THE PRIME MINISTER

by DAVID SKILTON

  ‘But – what, ma’am?’

  ‘Perhaps I should say that he is ambitious.’

  ‘You mean he wants to get rich too quick, ma’am.’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘Then it’s just the same with Sexty. He’s ambitious too. But what’s the good of being ambitious, Mrs Lopez, if you never know whether you’re on your head or your heels? And what’s the good of being ambitious if you’re to get into the workhouse? I know what that means. There’s one or two of them sort of men gets into Parliament, and has houses as big as the Queen’s palace, while hundreds of them has their wives and children in the gutter. Who ever hears of them? Nobody. It don’t become any man to be ambitious who has got a wife and family. If he’s a bachelor, why, of course, he can go to the Colonies. There’s Mary Jane and the two little ones right down on the sea, with their feet in the salt water. Shall we put on our hats, Mrs Lopez, and go and look after them?’ To this proposition Emily assented, and the two ladies went out after the children.

  ‘Mix yourself another glass,’ said Sexty to his partner.

  ‘I’d rather not. Don’t ask me again. You know I never drink, and I don’t like being pressed.’

  ‘By George! – You are particular.’

  ‘What’s the use of teasing a fellow to do a thing he doesn’t like?’

  ‘You won’t mind me having another?’

  ‘Fifty if you please, so that I’m not forced to join you.’

  ‘Forced! It’s liberty ’all here, and you can do as you please. Only when a fellow will take a drop with me he’s better company.’

  ‘Then I’m d—d bad company, and you’d better get somebody else to be jolly with. To tell you the truth, Sexty, I suit you better at business than at this sort of thing. I’m like Shylock, you know.’5

  ‘I don’t know about Shylock, but I’m blessed if I think you suit me very well at anything. I’m putting up with a deal of ill-usage, and when I try to be happy with you, you won’t drink, and you tell me about Shylock. He was a Jew, wasn’t he?’

  ‘That is the general idea.’

  ‘Then you ain’t very much like him, for they’re a sort of people that always have money about ’em.’

  ‘How do you suppose he made his money to begin with? What an ass you are!’

  ‘That’s true. I am. Ever since I began putting my name on the same bit of paper with yours I’ve been an ass.’

  ‘You’ll have to be one a bit longer yet; – unless you mean to throw up everything. At this present moment you are six or seven thousand pounds richer than you were before you first met me.’

  ‘I wish I could see the money.’

  ‘That’s like you. What’s the use of money you can see? How are you to make money out of money by looking at it? I like to know that my money is fructifying.’

  ‘I like to know that it’s all there, – and I did know it before I ever saw you. I’m blessed if I know it now. Go down and join the ladies, will you? You ain’t much of a companion up here.’

  Shortly after that Lopez told Mrs Parker that he had already bade adieu to her husband, and then he took his wife to their own lodgings.

  CHAPTER 47

  As for Love!

  The time spent by Mrs Lopez at Dovercourt was by no means one of complete happiness. Her husband did not come down very frequently, alleging that his business kept him in town, and that the journey was too long. When he did come he annoyed her either by moroseness and tyranny, or by an affectation of loving good-humour, which was the more disagreeable alternative of the two. She knew that he had no right to be good-humoured, and she was quite able to appreciate the difference between fictitious love and love that was real. He did not while she was at Dovercourt speak to her again directly about her father’s money, – but he gave her to understand that he required from her very close economy. Then again she referred to the brougham which she knew was to be in readiness on her return to London; but he told her that he was the best judge of that. The economy which he demanded was that comfortless heartrending economy which nips the practiser at every turn, but does not betray itself to the world at large. He would have her save out of her washerwoman and linendraper, and yet have a smart gown and go in a brougham. He begrudged her postage stamps, and stopped the subscription at Mudie’s, though he insisted on a front seat in the Dovercourt church, paying half a guinea more for it than he would for a place at the side. And then before their sojourn at the place had come to an end he left her for a while absolutely penniless, so that when the butcher and baker called for their money she could not pay them. That was a dreadful calamity to her, and of which she was hardly able to measure the real worth. It had never happened to her before to have to refuse an application for money that was due. In her father’s house such a thing, as far as she knew, had never happened. She had sometimes heard that Everett was impecunious, but that had simply indicated an additional call upon her father. When the butcher came the second time she wrote to her husband in an agony. Should she write to her father for a supply? She was sure that her father would not leave them in actual want. Then he sent her a cheque, enclosed in a very angry letter. Apply to her father! Had she not learned as yet that she was not to lean on her father any longer, but simply on him? And was she such a fool as to suppose that a tradesman could not wait a month for his money?

  During all this time she had no friend, – no person to whom she could speak, – except Mrs Parker. Mrs Parker was very open and very confidential about the business, really knowing very much more about it than did Mrs Lopez. There was some sympathy and confidence between her and her husband, though they had latterly been much lessened by Sexty’s conduct. Mrs Parker talked daily about the business now that her mouth had been opened, and was very clearly of opinion that it was not a good business. ‘Sexty don’t think it good himself,’ she said.

  ‘Then why does he go on with it?’

  ‘Business is a thing, Mrs Lopez, as people can’t drop out of just at a moment. A man gets hisself entangled, and must free hisself as best he can. I know he’s terribly afeared; – and sometimes he does say such things of your husband!’ Emily shrunk almost into herself as she heard this. ‘You mustn’t be angry, for indeed it’s better you should know all.’

  ‘I’m not angry; only very unhappy. Surely Mr Parker could separate himself from Mr Lopez if he pleased?’

  ‘That’s what I say to him. Give it up, though it be ever so much as you’ve to lose by him. Give it up, and begin again. You’ve always got your experience, and if it’s only a crust you can earn, that’s sure and safe. But then he declares that he means to pull through yet. I know what men are at when they talk of pulling through, Mrs Lopez. There shouldn’t be no need of pulling through. It should all come just of its own accord, – little and little; but safe.’ Then, when the days of their marine holiday were coming to an end, – in the first week in October, – the day before the return of the Parkers to Ponder’s End, she made a strong appeal to her new friend. ‘You ain’t afraid of him; are you?’

  ‘Of my husband?’ said Mrs Lopez. ‘I hope not. Why should you ask?’

  ‘Believe me, a woman should never be afraid of ’em. I never would give in to be bullied and made little of by Sexty. I’d do a’most anything to make him comfortable, I’m soft-hearted. And why not, when he’s the father of my children? But I’m not going not to say a thing if I think it right, because I’m afeard.’

  ‘I think I could say anything if I thought it right.’

  ‘Then tell him of me and my babes, – as how I can never have a quiet night while this is going on. It isn’t that they two men are fond of one another. Nothing of the sort! Now you; – I’ve got to be downright fond of you, though, of course, you think me common.’ Mrs Lopez would not contradict her but stooped forward and kissed her cheek. ‘I’m downright fond of you, I am,’ continued Mrs Parker, snuffling and sobbing, ‘but they two men are only together because Mr Lopez wants to gamble, and Parker has got a little money t
o gamble with.’ This aspect of the thing was so terrible to Mrs Lopez that she could only weep and hide her face. ‘Now, if you would tell him just the truth! Tell him what I say, and that I’ve been a-saying it! Tell him it’s for my children I’m a-speaking, who won’t have bread in their very mouths if their father’s squeezed dry like a sponge! Sure, if you’d tell him this, he wouldn’t go on!’ Then she paused a moment, looking up into the other woman’s face. ‘He’d have some bowels of compassion; – wouldn’t he now?’

  ‘I’ll try,’ said Mrs Lopez.

  ‘I know you’re good and kind-hearted, my dear. I saw it in your eyes from the very first. But them men, when they get on at money-making, – or money-losing, which makes ’em worse, – are like tigers clawing one another. They don’t care how many they kills, so that they has the least bit for themselves. There ain’t no fear of God in it, nor yet no mercy, nor ere a morsel of heart. It ain’t what I call manly, – not that longing after other folk’s money. When it’s come by hard work, as I tell Sexty, – by the very sweat of his brow, – oh, – it’s sweet as sweet. When he’d tell me that he’d made his three pound, or his five pound, or, perhaps, his ten in a day, and’d calculate it up, how much it’d come to if he did that every day, and where we could go to, and what we could do for the children, I loved to hear him talk about his money. But now –! why, it’s altered the looks of the man altogether. It’s just as though he was a-thirsting for blood.’

  Thirsting for blood! Yes, indeed. It was the very idea that had occurred to Mrs Lopez herself when her husband had bade her to ‘get round her father’. No; – it certainly was not manly. There certainly was neither fear of God in it, nor mercy. Yes; – she would try. But as for bowels of compassion in Ferdinand Lopez –; she, the young wife, had already seen enough of her husband to think that he was not to be moved by any prayers on that side. Then the two women bade each other farewell. ‘Parker has been talking of my going to Manchester Square,’ said Mrs Parker, ‘but I shan’t. What’d I be in Manchester Square? And, besides, there’d better be an end of it. Mr Lopez’d turn Sexty and me out of the house at a moment’s notice if it wasn’t for the money.’

  ‘It’s papa’s house,’ said Mrs Lopez, not, however, meaning to make an attack on her husband.

  ‘I suppose so, but I shan’t come to trouble no one; and we live ever so far away, at Ponder’s End, – out of your line altogether, Mrs Lopez. But I’ve taken to you and will never think ill of you any way; – only do as you said you would.’

  ‘I will try,’ said Mrs Lopez.

  In the meantime Lopez had received from Mr Wharton an answer to his letter about the missing caravels, which did not please him. Here is the letter:

  MY DEAR LOPEZ,

  I cannot say that your statement is satisfactory, nor can I reconcile it to your assurance to me that you have made a trade income for some years past of £2,000 a year. I do not know much of business, but I cannot imagine such a result from such a condition of things as you describe. Have you any books; and, if so, will you allow them to be inspected by any accountant I may name?

  You say that a sum of £20,000 would suit your business better now than when I’m dead. Very likely. But with such an account of the business as that you have given me, I do not know that I feel disposed to confide the savings of my life to assist so very doubtful an enterprise. Of course whatever I may do to your advantage will be done for the sake of Emily and her children, should she have any. As far as I can see at present, I shall best do my duty to her, by leaving what I may have to leave to her, to trustees, for her benefit and that of her children.

  Yours truly,

  A. WHARTON.

  This, of course, did not tend to mollify the spirit of the man to whom it was written, or to make him gracious towards his wife. He received the letter three weeks before the lodgings at Dovercourt were given up, – but during these three weeks he was very little at the place, and when there did not mention the letter. On these occasions he said nothing about business, but satisfied himself with giving strict injunctions as to economy. Then he took her back to town on the day after her promise to Mrs Parker that she would ‘try’. Mrs Parker had told her that no woman ought to be afraid to speak to her husband, and, if necessary, to speak roundly on such subjects. Mrs Parker was certainly not a highly educated lady, but she had impressed Emily with an admiration for her practical good sense and proper feeling. The lady who was a lady had begun to feel that in the troubles of her life she might find a much less satisfactory companion than the lady who was not a lady. She would do as Mrs Parker had told her. She would not be afraid. Of course it was right that she should speak on such a matter. She knew herself to be an obedient wife. She had borne all her unexpected sorrows without a complaint, with a resolve that she would bear all for his sake, – not because she loved him, but because she had made herself his wife. Into whatever calamities he might fall, she would share them. Though he should bring her utterly into the dirt, she would remain in the dirt with him. It seemed probable to her that it might be so, – that they might have to go into the dirt; – and if it were so, she would still be true to him. She had chosen to marry him, and she would be his true wife. But, as such, she would not be afraid of him. Mrs Parker had told her that ‘a woman should never be afraid of ’em’, and she believed in Mrs Parker. In this case, too, it was clearly her duty to speak, – for the injury being done was terrible, and might too probably become tragical. How could she endure to think of that woman and her children, should she come to know that the husband of the woman and the father of the children had been ruined by her husband?

  Yes, – she would speak to him. But she did fear. It is all very well for a woman to tell herself that she will encounter some anticipated difficulty without fear, – or for a man either. The fear cannot be overcome by will. The thing, however, may be done, whether it be leading a forlorn hope, or speaking to an angry husband, – in spite of fear. She would do it; but when the moment for doing it came, her very heart trembled within her. He had been so masterful with her, so persistent in repudiating her interference, so exacting in his demands for obedience, so capable of making her miserable by his moroseness when she failed to comply with his wishes, that she could not go to her task without fear. But she did feel that she ought not to be afraid, or that her fears, at any rate, should not be allowed to restrain her. A wife, she knew, should be prepared to yield, but yet was entitled to be her husband’s counsellor. And it was now the case that in this matter she was conversant with circumstances which were unknown to her husband. It was to her that Mrs Parker’s appeal had been made, and with a direct request from the poor woman that it should be repeated to her husband’s partner.

  She found that she could not do it on the journey home from Dovercourt, nor yet on that evening. Mrs Dick Roby, who had come back from a sojourn at Boulogne, was with them in the Square, and brought her dear friend Mrs Leslie with her, and also Lady Eustace. The reader may remember that Mr Wharton had met these ladies at Mrs Dick’s house some months before his daughter’s marriage, but he certainly had never asked them into his own. On this occasion Emily had given them no invitation, but had been told by her husband that her aunt would probably bring them in with her. ‘Mrs Leslie and Lady Eustace!’ she exclaimed with a little shudder. ‘I suppose your aunt may bring a couple of friends with her to see you, though it is your father’s house?’ he had replied. She had said no more, not daring to have a fight on that subject at present, while the other matter was pressing on her mind. The evening had passed away pleasantly enough, she thought, to all except herself. Mrs Leslie and Lady Eustace had talked a great deal, and her husband had borne himself quite as though he had been a wealthy man and the owner of the house in Manchester Square. In the course of the evening Dick Roby came in and Major Pountney, who since the late affairs at Silverbridge had become intimate with Lopez. So that there was quite a party; and Emily was astonished to hear her husband declare that he was only watching the opportunit
y of another vacancy in order that he might get into the House, and expose the miserable duplicity of the Duke of Omnium. And yet this man, within the last month, had taken away her subscription at Mudie’s, and told her that she shouldn’t wear things that wanted washing! But he was able to say ever so many pretty little things to Lady Eustace, and had given a new fan to Mrs Dick, and talked of taking a box for Mrs Leslie at The Gaiety.

  But on the next morning before breakfast she began. ‘Ferdinand,’ she said, ‘while I was at Dovercourt I saw a good deal of Mrs Parker.’

  ‘I could not help that. Or rather you might have helped it if you pleased. It was necessary that you should meet, but I didn’t tell you that you were to see a great deal of her.’

  ‘I liked her very much.’

  ‘Then I must say you’ve got a very odd taste. Did you like him?’

  ‘No. I did not see so much of him, and I think that the manners of women are less objectionable than those of men. But I want to tell you what passed between her and me.’

  ‘If it is about her husband’s business she ought to have held her tongue, and you had better hold yours now.’

  This was not a happy beginning, but still she was determined to go on. ‘It was I think more about your business than his.’

  ‘Then it was infernal impudence on her part, and you should not have listened to her for a moment.’

  ‘You do not want to ruin her and her children!’

  ‘What have I to do with her and her children? I did not marry her, and I am not their father. He has got to look to that.’

  ‘She thinks that you are enticing him into risks which he cannot afford.’

  ‘Am I doing anything for him that I ain’t doing for myself! If there is money made, will not he share it? If money has to be lost, of course he must do the same.’ Lopez in stating his case omitted to say that whatever capital was now being used belonged to his partner. ‘But women when they get together talk all manner of nonsense. Is it likely that I shall alter my course of action because you tell me that she tells you that he tells her that he is losing money? He is a halfhearted fellow who quails at every turn against him. And when he is crying drunk I dare say he makes a poor mouth to her.’