Lord Benthorpe, like so many others of his ancient station, refused to believe that the star of England had set. He was too generous to reduce his splendid hospitality; too patriotic to admit that the country and he could go otherwise than forward; too proud of his superb lineage to regret the investments in arable land, pasture, undergrowth, common, waste and marsh, which his forefathers had made. He did indeed attempt to develop a small town in his neighbourhood which boasted a medicinal well. He bought certain freeholds within the borough, and the medical profession were enthusiastic in their praise of the waters. The less healthy of the governing classes began to drink them in increasing numbers; but that fatality which seemed to dog his every effort caused an epidemic of acute colic to coincide with the second year of his effort, and he lost upon this chivalrous venture the considerable sum of two hundred thousand pounds.
He borrowed.
At first, for his daily needs, from local banks; later, to repay their claims and to set himself afloat again, from the more imposing corporations of the metropolis; from these he received such aid as he imagined would carry him forward to a better day. But that day tarried.
He maintained his rents with difficulty. He attempted to increase them. He lost the affection of his tenants, a disaster for which the remaining respect of his equals scarcely compensated him. He was finally compelled to abandon, most reluctantly, the society of public entertainers, political, literary and racing men, to which all his early manhood had rendered him familiar. He grew to inviting to Placton none but those to whom no other hospitality offered. When these failed him, he fell back upon his relatives; when these, upon the local clergy, the smaller squires—the very doctors of his country town. It was of no avail!
The government of Lord Beaconsfield, ever solicitous for the honour of an ancient name, did all that could be done. He was offered posts well suited to his talents; he was eagerly welcomed back to public life. Indeed, it was his public work during the first years of his difficulties—the last of the Conservative cabinet—which has rendered his name so familiar to all of us. How young he was in those brave days! How admirably did he support, and with what courage, the singular place Great Britain vaunted in that better time!
I may be excused some enthusiasm as I recall his speech at Salisbury upon “Peace with Honour,” his piloting of the Laundry Bill through the House of Lords, his contribution to the Party funds during the Midlothian campaign, a contribution which I know from personal evidence to have been made possible only by the courtesy of the present Marquis of Bramber, then better known as “Jim.”
Certainly he loved his country. It is to the honour of our party system that the Liberal Ministry of the eighties did not misunderstand a patriotism of this calibre. He was sent to Raub, to the Marranagoes, to Pilgrim’s Island: positions which the routine of our Permanent Service will not permit to be highly paid, but which should normally offer ample opportunities for experience. This experience he acquired—but, alas! unfruitfully. Nothing he touched succeeded. On his return to England after an absence of three years, he abandoned his official work that he might be freer to retrieve his fortunes. His connection with Colonial Government should have aided him in the financial development of our dependencies. His advice was, indeed, solicited by the promoters of companies, but it proved almost invariably unfortunate.
True to the straight line of honour in which he had been brought up, he refused to be mentioned publicly in connection with the Raub Central, the Marranagoes Guanos, or the Pilgrim’s Island Oil Syndicate. They all went down; but, through that mysterious bond which permits the outer public to scent out, as it were, whatever the City privately honours, his reputation, already great with experts, became general when he permitted his name to stand at the head of the Carria Canal Company. It is no small testimony to the probity of our public life that he benefited in no way from the rapid success of that enterprise. He was paid an honest salary—a small salary; he demanded no more. It pushed his name to the very front rank of our Builders of Empire. I would it had done more. It failed.
Lady Benthorpe held the helm meanwhile unflinchingly in her large grasp. She was of that kind which old Sutter finely calls “strong women of the Lord”; of that kind which devised the motto: “Homo sum: nihil humanum a me alienum puto.” To the last she kept an open political drawing-room, of considerable if decreasing account with the literary and professional classes, using for that purpose in winter the town house of her sister, but during the season the large room of the Progress Galleries, to the left—on the first landing.
Most women, under such a strain, would have abandoned the struggle. Many would have demanded the adventitious aid of stimulating drugs. Her pride disdained it.