Samuel Butler: The Way of All Flesh

83. CHAPTER LXXXIII (continued)

"This piece of good fortune"--she saw it at a glance--"quite wiped out the disgrace of his having been imprisoned. There should be no more nonsense about that. The whole thing was a mistake, an unfortunate mistake, true, but the less said about it now the better. Of course Ernest would come back and live at Battersby until he was married, and he would pay his father handsomely for board and lodging. In fact it would be only right that Theobald should make a profit, nor would Ernest himself wish it to be other than a handsome one; this was far the best and simplest arrangement; and he could take his sister out more than Theobald or Joey cared to do, and would also doubtless entertain very handsomely at Battersby.

"Of course he would buy Joey a living, and make large presents yearly to his sister--was there anything else? Oh! yes--he would become a county magnate now; a man with nearly 4000 pounds a year should certainly become a county magnate. He might even go into Parliament. He had very fair abilities, nothing indeed approaching such genius as Dr Skinner's, nor even as Theobald's, still he was not deficient and if he got into Parliament--so young too--there was nothing to hinder his being Prime Minister before he died, and if so, of course, he would become a peer. Oh! why did he not set about it all at once, so that she might live to hear people call her son 'my lord'--Lord Battersby she thought would do very nicely, and if she was well enough to sit he must certainly have her portrait painted at full length for one end of his large dining-hall. It should be exhibited at the Royal Academy: 'Portrait of Lord Battersby's mother,' she said to herself, and her heart fluttered with all its wonted vivacity. If she could not sit, happily, she had been photographed not so very long ago, and the portrait had been as successful as any photograph could be of a face which depended so entirely upon its expression as her own. Perhaps the painter could take the portrait sufficiently from this. It was better after all that Ernest had given up the Church--how far more wisely God arranges matters for us than ever we can do for ourselves! She saw it all now--it was Joey who would become Archbishop of Canterbury and Ernest would remain a layman and become Prime Minister" . . . and so on till her daughter told her it was time to take her medicine.