THE PRIME MINISTER

by DAVID SKILTON

  Sir Alured felt that he had not as yet begun even to approach the difficult subject. ‘I’m glad you don’t like that man,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t like him at all. Tell me, Sir Alured; – why is he always going to Manchester Square?’

  ‘Ah; – that is it.’

  ‘He has been there constantly; – has he not?’

  ‘No; – no. I don’t think that Mr Wharton doesn’t love him a bit better than you do. My cousin thinks him a most objectionable young man.’

  ‘But Emily?’

  ‘Ah – That’s where it is.’

  ‘You don’t mean to say she – cares about that man!’

  ‘He has been encouraged by that aunt of hers, who, as far as I can make out, is a very unfit sort of person to be much with such a girl as our dear Emily. I never saw her but once, and then I didn’t like her at all.’

  ‘A vulgar, good-natured woman. But what can she have done? She can’t have twisted Emily round her finger.’

  ‘I don’t suppose there is very much in it, but I thought it better to tell you. Girls take fancies into their heads, – just for a time.’

  ‘He’s a handsome fellow, too,’ said Arthur Fletcher, musing in his sorrow.

  ‘My cousin says he’s a nasty Jew-looking man.’

  ‘He’s not that, Sir Alured. He’s a handsome man, with a fine voice; – dark, and not just like an Englishman; but still I can fancy – That’s bad news for me, Sir Alured.’

  ‘I think she’ll forget all about him down here.’

  ‘She never forgets anything. I shall ask her, straight away. She knows my feeling about her, and I haven’t a doubt but she’ll tell me. She’s too honest to be able to lie. Has he got any money?’

  ‘My cousin seems to think that he’s rich.’

  ‘I suppose he is. Oh, Lord! That’s a blow. I wish I could have the pleasure of shooting him as a man might a few years ago. But what would be the good? The girl would only hate me the more after it. The best thing to do would be to shoot myself.’

  ‘Don’t talk like that, Arthur.’

  ‘I shan’t throw up the sponge as long as there’s a chance left, Sir Alured. But it will go badly with me if I’m beat at last. I shouldn’t have thought it possible that I should have felt anything so much.’ Then he pulled his hair, and thrust his hand into his waistcoat, and turned away, so that his old friend might not see the tear in his eye.

  His old friend also was much moved. It was dreadful to him that the happiness of a Fletcher, and the comfort of the Whartons generally, should be marred by a man with such a name as Ferdinand Lopez. ‘She’ll never marry him without her father’s consent,’ said Sir Alured.

  ‘If she means it, of course he’ll consent’

  ‘That I’m sure he won’t. He doesn’t like the man a bit better than you do.’ Fletcher shook his head. ‘And he’s as fond of you as though you were already his son.’

  ‘What does it matter? If a girl sets her heart on marrying a man, of course she will marry him. If he had no money it might be different. But if he’s well off, of course he’ll succeed. Well –; I suppose other men have borne the same sort of thing before and it hasn’t killed them.’

  ‘Let us hope, my boy. I think of her quite as much as of you.’

  ‘Yes, – we can hope. I shan’t give it up. As for her, I dare say she knows what will suit her best. I’ve nothing to say against the man, – excepting that I should like to cut him into four quarters.’

  ‘But a foreigner!’

  ‘Girls don’t think about that, – not as you do and Mr Wharton. And I think they like dark, greasy men with slippery voices, who are up to dodges and full of secrets. Well, sir, I shall go to her at once and have it out’

  ‘You’ll speak to my cousin?’

  ‘Certainly I will. He has always been one of the best friends I ever had in my life. I know it hasn’t been his fault .But what can a man do? Girls won’t marry this man or that because they’re told.’

  Fletcher did speak to Emily’s father, and learned more from him than had been told him by Sir Alured. Indeed he learned the whole truth. Lopez had been twice with the father pressing his suit and had been twice repulsed, with as absolute denial as words could convey. Emily, however, had declared her own feeling openly, expressing her wish to marry the odious man, promising not to do so without her father’s consent, but evidently feeling that that consent ought not to be withheld from her. All this Mr Wharton told very plainly, walking with Arthur a little before dinner along a shaded, lonely path, which for half a mile ran along the very marge of the Wye at the bottom of the park. And then he went on to speak other words which seemed to rob his young friend of all hope. The old man was walking slowly, with his hands clasped behind his back and with his eyes fixed on the path as he went; – and he spoke slowly, evidently weighing his words as he uttered them, bringing home to his hearer a conviction that the matter discussed was one of supreme importance to the speaker, – as to which he had thought much, so as to be able to express his settled resolutions. ‘I’ve told you all now, Arthur; – only this. I do not know how long I may be able to resist this man’s claim if it be backed by Emily’s entreaties. I am thinking very much about it. I do not know that I have really been able to think of anything else for the last two months. It is all the world to me, – what she and Everett do with themselves; and what she may do in this matter of marriage is of infinitely greater importance than anything that can befall him. If he makes a mistake, it may be put right. But with a woman’s marrying –, vestigia nulla retrorsum.39 She has put off all her old bonds and taken new ones, which must be her bonds for life. Feeling this very strongly, and disliking this man greatly, – disliking him, that is to say, in the view of this close relation, – I have felt myself to be justified in so far opposing my child by the use of a high hand. I have refused my sanction to the marriage both to him and to her, – though in truth I have been hard set to find any adequate reason for doing so. I have no right to fashion my girl’s life by my prejudices. My life has been lived. Hers is to come. In this matter I should be cruel and unnatural were I to allow myself to be governed by any selfish inclination. Though I were to know that she would be lost to me for ever, I must give way, – if once brought to a conviction that by not giving way I should sacrifice her young happiness. In this matter, Arthur, I must not even think of you, though I love you well. I must consider only my child’s welfare; and in doing so I must try to sift my own feelings and my own judgment, and ascertain, if it be possible, whether my distaste to the man is reasonable or irrational; – whether I should serve her or sacrifice her by obstinacy of refusal. I can speak to you more plainly than to her. Indeed I have laid bare to you my whole heart and my whole mind. You have all my wishes, but you will understand that I do not promise you my continued assistance.’ When he had so spoken he put out his hand and pressed his companion’s arm. Then he turned slowly into a little by-path which led across the park up to the house, and left Arthur Fletcher standing alone by the river’s bank.

  And so by degrees the blow had come full home to him. He had been twice refused. Then rumours had reached him, – not at first that he had a rival, but that there was a man who might possibly become so. And now this rivalry, and its success, were declared to him plainly. He told himself from this moment that he had not a chance. Looking forward he could see it all. He understood the girl’s character sufficiently to be sure that she would not be wafted about, from one lover to another, by change of scene. Taking her to Dresden, – or to New Zealand, – would only confirm in her passion such a girl as Emily Wharton. Nothing could shake her but the ascertained unworthiness of the man, – and not that unless it were ascertained beneath her own eyes. And then years must pass by before she would yield to another lover. There was a further question, too, which he did not fail to ask himself. Was the man necessarily unworthy because his name was Lopez, and because he had not come of English blood?

  As he strove to think of this, i
f not coolly yet rationally, he sat himself down on the river’s side and began to pitch stones off the path in among the rocks, among which at that spot the water made its way rapidly. There had been moments in which he had been almost ashamed of his love, – and now he did not know whether to be most ashamed or most proud of it But he recognized the fact that it was crucifying him, and that it would continue to crucify him. He knew himself in London to be a popular man, – one of those for whom, according to general opinion, girls should sigh, rather than one who should break his heart sighing for a girl. He had often told himself that it was beneath his manliness to be despondent; that he should let such a trouble run from him like water from a duck’s back, consoling himself with the reflection that if the girl had such bad taste she could hardly be worthy of him. He had almost tried to belong to that school which throws the heart away and rules by the head alone. He knew that others, – perhaps not those who knew him best, but who nevertheless were the companions of many of his hours, – gave him credit for such power. Why should a man afflict himself by the inward burden of an unsatisfied craving, and allow his heart to sink into his very feet because a girl would not smile when he wooed her? ‘If she be not fair for me, what care I how fair she be!’40 He had repeated the lines to himself a score of times, and had been ashamed of himself because he could not make them come true to himself.

  They had not come true in the least. There he was, Arthur Fletcher, whom all the world courted, with his heart in his very boots! There was a miserable load within him, absolutely palpable to his outward feeling, – a very physical pain, – which he could not shake off. As he threw the stones into the water he told himself that it must be so with him always. Though the world did pet him, though he was liked at his club, and courted in the hunting-field, and loved at balls and archery meetings, and reputed by old men to be a rising star, he told himself that he was so maimed and mutilated as to be only half a man. He could not reason about it Nature had afflicted him with a certain weakness. One man has a hump; – another can hardly see out of his imperfect eyes; – a third can barely utter a few disjointed words. It was his fate to be constructed with some weak arrangement of the blood vessels which left him in this plight. ‘The whole damned thing is nothing to me,’ he said bursting out into absolute tears, after vainly trying to reassure himself by a recollection of the good things which the world still had in store for him.

  Then he strove to console himself by thinking that he might take a pride in his love, even though it were so intolerable a burden to him. Was it not something to be able to love as he loved? Was it not something at any rate that she to whom he had condescended to stoop was worthy of all love? But even here he could get no comfort, – being in truth unable to see very clearly into the condition of the thing. It was a disgrace to him, – to him within his own bosom, – that she should have preferred to him such a one as Ferdinand Lopez, and this disgrace he exaggerated, ignoring the fact that the girl herself might be deficient in judgment, or led away in her love by falsehood and counterfeit attractions. To him she was such a goddess that she must be right, – and therefore his own inferiority to such a one as Ferdinand Lopez was proved. He could take no pride in his rejected love. He would rid himself of it at a moment’s notice if he knew the way. He would throw himself at the feet of some second-rate, tawdry, well-born, well-known beauty of the day, – only that there was not now left to him strength to pretend the feeling that would be necessary. Then he heard steps, and jumping up from his seat, stood just in the way of Emily Wharton and her cousin Mary. ‘Ain’t you going to dress for dinner, young man?’ said the latter.

  ‘I shall have time if you have, anyway,’ said Arthur endeavouring to pluck up his spirits.

  ‘That’s nice of him; – isn’t it?’ said Mary. ‘Why, we are dressed. What more do you want? We came out to look for you, though we didn’t mean to come as far as this. It’s past seven now, and we are supposed to dine at a quarter past’

  ‘Five minutes will do for me.’

  ‘But you’ve got to get to the house. You needn’t be in a tremendous hurry, because papa has only just come in from haymaking. They’ve got up the last load, and there has been the usual ceremony. Emily and I have been looking at them.’

  ‘I wish I’d been here all the time,’ said Emily. ‘I do so hate London in July.’

  ‘So do I,’ said Arthur, – ‘in July and all other times.’

  ‘You hate London!’ said Mary.

  ‘Yes, – and Herefordshire, – and other places generally. If I’ve got to dress I’d better get across the park as quick as I can go,’ and so he left them. Mary turned round and looked at her cousin, but at the moment said nothing. Arthur’s passion was well known to Mary Wharton, but Mary had as yet heard nothing of Ferdinand Lopez.

  CHAPTER l6

  Never Run Away!

  During the whole of that evening there was a forced attempt on the part of all the party at Wharton Hall to be merry, – which, however, as is the case whenever such attempts are forced, was a failure. There had been a haymaking harvest-home which was supposed to give the special occasion for mirth, as Sir Alured farmed the land around the park himself, and was great in hay. ‘I don’t think it pays very well,’ he said with a gentle smile, ‘but I like to employ some of the people myself. I think the old people find it easier with me than with the tenants.’

  ‘I shouldn’t wonder,’ said his cousin; – ‘but that’s charity; not employment’

  ‘No, no,’ exclaimed the baronet. ‘They work for their wages and do their best. Powell sees to that.’ Powell was the bailiff, who knew the length of his master’s foot to a quarter of an inch, and was quite aware that the Wharton haymakers were not to be overtasked. ‘Powell doesn’t keep any cats about the place, but what catch mice. But I am not quite sure that haymaking does pay.’

  ‘How do the tenants manage?’

  ‘Of course they look to things closer. You wouldn’t wish me to let the land up to the house door.’

  ‘I think,’ said old Mrs Fletcher, ‘that a landlord should consent to lose a little by his own farming. It does good in the long run.’ Both Mr Wharton and Sir Alured felt that this might be very well at Longbarns, though it could hardly be afforded at Wharton.

  ‘I don’t think I lose much by my farming,’ said the squire of Longbarns. ‘I have about four hundred acres on hand, and I keep my accounts pretty regularly.’

  ‘Johnson is a very good man, I dare say,’ said the baronet.

  ‘Like most of the others,’ continued the squire, ‘he’s very well as long as he’s looked after. I think I know as much about it as Johnson. Of course I don’t expect a farmer’s profit; but I do expect my rent, and I get it’

  ‘I don’t think I manage it quite in that way,’ said the baronet in a melancholy tone.

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ said the barrister.

  John is as hard upon the men as any one of the tenants,’ said John’s wife, Mrs Fletcher of Longbarns.

  ‘I’m not hard at all,’ said John, ‘and you understand nothing about it. I’m paying three shillings a week more to every man, and eighteen pence a week more to every woman, than I did three years ago.’

  ‘That’s because of the Unions,’ said the barrister.

  ‘I don’t care a straw for the Unions. If the Unions interfered with my comfort I’d let the land and leave the place.’

  ‘Oh, John!’ ejaculated John’s mother.

  ‘I would not consent to be made a slave even for the sake of the country. But the wages had to be raised, – and having raised them I expect to get proper value for my money. If anything has to be given away, let it be given away, – so that the people should know what it is that they receive.’

  ‘That’s just what we don’t want to do here,’ said Lady Wharton, who did not often join in any of these arguments.

  ‘You’re wrong, my lady,’ said her stepson. ‘You’re only breeding idleness when you teach people to think that they are earning
wages without working for their money. Whatever you do with ’em, let ’em know and feel the truth. It’ll be the best in the long run.’

  ‘I’m sometimes happy when I think that I shan’t live to see the long run,’ said the baronet. This was the manner in which they tried to be merry that evening after dinner at Wharton Hall. The two girls sat listening to their seniors in contented silence, – listening or perhaps thinking of their own peculiar troubles, while Arthur Fletcher held some book in his hand which he strove to read with all his might.

  There was not one there in the room who did not know that it was the wish of the united families that Arthur Fletcher should marry Emily Wharton, and also that Emily had refused him. To Arthur of course the feeling that it was so could not but be an additional vexation; but the knowledge had grown up and had become common in the two families without any power on his part to prevent so disagreeable a condition of affairs. There was not one in that room, unless it was Mary Wharton, who was not more or less angry with Emily, thinking her to be perverse and unreasonable. Even to Mary her cousin’s strange obstinacy was matter of surprise and sorrow, – for to her Arthur Fletcher was one of those demigods, who should never be refused, who are not expected to do more than express a wish and be accepted. Her own heart had not strayed that way because she thought but little of herself, knowing herself to be portionless, and believing from long thought on the subject that it was not her destiny to be the wife of any man. She regarded Arthur Fletcher as being of all men the most lovable, – though, knowing her own condition, she did not dream of loving him. It did not become her to be angry with another girl on such a cause; – but she was amazed that Arthur Fletcher should sigh in vain.

  The girl’s folly and perverseness on this head were known to them all, – but as yet her greater folly and worse perverseness, her vitiated taste and dreadful partiality for the Portuguese adventurer, were known but to the two old men and to poor Arthur himself. When that sternly magnificent old lady, Mrs Fletcher, – whose ancestors had been Welsh kings in the time of the Romans, – when she should hear this story, the roof of the old hall would hardly be able to hold her wrath and her dismay! The old kings had died away, but the Fletchers, and the Vaughans, – of whom she had been one, – and the Whartons remained, a peculiar people in an age that was then surrendering itself to quick perdition, and with peculiar duties. Among these duties, the chiefest of them incumbent on females was that of so restraining their affections that they should never damage the good cause by leaving it. They might marry within the pale, – or remain single, as might be their lot. She would not take upon herself to say that Emily Wharton was bound to accept Arthur Fletcher, merely because such a marriage was fitting, – although she did think that there was much perverseness in the girl, who might have taught herself, had she not been stubborn, to comply with the wishes of the families. But to love one below herself, a man without a father, a foreigner, a black Portuguese nameless Jew, merely because he had a bright eye, and a hook nose, and a glib tongue, – that a girl from the Whartons should do this –! It was so unnatural to Mrs Fletcher that it would be hardly possible to her to be civil to the girl after she had heard that her mind and taste were so astray. All this Sir Alured knew and the barrister knew it, – and they feared her indignation the more because they sympathized with the old lady’s feelings.