THE PRIME MINISTER

by DAVID SKILTON

  ‘I don’t at all know what it will be like. Ferdinand says it will be cheap.’

  ‘Is that of such vital consequence?’

  ‘Ah; – yes; I fear it is.’

  This was very sad to him. Lopez had already had from him a considerable sum of money, having not yet been married twelve months, and was now living in London almost free of expense. Before his marriage he had always spoken of himself, and had contrived to be spoken of, as a wealthy man, and now he was obliged to choose some small English seaside place to which to retreat, because thus he might live at a low rate! Had they married as poor people there would have been nothing to regret in this; – there would be nothing that might not be done with entire satisfaction. But, as it was, it told a bad tale for the future! ‘Do you understand his money matters, Emily?’

  ‘Not at all, papa.’

  ‘I do not in the least mean to make inquiry. Perhaps I should have asked before; – but if I did make inquiry now it would be of him. But I think a wife should know.’

  ‘I know nothing.’

  ‘What is his business?’

  ‘I have no idea. I used to think he was connected with Mr Mills Happerton and with Messrs. Hunky and Sons.’

  ‘Is he not connected with Hunky’s house?’

  ‘I think not. He has a partner of the name of Parker, who is, – who is not, I think, quite – quite a gentleman. I never saw him.’

  ‘What does he do with Mr Parker?’

  ‘I believe they buy guano.’

  ‘Ah; – that, I fancy, was only one affair.’

  ‘I’m afraid he lost money, papa, by that election at Silverbridge.’

  ‘I paid that,’ said Mr Wharton sternly. Surely he should have told his wife that he had received that money from her family!

  ‘Did you? That was very kind. I am afraid, papa, we are a great burden on you.’

  ‘I should not mind it, my dear, if there were confidence and happiness. What matter would it be to me whether you had your money now or hereafter, so that you might have it in the manner that would be most beneficial to you? I wish he would be open with me, and tell me everything.’

  ‘Shall I let him know that you say so?’

  He thought for a minute or two before he answered her. Perhaps the man would be more impressed if the message came to him through his wife. ‘If you think that he will not be annoyed with you, you may do so.’

  ‘I don’t know why he should, – but if it be right, that must be borne. I am not afraid to say anything to him.’

  ‘Then tell him so. Tell him that it will be better that he should let me know the whole condition of his affairs. God bless you, dear.’ Then he stooped over her, and kissed her, and went his way to Stone Buildings.

  It was not as he sat at the breakfast table that Ferdinand Lopez made up his mind to pocket the Duke’s money and to say nothing about it to Mr Wharton. He had been careful to conceal the cheque, but he had done so with the feeling that the matter was one to be considered in his own mind before he took any step. As he left the house, already considering it, he was inclined to think that the money must be surrendered. Mr Wharton had very generously paid his electioneering expenses, but had not done so simply with the view of making him a present of money. He wished the Duke had not taken him at his word. In handing this cheque over to Mr Wharton he would be forced to tell the story of his letter to the Duke, and he was sure that Mr Wharton would not approve of his having written such a letter. How could anyone approve of his having applied for a sum of money which had already been paid to him? How could such a one as Mr Wharton, – an old-fashioned English gentleman, – approve of such an application being made under any circumstances? Mr Wharton would very probably insist on having the cheque sent back to the Duke, – which would be a sorry end to the triumph as at present achieved. And the more he thought of it the more sure he was that it would be imprudent to mention to Mr Wharton his application to the Duke. The old men of the present day were, he said to himself, such fools that they understood nothing. And then the money was very convenient to him. He was intent on obtaining Sexty Parker’s consent to a large speculation, and knew that he could not do so without a show of funds. By the time, therefore, that he had reached the city he had resolved that at any rate for the present he would use the money and say nothing about it to Mr Wharton. Was it not spoil got from the enemy by his own courage and cleverness? When he was writing his acknowledgement for the money to Warburton he had taught himself to look upon the sum extracted from the Duke as a matter quite distinct from the payment made to him by his father-in-law.

  It was evident on that day to Sexty Parker that his partner was a man of great resources. Though things sometimes looked very bad, yet money always ‘turned up’. Some of their buyings and sellings had answered pretty well. Some had been great failures. No great stroke had been made as yet, but then the great stroke was always being expected. Sexty’s fears were greatly exaggerated by the feeling that the coffee and guano were not always real coffee and guano. His partner, indeed, was of opinion that in such a trade as this they were following there was no need at all of real coffee and real guano, and explained his theory with considerable eloquence. ‘If I buy a ton of coffee and keep it six weeks, why do I buy it and keep it, and why does the seller sell it instead of keeping it? The seller sells it because he thinks he can do best by parting with it now at a certain price. I buy it because I think I can make money by keeping it. It is just the same as though we were to back our opinions. He backs the fall. I back the rise. You needn’t have coffee and you needn’t have guano to do this. Indeed the possession of the coffee or the guano is only a very clumsy addition to the trouble of your profession. I make it my study to watch the markets; – but I needn’t buy everything I see in order to make money by my labour and intelligence.’ Sexty Parker before his lunch always thought that his partner was wrong, but after that ceremony he almost daily became a convert to the great doctrine. Coffee and guano still had to be bought because the world was dull and would not learn the tricks of trade as taught by Ferdinand Lopez, – also possibly because somebody might want such articles, – but our enterprising hero looked for a time in which no such dull burden should be imposed on him.

  On this day, when the Duke’s £500 was turned into the business, Sexty yielded in a large matter which his partner had been pressing upon him for the last week. They bought a cargo of Kauri gum, coming from New Zealand. Lopez had reasons for thinking that Kauri gum must have a great rise. There was an immense demand for amber, and Kauri gum might be used as a substitute, and in six months’ time would be double its present value. This unfortunately was a real cargo. He could not find an individual so enterprising as to venture to deal in a cargo of Kauri gum after his fashion. But the next best thing was done. The real cargo was bought, and his name and Sexty’s name were on the bills given for the goods. On that day he returned home in high spirits, for he did believe in his own intelligence and good fortune.

  CHAPTER 44

  Mr Wharton Thinks of a New Will

  On that afternoon, immediately on the husband’s return to the house, his wife spoke to him as her father had desired. On that evening Mr Wharton was dining at his club, and therefore there was the whole evening before them; but the thing to be done was disagreeable, and therefore she did it at once, – rushing into the matter almost before he had seated himself in the arm-chair which he had appropriated to his use in the drawing-room. ‘Papa was talking about our affairs after you left this morning, and he thinks that it would be so much better if you would tell him all about them.’

  ‘What made him talk of that to-day?’ he said, turning at her almost angrily and thinking at once of the Duke’s cheque.

  ‘I suppose it is natural that he should be anxious about us, Ferdinand; – and the more natural as he has money to give if he chooses to give it.’

  ‘I have asked him for nothing lately; – though, by George, I intend to ask him and that very roundly. Three thou
sand pounds isn’t much of a sum of money for your father to have given you.’

  ‘And he paid the election bill; – didn’t he?’

  ‘He has been complaining of that behind my back, – has he? I didn’t ask him for it. He offered it. I wasn’t such a fool as to refuse, but he needn’t bring that up as a grievance to you.’

  ‘It wasn’t brought up as a grievance. I was saying that your standing had been a heavy expenditure –’

  ‘Why did you say so? What made you talk about it at all? Why should you be discussing my affairs behind my back?’

  ‘To my own father! And that too when you are telling me every day that I am to induce him to help you!’

  ‘Not by complaining that I am poor. But how did it all begin?’ She had to think for a moment before she could recollect how it did begin. ‘There has been something,’ he said, ‘which you are ashamed to tell me.’

  ‘There is nothing that I am ashamed to tell you. There never has been and never will be anything.’ And she stood up as she spoke, with open eyes and extended nostrils. ‘Whatever may come, however wretched it may be, I shall not be ashamed of myself.’

  ‘But of me!’

  ‘Why do you say so? Why do you try to make unhappiness between us?’

  ‘You have been talking of – my poverty.’

  ‘My father asked why you should go to Dovercourt, – and whether it was because it would save expense.’

  ‘You want to go somewhere?’

  ‘Not at all. I am contented to stay in London. But I said that I thought the expense had a good deal to do with it. Of course it has.’

  ‘Where do you want to be taken? I suppose Dovercourt is not fashionable.’

  ‘I want nothing.’

  ‘If you are thinking of travelling abroad, I can’t spare the time. It isn’t an affair of money, and you had no business to say so. I thought of the place because it is quiet and because I can get up and down easily. I am sorry that I ever came to live in this house.’

  ‘Why do you say that, Ferdinand?’

  ‘Because you and your father make cabals behind my back. If there is anything I hate it is that kind of thing.’

  ‘You are very unjust,’ she said to him sobbing. ‘I have never caballed. I have never done anything against you. Of course papa ought to know.’

  ‘Why ought he to know? Why is your father to have the right of inquiry into all my private affairs?’

  ‘Because you want his assistance. It is only natural. You always tell me to get him to assist you. He spoke most kindly, saying that he would like to know how the things are.’

  ‘Then he won’t know. As for wanting his assistance, of course I want the fortune which he ought to give you. He is man of the world enough to know that as I am in business capital must be useful to me. I should have thought that you would understand as much as that yourself.’

  ‘I do understand it, I suppose.’

  ‘Then why don’t you act as my friend rather than his? Why don’t you take my part? It seems to me that you are much more his daughter than my wife.’

  ‘That is most unfair.’

  ‘If you had any pluck you would make him understand that for your sake he ought to say what he means to do, so that I might have the advantage of the fortune which I suppose he means to give you some day. If you had the slightest anxiety to help me you could influence him. Instead of that you talk to him about my poverty. I don’t want him to think that I am a pauper. That’s not the way to get round a man like your father, who is rich himself and who thinks it a disgrace in other men not to be rich too.’

  ‘I can’t tell him in the same breath that you are rich and that you want money.’

  ‘Money is the means by which men make money. If he was confident of my business he’d shell out his cash quick enough! It is because he has been taught to think that I am in a small way. He’ll find his mistake some day.’

  ‘You won’t speak to him then?’

  ‘I don’t say that at all. If I find that it will answer my own purpose I shall speak to him. But it would be very much easier to me if I could get you to be cordial in helping me.’

  Emily by this time quite knew what such cordiality meant. He had been so free in his words to her that there could be no mistake. He had instructed her to ‘get round’ her father. And now again he spoke of her influence over her father. Although her illusions were all melting away, – oh, so quickly vanishing, – still she knew that it was her duty to be true to her husband, and to be his wife rather than her father’s daughter. But what could she say on his behalf, knowing nothing of his affairs? She had no idea what was his business, what was his income, what amount of money she ought to spend as his wife. As far as she could see, – and her common sense in seeing such things was good, – he had no regular income, and was justified in no expenditure. On her own account she would ask for no information. She was too proud to request that from him which should be given to her without any request. But in her own defence she must tell him that she could use no influence with her father as she knew none of the circumstances by which her father would be guided. ‘I cannot help you in the manner you mean,’ she said, ‘because I know nothing myself.’

  ‘You know that you can trust me to do the best with your money if I could get hold of it, I suppose?’ She certainly did not know this, and held her tongue. ‘You could assure him of that?’

  ‘I could only tell him to judge for himself.’

  ‘What you mean is that you’d see me d—d before you would open your mouth for me to the old man!’

  He had never sworn at her before, and now she burst out into a flood of tears. It was to her a terrible outrage. I do not know that a woman is very much the worse because her husband may forget himself on an occasion and ‘rap out an oath at her’, as he would call it when making the best of his own sin. Such an offence is compatible with uniform kindness, and most affectionate consideration. I have known ladies who would think little or nothing about it, – who would go no farther than the mildest protest, – ‘Do remember where you are!’ or, ‘My dear John!’ – if no stranger were present. But then a wife should be initiated into it by degrees; and there are different tones of bad language, of which by far the most general is the good-humoured tone. We all of us know men who never damn their servants, or any inferiors, or strangers, or women, – who in fact keep it all for their bosom friends; and if a little does sometimes flow over in the freedom of domestic life, the wife is apt to remember that she is the bosomest of her husband’s friends, and so to pardon the transgression. But here the word had been uttered with all its foulest violence, with virulence and vulgarity. It seemed to the victim to be the sign of a terrible crisis in her early married life, – as though the man who had so spoken to her could never again love her, never again be kind to her, never again be sweetly gentle and like a lover. And as he spoke it he looked at her as though he would like to tear her limbs asunder. She was frightened as well as horrified and astounded. She had not a word to say to him. She did not know in what language to make her complaint of such treatment. She burst into tears, and throwing herself on the sofa hid her face in her hands. ‘You provoke me to be violent,’ he said. But still she could not speak to him. ‘I come away from the city tired with work and troubled with a thousand things, and you have not a kind word to say to me.’ Then there was a pause, during which she still sobbed. ‘If your father has anything to say to me, let him say it. I shall not run away. But as to going to him of my own accord with a story as long as my arm about my own affairs, I don’t mean to do it.’ Then he paused a moment again. ‘Come, old girl, cheer up! Don’t pretend to be broken-hearted because I used a hard word. There are worse things than that to be borne in the world.’

  ‘I – I – I was so startled, Ferdinand.’

  ‘A man can’t always remember that he isn’t with another man. Don’t think anything more about it; but do bear this in mind, – that, situated as we are, your influence with your father
may be the making or the marring of me.’ And so he left the room.

  She sat for the next ten minutes thinking of it all. The words which he had spoken were so horrible that she could not get them out of her mind, – could not bring herself to look upon them as a trifle. The darkness of his countenance still dwelt with her, – and that absence of all tenderness, that coarse un-marital and yet marital roughness, which should not at any rate have come to him so soon. The whole man too was so different from what she had thought him to be. Before their marriage no word as to money had ever reached her ears from his lips. He had talked to her of books, – and especially of poetry. Shakespeare and Molière, Dante and Goethe, had been or had seemed to be dear to him. And he had been full of fine ideas about women, and about men in their intercourse with women. For his sake she had separated herself from all her old friends. For his sake she had hurried into a marriage altogether distasteful to her father. For his sake she had closed her heart against that other lover. Trusting altogether in him she had ventured to think that she had known what was good for her better than all those who had been her counsellors, and had given herself to him utterly. Now she was awake; her dream was over; and the natural language of the man was still ringing in her ears!

  They met together at dinner and passed the evening without a further allusion to the scene which had been acted. He sat with a magazine in his hand, every now and then making some remark intended to be pleasant but which grated on her ears as being fictitious. She would answer him, – because it was her duty to do so, and because she would not condescend to sulk; but she could not bring herself even to say to herself that all should be with her as though that horrid word had not been spoken. She sat over her work till ten, answering him when he spoke in a voice which was also fictitious, and then took herself off to her bed that she might weep alone. It would, she knew, be late before he would come to her.

  On the next morning there came a message to him as he was dressing. Mr Wharton wished to speak to him. Would he come down before breakfast, or would he call on Mr Wharton in Stone Buildings? He sent down word that he would do the latter at an hour he fixed, and then did not show himself in the breakfast-room till Mr Wharton was gone. ‘I’ve got to go to your father to-day,’ he said to his wife, ‘and I thought it best not to begin till we come to the regular business. I hope he does not mean to be unreasonable.’ To this she made no answer. ‘Of course you think the want of reason will be all on my side.’