‘I rather think that steady business is best,’ said Parker. ‘I hope it’s all right about that £750.’
‘Ah; yes; – I meant to have told you. I didn’t want the money, as it turned out, for much above a fortnight, and as there was no use in letting the bill run out, I settled it. So saying he took out a pocket-book, extracted the bill, and showed it to Sexty. Sexty’s heart fluttered in his bosom. There was his name still on the bit of paper, and it might still be used. Having it shown to him after this fashion in its mid career, of course he had strong ground for hope. But he could not bring himself to put out his hand for it. ‘As to what you say about steady business, of course that’s very well,’ said Lopez. ‘It depends upon whether a man wants to make a small income or a large fortune.’ He still held the bill as though he were going to fold it up again, and the importance of it was so present to Sexty’s mind that he could hardly digest the argument about the steady business. ‘I own that I am not satisfied with the former,’ continued Lopez, ‘and that I go in for the fortune.’ As he spoke he tore the bill into three or four bits, apparently without thinking of it, and let the fragments fall upon the floor. It was as though a mountain had been taken off Sexty’s bosom. He felt almost inclined to send out for a bottle of champagne on the moment, and the arguments of his friend rang in his ears with quite a different sound. The allurements of a steady income paled before his eyes, and he too began to tell himself as he had often told himself before, that if he would only keep his eyes open and his heart high there was no reason why he too should not become a city millionaire. But on that occasion Lopez left him soon, without saying very much about his favourite speculation. In a few days, however, the same matter was brought before Sexty’s eyes from another direction. He learned from a side wind that the house of Hunky and Sons was concerned largely in this business, – or at any rate he thought that he had so learned. The ease with which Lopez had destroyed that bill six weeks before it was due had had great effect upon him. Those arguments about a large fortune or a small income still clung to him. Lopez had come to him about the business in the first instance, but it was now necessary that he should go to Lopez. He was, however, very cautious. He managed to happen to meet Lopez in the street, and introduced the subject in his own slap-dash, aery manner, – the result of which was, that he had gone rather deep into two or three American mines before the end of July. But he had already made some money out of them, and, though he would find himself sometimes trembling before he had taken his daily allowance of port wine and brandy and water, still he was buoyant, and hopeful of living in a park, with a palace at the West End, and a seat in Parliament. Knowing also as he did, that his friend Lopez was intimate with the Duchess of Omnium, he had much immediate satisfaction in the intimacy which these relations created. He was getting in the thin edge of the wedge, and would calculate as he went home to Ponder’s End how long it must be before he could ask his friend to propose him at some West End club. On one halcyon summer evening Lopez had dined with him at Ponder’s End, had smiled on Mrs Parker, and played with the hopeful little Parkers. On that occasion Sexty had assured his wife that he regarded his friendship with Ferdinand Lopez as the most fortunate circumstance of his life. ‘Do be careful, Sexty,’ the poor woman had said. But Parker had simply told her that she understood nothing about business. On that evening Lopez had thoroughly imbued him with the conviction that if you will only set your mind that way, it is quite as easy to amass a large fortune as to earn a small income.
About a week before the departure of the Whartons for Herefordshire, Lopez, in compliance with Mrs Roby’s councils, called at the chambers in Stone Buildings. It is difficult to say that you will not see a man, when the man is standing just on the other side of an open door, – nor, in this case, was Mr Wharton quite clear that he had better decline to see the man. But while he was doubting, – at any rate before he had resolved upon denying his presence, – the man was there, inside his room. Mr Wharton got up from his chair, hesitated a moment, and then gave his hand to the intruder in that half-unwilling, unsatisfactory manner which most of us have experienced when shaking hands with some cold-blooded, ungenial acquaintance. ‘Well, Mr Lopez, – what can I do for you?’ he said, as he re-seated himself. He looked as though he were at his ease and master of the situation. He had control over himself sufficient for assuming such a manner. But his heart was not high within his bosom. The more he looked at the man the less he liked him.
‘There is one thing, and one thing only, you can do for me,’ said Lopez. His voice was peculiarly sweet, and when he spoke his words seemed to mean more than when they came from other mouths. But Mr Wharton did not like sweet voices and mellow, soft words, – at least not from men’s mouths.
‘I do not think that I can do anything for you, Mr Lopez,’ he said. There was a slight pause, during which the visitor put down his hat and seemed to hesitate. ‘I think your coming here can be of no avail. Did I not explain myself when I saw you before?’
‘But, I fear, I did not explain myself. I hardly told my story.’
‘You can tell it, of course, – if you think the telling will do you any good.’
‘I was not able to say then, as I can say now, that your daughter had accepted my love.’
‘You ought not to have spoken to my daughter on the subject after what passed between us. I told you my mind frankly.’
‘Ah, Mr Wharton, how was obedience in such a matter possible? What would you yourself think of a man who in such a position would be obedient? I did not seek her secretly. I did nothing underhand. Before I had once directly asked her for her love, I came to you.’
‘What’s the use of that, if you go to her immediately afterwards in manifest opposition to my wishes? You found yourself bound, as would any gentleman, to ask a father’s leave, and when it was refused, you went on just as though it had been granted! Don’t you call that a mockery?’
‘I can say now, sir, what I could not say then. We love each other. And I am as sure of her as I am of myself when I assert that we shall be true to each other. You must know her well enough to be sure of that also.’
‘I am sure of nothing but of this; – that I will not give her my consent to become your wife.’
‘What is your objection, Mr Wharton?’
‘I explained it before as far as I found myself called upon to explain it.’
‘Are we both to be sacrificed for some reason that we neither of us understand?’
‘How dare you take upon yourself to say that she doesn’t understand! Because I refuse to be more explicit to you, a stranger, do you suppose that I am equally silent to my own child?’
‘In regard to money and social rank I am able to place your daughter as my wife in a position as good as she now holds as Miss Wharton.’
‘I care nothing about money, Mr Lopez, and our ideas of social rank are perhaps different. I have nothing further to say to you, and I do not think that you can have anything further to say to me that can be of any avail.’ Then, having finished his speech, he got up from his chair and stood upright, thereby demanding of his visitor that he should depart.
‘I think it no more than honest, Mr Wharton, to declare this one thing. I regard myself as irrevocably engaged to your daughter; and she, although she has refused to bind herself to me by that special word, is, I am certain, as firmly fixed in her choice as I am in mine. My happiness, as a matter of course, can be nothing to you.’
‘Not much,’ said the lawyer, with angry impatience.
Lopez smiled, but he put down the word in his memory and determined he would treasure it there. ‘Not much, at any rate as yet,’ he said. ‘But her happiness must be much to you.’
‘It is everything. But in thinking of her happiness I must look beyond what might be the satisfaction of the present day. You must excuse me, Mr Lopez, if I say that I would rather not discuss the matter with you any further.’ Then he rang the bell and passed quickly into an inner room. When the clerk c
ame Lopez of course marched out of the chambers and went his way.
Mr Wharton had been very firm, and yet he was shaken. It was by degrees becoming a fixed idea in his mind that the man’s material prosperity was assured. He was afraid even to allude to the subject when talking to the man himself, lest he should be overwhelmed by evidence on that subject. Then the man’s manner, though it was distasteful to Wharton himself, would, he well knew, recommend him to others. He was good-looking, he lived with people who were highly regarded, he could speak up for himself, and he was a favoured guest at Carlton House Terrace. So great had been the fame of the Duchess and her hospitality during the last two months, that the fact of the man’s success in this respect had come home even to Mr Wharton. He feared that the world would be against him, and he already began to dread the joint opposition of the world and his own child. The world of this day did not, he thought, care whether its daughters’ husbands had or had not any fathers or mothers. The world as it was now didn’t care whether its sons-in-law were Christian or Jewish; – whether they had the fair skin and bold eyes and uncertain words of an English gentleman, or the swarthy colour and false grimace and glib tongue of some inferior Latin race. But he cared for those things; – and it was dreadful to him to think that his daughter should not care for them. ‘I suppose I had better the and leave them to look after themselves,’ he said, as he returned to his arm-chair.
Lopez himself was not altogether ill-satisfied with the interview, not having expected that Mr Wharton would have given way at once, and bestowed upon him then and there the kind father-in-law’s ‘bless you, – bless you!’ Something had yet to be done before the blessing would come, or the girl, – or the money. He had to-day asserted his own material success, speaking of himself as of a moneyed man, – and the statement had been received with no contradiction, – even without the suggestion of a doubt. He did not therefore suppose that the difficulty was over; but he was clever enough to perceive that the aversion to him on another score might help to tide him over that difficulty. And if once he could call the girl his wife, he did not doubt but that he could build himself up with the old barrister’s money. After leaving Lincoln’s Inn he went at once to Berkeley Street, and was soon closeted with Mrs Roby. ‘You can get her here before they go?’ he said.
‘She wouldn’t come; – and if we arranged it without letting her know that you were to be here, she would tell her father. She hasn’t a particle of female intrigue in her.’
‘So much the better,’ said the lover.
‘That’s all very well for you to say, but when a man makes such a tyrant of himself as Mr Wharton is doing, a girl is bound to look after herself. If it was me I’d go off with my young man before I’d stand such treatment.’
‘You could give her a letter.’
‘She’d only show it to her father. She is so perverse that I sometimes feel inclined to say that I’ll have nothing further to do with her.’
‘You’ll give her a message at any rate?’
‘Yes, – I can do that; – because I can do it in a way that won’t seem to make it important.’
‘But I want my message to be very important. Tell her that I’ve seen her father, and have offered to explain all my affairs to him, – so that he may know that there is nothing to fear on her behalf.’
‘It isn’t any thought of money that is troubling him.’
‘But tell her what I say. He, however, would listen to nothing. Then I assured him that no consideration on earth would induce me to surrender her, and that I was as sure of her as I am of myself Tell her that; – and tell her that I think she owes it to me to say one word to me before she goes into the country.’
CHAPTER 15
Arthur Fletcher
It may, I think, be a question whether the two old men acted wisely in having Arthur Fletcher at Wharton Hall when Emily arrived there. The story of his love for Miss Wharton, as far as it had as yet gone, must be shortly told. He had been the second son, as he was now the second brother, of a Herefordshire squire endowed with much larger property than that belonging to Sir Alured. John Fletcher, Esq., of Longbarns, some twelve miles from Wharton, was a considerable man in Herefordshire. This present squire had married Sir Alured’s eldest daughter, and the younger brother had, almost since they were children together, been known to be in love with Emily Wharton. All the Fletchers and everything belonging to them were almost worshipped at Wharton Hall. There had been marriages between the two families certainly as far back as the time of Henry VII, and they were accustomed to speak, if not of alliances, at any rate of friendships, much anterior to that. As regards family, therefore, the pretensions of a Fletcher would always be held to be good by a Wharton. But this Fletcher was the very pearl of the Fletcher tribe. Though a younger brother, he had a very pleasant little fortune of his own. Though born to comfortable circumstances, he had worked so hard in his younger days as to have already made for himself a name at the bar. He was a fair-haired, handsome fellow, with sharp, eager eyes, with an aquiline nose and just that shape of mouth and chin which such men as Abel Wharton regarded as characteristic of good blood. He was rather thin, about five feet ten in height, and had the character of being one of the best horsemen in the county. He was one of the most popular men in Herefordshire, and at Longbarns was almost as much thought of as the squire himself. He certainly was not the man to be taken, from his appearance, for a forlorn lover. He looked like one of those happy sons of the gods who are born to success. No young man of his age was more courted both by men and women. There was no one who in his youth had suffered fewer troubles from those causes of trouble which visit English young men, – occasional impecuniosity, sternness of parents, native shyness, fear of ridicule, inability of speech, and a general pervading sense of inferiority combined with an ardent desire to rise to a feeling of conscious superiority. So much had been done for him by nature that he was never called upon to pretend to anything. Throughout the county those were the lucky men – and those too were the happy girls, – who were allowed to call him Arthur. And yet this paragon was vainly in love with Emily Wharton, who, in the way of love, would have nothing to say to him, preferring, – as her father once said in his extremest wrath, – a greasy Jew adventurer out of the gutter!
And now it had been thought expedient to have him down to Wharton, although the lawyer’s regular summer vacation had not yet commenced. But there was some excuse made for this, over and above the emergency of his own love, in the fact that his brother John, with Mrs Fletcher, was also to be at the Hall, – so that there was gathered there a great family party of the Whartons and Fletchers; for there was present there also old Mrs Fletcher, a magnificently aristocratic and high-minded old lady, with snow-white hair, and lace worth fifty guineas a yard, who was as anxious as everybody else that her younger son should marry Emily Wharton. Something of the truth as to Emily Wharton’s £60,000 was, of course, known to the Longbarns people. Not that I would have it inferred that they wanted their darling to sell himself for money. The Fletchers were great people, with great spirits, too good in every way for such baseness. But when love, old friendship, good birth, together with every other propriety as to age, manners, and conduct, can be joined to money, such a combination will always be thought pleasant.
When Arthur reached the Hall it was felt to be necessary that a word should be said to him as to that wretched interloper, Ferdinand Lopez. Arthur had not of late been often in Manchester Square. Though always most cordially welcomed there by old Wharton, and treated with every kindness by Emily Wharton short of that love which he desired, he had during the last three or four months abstained from frequenting the house. During the past winter, and early in the spring, he had pressed his suit – but had been rejected, with warmest assurances of all friendship short of love. It had then been arranged between him and the elder Whartons that they should all meet down at the Hall, and there had been sympathetic expressions of hope that all might yet be well. But at that time littl
e or nothing had been known of Ferdinand Lopez.
But now the old baronet spoke to him, the father having deputed the loathsome task to his friend, – being unwilling himself even to hint his daughter’s disgrace. ‘Oh, yes, I’ve heard of him,’ said Arthur Fletcher. ‘I met him with Everett, and I don’t think I never took a stronger dislike to a man. Everett seems very fond of him.’ The baronet mournfully shook his head. It was sad to find that Whartons could go so far astray. ‘He goes to Carlton House Terrace, – to the Duchess’s,’ continued the young man.
‘I don’t think that that is very much in his favour,’ said the baronet.
‘I don’t know that it is, sir; – only they try to catch all fish in that net that are of any use.’
‘Do you go there, Arthur?’
‘I should if I were asked, I suppose. I don’t know who wouldn’t. You see it’s a Coalition affair, so that everybody is able to feel that he is supporting his party by going to the Duchess’s.’
‘I hate Coalitions,’ said the baronet. ‘I think they are disgraceful.’
‘Well; – yes; I don’t know. The coach has to be driven somehow. You mustn’t stick in the mud, you know. And after all, sir, the Duke of Omnium is a respectable man, though he is a Liberal. A Duke of Omnium can’t want to send the country to the dogs.’ The old man shook his head. He did not understand much about it, but he felt convinced that the Duke and his colleagues were sending the country to the dogs whatever might be their wishes. ‘I shan’t think of politics for the next ten years, and so I don’t trouble myself about the Duchess’s parties, but I suppose I should go if I were asked.’
THE PRIME MINISTER Page 17