"Your Majesty's choice cannot be other than excellent," replied Pitt, surprised.
The King resumed:
"I say, then, Pitt, that I have found a better Minister and, further, a very good general."
Those present began to smile and to scoff stealthily at the King's favourite. Pitt, notwithstanding his experience of the Court, felt ill at ease.
"Sir, will you condescend to tell me," said he, "who is this remarkable person to whom I render the homage due to his great talent and the choice of Your Majesty?"
The King would show him who it was: Lady Hester on her uncle's arm!
"Here is my new Minister," he exclaimed. "There is no person in the kingdom who is a better statesman than Lady Hester, and, I have great pleasure also in declaring, there is no woman who does more honour to her sex. You have no reason to be proud of yourself, Mr. Pitt, for there have been many Ministers before you and there will be many after you. But you have reason to be proud of her, for she unites all that is great in man and in woman."
Still standing on the bridge of the ship, insensible to the wind and the cold, Lady Hester recalled the painful circumstances which had accompanied the death of William Pitt. How he had lain emaciated and enfeebled in his room at Putney Hall, but always so full of hope, so confident in the approaching cure. And in less than a week afterwards he was resting on his death-bed. They enter, the latch is pushed, the door is open; the familiar footsteps no longer echo on the flagstones of the deserted corridors; the house is empty, the friends have fled, the servants are far away, the crowd of courtiers who used to besiege the porter's lodge dispersed, vanished, disappeared! It seemed to Lady Hester that she was again alone with her uncle for the last time. Then she had experienced the desertion of those who, only the day before, had been the most faithful. For twenty years he had spent himself body and soul for the good of the country; he had worn out his health; neglected his fortune, employed his credit on behalf of others; and he had received, as a last recompense, the approving sneers of those who listened to Canning criticising and disparaging his policy and exclaiming: "That is Pitt's glorious system!" And all the newspapers reflected: "That is Pitt's glorious system!" Hounds rushing on the quarry fearing lest they should lose a bite.
Rise at an early hour, receive fifty persons, eat in haste or do not eat at all, hurry to Windsor Castle, hurry to the House, tire our your lungs until three in the morning. Scarcely have you returned home than Mr. Adams arrives with a paper, then Mr. Long with another. Go to bed then—rat-tat-tat, a despatch from Lord Melville, "On His Majesty's service." Sleep—rat-tat-tat, thirty persons are waiting at the door.
Lady Hester recalled the little house in Montague Square, where she had gone to hide her grief. To have been everything and to have been only that! To make and unmake Ministers, to distribute pensions, to mimic the courtiers, to be insolent towards some, ironical towards others, to move surrounded by a troupe of envious persons wreathed in smiles, of ambitious persons bowing and scraping unceasingly, of fools gaping with admiration, to humble the vainglorious, to unmask the hypocrites. To be more than Minister.