‘Emily Wharton doesn’t seem to me to be a bit more gracious than she used to be,’ Mrs Fletcher said to Lady Wharton that night The two old ladies were sitting together upstairs, and Mrs John Fletcher was with them. In such conferences Mrs Fletcher always domineered, – to the perfect contentment of old Lady Wharton, but not equally so to that of her daughter-in-law.
‘I’m afraid she is not very happy,’ said Lady Wharton.
‘She has everything that ought to make a girl happy, and I don’t know what it is she wants. It makes me quite angry to see her so discontented. She doesn’t say a word, but sits there as glum as death. If I were Arthur I would leave her for six months, and never speak to her during the time.’
‘I suppose, mother,’ said the younger Mrs Fletcher, – who called her husband’s mother, mother, and her own mother, mamma, – ‘a girl needn’t marry a man unless she likes him.’
‘But she should try to like him if it is suitable in other respects. I don’t mean to take any trouble about it. Arthur needn’t beg for any favour. Only I wouldn’t have come here if I had thought that she had intended to sit silent like that always.’
‘It makes her unhappy, I suppose,’ said Lady Wharton, ‘because she can’t do what we all want’
‘Fall, lall! She’d have wanted it herself if nobody else had wished it. I’m surprised that Arthur should be so much taken with her.’
‘You’d better say nothing more about it, mother.’
‘I don’t mean to say anything more about it. It’s nothing to me. Arthur can do very well in the world without Emily Wharton. Only a girl like that will sometimes make a disgraceful match; and we should all feel that’
‘I don’t think Emily will do anything disgraceful,’ said Lady Wharton. And so they parted.
In the meantime the two brothers were smoking their pipes in the housekeeper’s room, which, at Wharton, when the Fletchers or Everett were there, was freely used for that purpose.
‘Isn’t it rather quaint of you,’ said the elder brother, ‘coming down here in the middle of term time?’
‘It doesn’t matter much.’
‘I should have thought it would matter; – that is, if you mean to go on with it.’
‘I’m not going to make a slave of myself about it, if you mean that. I don’t suppose I shall ever marry, – and as for rising to be a swell in the profession, I don’t care about it’
‘You used to care about it, – very much. You used to say that if you didn’t get to the top it shouldn’t be your own fault.’
‘And I have worked; – and I do work. But things get changed somehow. I’ve half a mind to give it all up, – to raise a lot of money, and to start off with a resolution to see every corner of the world. I suppose a man could do it in about thirty years if he lived so long. It’s the kind of thing would suit me.’
‘Exactly. I don’t know any fellow who has been more into society, and therefore you are exactly the man to live alone for the rest of your life. You’ve always worked hard, I will say that for you; – and therefore you’re just the man to be contented with idleness. You’ve always been ambitious and self-confident, and therefore it will suit you to a T, to be nobody and to do nothing.’ Arthur sat silent, smoking his pipe with all his might, and his brother continued, – ‘Besides, – you read sometimes, I fancy.’
‘I should read all the more.’
‘Very likely. But what you have read, in the old plays, for instance, must have taught you that when a man is cut up about a woman, – which I suppose is your case just at present, – he never does get over it. He never gets all right after a time, – does he? Such a one had better go and turn monk at once, as the world is over for him altogether; – isn’t it? Men don’t recover after a month or two, and go on just the same. You’ve never seen that kind of thing yourself?’
‘I’m not going to cut my throat or turn monk either.’
‘No. There are so many steamboats and railways now that travelling seems easier. Suppose you go as far as St Petersburg, and see if that does you any good. If it don’t, you needn’t go on, because it will be hopeless. If it does, – why, you can come back, because the second journey will do the rest.’
‘There never was anything, John, that wasn’t matter for chaff with you.’
‘And I hope there never will be. People understand it when logic would be thrown away. I suppose the truth is the girl cares for somebody else.’ Arthur nodded his head. ‘Who is it? Anyone I know?’
‘I think not.’
‘Anyone you know?’
‘I have met the man.’
‘Decent?’
‘Disgustingly indecent, I should say.’ John looked very black, for even with him the feeling about the Whartons and the Vaughans and the Fletchers was very strong. ‘He’s a man I should say you wouldn’t let into Longbarns.’
‘There might be various reasons for that. It might be that you wouldn’t care to meet him.’
‘Well; – no, – I don’t suppose I should. But without that you wouldn’t like him. I don’t think he’s an Englishman.’
‘A foreigner!’
‘He has got a foreign name.’
‘An Italian nobleman?’
‘I don’t think he’s noble in any country.’
‘Who the d— is he?’
‘His name is – Lopez.’
‘Everett’s friend?’
‘Yes; – Everett’s friend. I ain’t very much obliged to Master Everett for what he has done.’
‘I’ve seen the man. Indeed, I may say I know him, – for I dined with him once in Manchester Square. Old Wharton himself must have asked him there.’
‘He was there as Everett’s friend. I only heard all this to-day, you know; – though I had heard about it before.’
‘And therefore you want to set out on your travels. As far as I saw I should say he is a clever fellow.’
‘I don’t doubt that.’
‘And a gentleman.’
‘I don’t know that he is not,’ said Arthur. ‘I’ve no right to say a word against him. From what Wharton says I suppose he’s rich.’
‘He’s good-looking too; – at least he’s the son of man that women like to look at.’
‘Just so. I’ve no cause of quarrel with him, – nor with her. But –’
‘Yes, my friend, I see it all,’ said the elder brother. ‘I think I know all about it. But running away is not the thing. One may be pretty nearly sure that one is right when one says that a man shouldn’t run away from anything.’
‘The thing is to be happy if you can,’ said Arthur.
‘No; – that is not the thing. I’m not much of a philosopher, but as far as I can see there are two philosophies in the world. The one is to make one’s self happy, and the other is to make other people happy. The latter answers the best.’
‘I can’t add to her happiness by hanging about London.’
‘That’s a quibble. It isn’t her happiness we are talking about, – nor yet your hanging about London. Gird yourself up and go on with what you’ve got to do. Put your work before your feelings. What does a poor man do, who goes out hedging and ditching with a dead child lying in his house? If you get a blow in the face, return it if it ought to be returned, but never complain of the pain. If you must have your vitals eaten into, – have them eaten into like a man. But, mind you, – these ain’t your vitals.’
‘It goes pretty near.’
‘These ain’t your vitals. A man gets cured of it, – almost always. I believe always; though some men get hit so hard they can never bring themselves to try it again. But tell me this. Has old Wharton given his consent?’
‘No. He has refused,’ said Arthur with strong emphasis.
‘How is it to be, then?’
‘He has dealt very fairly by me. He has done all he could to get rid of the man, – both with him and with her. He has told Emily that he will have nothing to do with the man. And she will do nothing without his sanction.’
<
br /> ‘Then it will remain just as it is.’
‘No, John; it will not. He has gone on to say that though he has refused, – and has refused roughly enough, – he must give way if he sees that she has really set her heart upon him. And she has.’
‘Has she told you so?’
‘No; – but he has told me. I shall have it out with her to-morrow, if I can. And then I shall be off.’
‘You’ll be here for shooting on the Ist?’
‘No. I dare say you’re right in what you say about sticking to my work. It does seem unmanly to run away because of a girl.’
‘Because of anything! Stop and face it, whatever it is.’
‘Just so; – but I can’t stop and face her. It would do no good. For all our sakes I should be better away. I can get shooting with Musgrave and Carnegie in Perthshire. I dare say I shall go there, and take a share with them.’
‘That’s better than going into all the quarters of the globe.’
‘I didn’t mean that I was to surrender and start at once. You take a fellow up so short. I shall do very well, I’ve no doubt, and shall be hunting here as jolly as ever at Christmas. But a fellow must say it all to somebody.’ The elder brother put his hand out and laid it affectionately upon the younger one’s arm. ‘I’m not going to whimper about the world like a whipped dog. The worst of it is so many people have known of this.’
‘You mean down here.’
‘Oh; – everywhere. I have never told them. It has been a kind of family affair and thought to be fit for general discussions.’
‘That’ll wear away.’
‘In the meantime it’s a bore. But that shall be the end of it. Don’t you say another word to me about it, and I won’t to you. And tell mother not to, or Sarah.’ Sarah was John Fletcher’s wife. ‘It has got to be dropped, and let us drop it as quickly as we can. If she does marry this man I don’t suppose she’ll be much at Longbarns or Wharton.’
‘Not at Longbarns certainly, I should say,’ replied John. ‘Fancy mother having to curtsey to her as Mrs Lopez! And I doubt whether Sir Alured would like him. He isn’t of our sort He’s too clever, too cosmopolitan, – a sort of man whitewashed of all prejudices, who wouldn’t mind whether he ate horseflesh or beef if horseflesh were as good as beef, and never had an association in his life. I’m not sure that he’s not on the safest side.41 Good night, old fellow. Pluck up, and send us plenty of grouse if you do go to Scotland.’
John Fletcher, as I hope may have been already seen, was by no means a weak man or an indifferent brother. He was warm-hearted, sharp-witted, and, though perhaps a little self-opinionated, considered throughout the county to be one of the most prudent in it. Indeed no one ever ventured to doubt his wisdom on all practical matters, – save his mother, who seeing him almost every day, had a stronger bias towards her younger son. ‘Arthur has been hit hard about that girl,’ he said to his wife that night.
‘Emily Wharton?’
‘Yes; – your cousin Emily. Don’t say anything to him, but be as good to him as you know how.’
‘Good to Arthur! Am not I always good to him?’
‘Be a little more than usually tender with him. It makes one almost cry to see such a fellow hurt like that. I can understand it, though I never had anything of it myself.’
‘You never had, John,’ said the wife leaning close upon the husband’s breast as she spoke. ‘It all came very easily to you; – too easily perhaps.’
‘If any girl had ever refused me, I should have taken her at her word, I can tell you. There would have been no second “hop” to that ball.’
‘Then I suppose I was right to catch it the first time?’
‘I don’t say how that may be.’
‘I was right. Oh, dear me! – Suppose I had doubted, just for once, and you had gone off. You would have tried once more; – wouldn’t you?’
‘You’d have gone about like a broken-winged old hen, and have softened me that way.’
‘And now poor Arthur has had his wing broken.’
‘You mustn’t let on to know that it’s broken, and the wing will be healed in due time. But what fools girls are!’
‘Indeed they are, John; – particularly me.’
‘Fancy a girl like Emily Wharton,’ said he, not condescending to notice her little joke, ‘throwing over a fellow like Arthur for a greasy, black foreigner.’
‘A foreigner!’
‘Yes; – a man named Lopez. Don’t say anything about it at present. Won’t she live to find out the difference, and to know what she has done! I can tell her of one that won’t pity her.’
CHAPTER 17
Good-bye
Arthur Fletcher received his brother’s teaching as true, and took his brother’s advice in good part; – so that, before the morning following, he had resolved that however deep the wound might be, he would so live before the world, that the world should not see his wound. What people already knew they must know, – but they should learn nothing further either by words or signs from him. He would, as he had said to his brother, ‘have it out with Emily’; and then, if she told him plainly that she loved the man, he would bid her adieu, simply expressing regret that their course for life should be divided. He was confident that she would tell him the entire truth. She would be restrained neither by false modesty, nor by any assumed unwillingness to discuss her own affairs with a friend so true to her as he had been. He knew her well enough to be sure that she recognized the value of his love though she could not bring herself to accept it. There are rejected lovers who, merely because they are lovers, become subject to the scorn and even to the disgust of the girls they love. But again there are men who, even when they are rejected, are almost loved, who are considered to be worthy of all reverence, almost of worship; – and yet the worshippers will not love them. Not analysing all this, but somewhat conscious of the light in which this girl regarded him, he knew that what he might say would be treated with deference. As to shaking her, – as to talking her out of one purpose and into another, – that to him did not for a moment seem to be practicable. There was no hope of that. He hardly knew why he should endeavour to say a word to her before he left Wharton. And yet he felt that it must be said. Were he to allow her to be married to this man, without any further previous word between them, it would appear that he had resolved to quarrel with her for ever. But now, at this very moment of time, as he lay in his bed, as he dressed himself in the morning, as he sauntered about among the new hay-stacks with his pipe in his mouth after breakfast, he came to some conclusion in his mind very much averse to such quarrelling.
He had loved her with all his heart. It had not been a mere drawing-room love begotten between a couple of waltzes, and fostered by five minutes in a crush.42 He knew himself to be a man of the world, and he did not wish to be other than he was. He could talk among men as men talked, and act as men acted; – and he could do the same with women. But there was one person who had been to him above all, and round everything, and under everything. There had been a private nook within him into which there had been no entrance but for the one image. There had been a holy of holies, which he had guarded within himself, keeping it free from all outer contamination for his own use. He had cherished the idea of a clear fountain of ever-running water which would at last be his, always ready for the comfort of his own lips. Now all his hope was shattered, his trust was gone, and his longing disappointed. But the person was the same person, though she could not be his. The nook was there, though she would not fill it. The holy of holies was not less holy, though he himself might not dare to lift the curtain. The fountain would still run, – still the clearest fountain of all, – though he might not put his lips to it. He would never allow himself to think of it with lessened reverence, or with changed ideas as to her nature.
And then, as he stood leaning against a ladder which still kept its place against one of the hay-ricks, and filled his second pipe unconsciously, he had to realize to himself the probable conditio
n of his future life. Of course she would marry this man with very little further delay. Her father had already declared himself to be too weak to interfere much longer with her wishes. Of course Mr Wharton would give way. He had himself declared that he would give way. And then, – what sort of life would be her life? No one knew anything about the man. There was an idea that he was rich, – but wealth such as his, wealth that is subject to speculation, will fly away at a moment’s notice. He might be cruel, a mere adventurer, or a thorough ruffian for all that was known of him. There should, thought Arthur Fletcher to himself, be more stability in the giving and taking of wives than could be reckoned upon here. He became old in that half-hour, taking home to himself and appreciating many saws of wisdom and finger-directions of experience which hitherto had been to him matters almost of ridicule. But he could only come to this conclusion, – that as she was still to be to him his holy of holies though he might not lay his hand upon the altar, his fountain though he might not drink of it, the one image which alone could have filled that nook, he would not cease to regard her happiness when she should have become the wife of this stranger. With the stranger himself he never could be on friendly terms; – but for the stranger’s wife there should always be a friend, if the friend were needed.
THE PRIME MINISTER Page 19