above my head is an insult and an injury. Who ever believes his own dear intimate companion to be fit for the highest promotion? Mr. Supplehouse had known Mr. Smith too closely to think much of his young blood.

Consequently, there appeared an article in the Jupiter, which was by no means complimentary to the ministry in general. It harped a good deal on the young blood view of the question, and seemed to insinuate that Harold Smith was not much better than diluted water. “The Prime Minister,” the article said, “having lately recruited his impaired vigour by a new infusion of aristocratic influence of the highest moral tone, had again added to himself another tower of strength chosen from among the people. What might he not hope, now that he possessed the services of Lord Brittleback and Mr. Harold Smith! Renovated in a Medea’s cauldron of such potency, all his effete limbs⁠—and it must be acknowledged that some of them had become very effete⁠—would come forth young and round and robust. A new energy would diffuse itself through every department; India would be saved and quieted; the ambition of France would be tamed; evenhanded reform would remodel our courts of law and parliamentary elections; and Utopia would be realized. Such, it seems, is the result expected in the ministry from Mr. Harold Smith’s young blood!”

This was cruel enough, but even this was hardly so cruel as the words with which the article ended. By that time irony had been dropped, and the writer spoke out earnestly his opinion upon the matter. “We beg to assure Lord Brock,” said the article, “that such alliances as these will not save him from the speedy fall with which his arrogance and want of judgment threaten to overwhelm it. As regards himself we shall be sorry to hear of his resignation. He is in many respects the best statesman that we possess for the emergencies of the present period. But if he be so ill-judged as to rest on such men as Mr. Harold Smith and Lord Brittleback for his assistants in the work which is before him, he must not expect that the country will support him. Mr. Harold Smith is not made of the stuff from which cabinet ministers should be formed.”

Mr. Harold Smith, as he read this, seated at his breakfast-table, recognized, or said that he recognized, the hand of Mr. Supplehouse in every touch. That phrase about the effete limbs was Supplehouse all over, as was also the realization of Utopia. “When he wants to be witty, he always talks about Utopia,” said Mr. Harold Smith⁠—to himself: for Mrs. Harold was not usually present in the flesh at these matutinal meals.

And then he went down to his office, and saw in the glance of every man that he met an announcement that that article in the Jupiter had been read. His private secretary tittered in evident allusion to the article, and the way in which Buggins took his coat made it clear that it was well known in the messengers’ lobby. “He won’t have to fill up my vacancy when I go,” Buggins was saying to himself. And then in the course of the morning came the cabinet council, the second that he had attended, and he read in the countenance of every god and goddess there assembled that their chief was thought to have made another mistake. If Mr. Supplehouse could have been induced to write in another strain, then indeed that new blood might have been felt to have been efficacious.

All this was a great drawback to his happiness, but still it could not rob him of the fact of his position. Lord Brock could not ask him to resign because the Jupiter had written against him; nor was Lord Brock the man to desert a new colleague for such a reason. So Harold Smith girded his loins, and went about the duties of the Petty Bag with new zeal. “Upon my word, the Jupiter is right,” said young Robarts to himself, as he finished his fourth dozen of private notes explanatory of everything in and about the Petty Bag Office. Harold Smith required that his private secretary’s notes should be so terribly precise.

But nevertheless, in spite of his drawbacks, Harold Smith was happy in his new honours, and Mrs. Harold Smith enjoyed them also. She certainly, among her acquaintance, did quiz the new cabinet minister not a little, and it may be a question whether she was not as hard upon him as the writer in the Jupiter. She whispered a great deal to Miss Dunstable about new blood, and talked of going down to Westminster Bridge to see whether the Thames were really on fire. But though she laughed, she triumphed, and though she flattered herself that she bore her honours without any outward sign, the world knew that she was triumphing, and ridiculed her elation.

About this time she also gave a