THE PRIME MINISTER

by DAVID SKILTON

  ‘I think, Ferdinand, it is more than that. She says that –’

  ‘To tell you the truth, Emily, I don’t care a d— what she says. Now give me some tea.’

  The roughness of this absolutely quelled her. It was not now that she was afraid of him, – not at this moment, but that she was knocked down as though by a blow. She had been altogether so unused to such language that she could not get on with her matter in hand, letting the bad word pass by her as an unmeaning expletive. She wearily poured out the cup of tea and sat herself down silent. The man was too strong for her, and would be so always. She told herself at this moment that language such as that must always absolutely silence her. Then, within a few minutes, he desired her, quite cheerfully, to ask her uncle and aunt to dinner the day but one following, and also to ask Lady Eustace and Mrs Leslie. ‘I will pick up a couple of men which will make us all right,’ he said.

  This was in every way horrible to her. Her father had been back in town, had not been very well, and had been recommended to return to the country. He had consequently removed himself, – not to Herefordshire, – but to Brighton, and was now living at an hotel, almost within an hour of London. Had he been at home he certainly would not have invited Mrs Leslie and Lady Eustace to his house. He had often expressed a feeling of dislike to the former lady in the hearing of his son-in-law, and had ridiculed his sister-in-law for allowing herself to be made acquainted with Lady Eustace, whose name had at one time been very common in the mouths of people. Emily also felt that she was hardly entitled to give a dinner party in his house in his absence. And, after all that she had lately heard about her husband’s poverty, she could not understand how he should wish to incur the expense. ‘You would not ask Mrs Leslie here!’ she said.

  ‘Why should we not ask Mrs Leslie?’

  ‘Papa dislikes her.’

  ‘But “papa”, as you call him, isn’t going to meet her.’

  ‘He has said that he doesn’t know what day he may be home. And he does more than dislike her. He disapproves of her.’

  ‘Nonsense! She is your aunt’s friend. Because your father once heard some cock-and-bull story about her, and because he has always taken upon himself to criticize your aunt’s friends, I am not to be civil to a person I like.’

  ‘But, Ferdinand, I do not like her myself. She never was in this house till the other night.’

  ‘Look here, my dear, Lady Eustace can be useful to me, and I cannot ask Lady Eustace without asking her friend. You do as I bid you, – or else I shall do it myself.’

  She paused for a moment, and then she positively refused. ‘I cannot bring myself to ask Mrs Leslie to dine in this house. If she comes to dine with you, of course I shall sit at the table, but she will be sure to see that she is not welcome.’

  ‘It seems to me that you are determined to go against me in everything I propose.’

  ‘I don’t think you would say that if you knew how miserable you made me.’

  ‘I tell you that that other woman can be very useful to me.’

  ‘In what way useful?’

  ‘Are you jealous, my dear?’

  ‘Certainly not of Lady Eustace, – nor of any woman. But it seems so odd that such a person’s services should be required.’

  ‘Will you do as I tell you, and ask them? You can go round and tell your aunt about it. She knows that I mean to ask them. Lady Eustace is a very rich woman, and is disposed to do a little in commerce. Now do you understand?’

  ‘Not in the least,’ said Emily.

  ‘Why shouldn’t a woman who has money buy coffee as well as buy shares?’

  ‘Does she buy shares?’

  ‘By George, Emily, I think that you’re a fool.’

  ‘I dare say I am, Ferdinand. I do not in the least know what it all means. But I do know this, that you ought not, in papa’s absence, to ask people to dine here whom he particularly dislikes, and whom he would not wish to have in his house.’

  ‘You think that I am to be governed by you in such a matter as that?’

  ‘I do not want to govern you.’

  ‘You think that a wife should dictate to a husband as to the way in which he is to do his work, and the partners he may be allowed to have in his business, and the persons whom he may ask to dinner! Because you have been dictating to me on all these matters. Now, look here, my dear. As to my business, you had better never speak to me about it any more. I have endeavoured to take you into my confidence and to get you to act with me, but you have declined that, and have preferred to stick to your father. As to my partners, whether I may choose to have Sexty Parker or Lady Eustace, I am a better judge than you. And as to asking Mrs Leslie and Lady Eustace or any other persons to dinner, as I am obliged to make even the recreations of life subservient to its work, I must claim permission to have my own way.’ She had listened, but when he paused she made no reply. ‘Do you mean to do as I bid you and ask these ladies?’

  ‘I cannot do that. I know that it ought not to be done. This is papa’s house, and we are living here as his guests.’

  ‘D— your papa!’ he said as he burst out of the room. After a quarter of an hour he put his head again into the room and saw her sitting, like a statue, exactly where he had left her. ‘I have written the notes both to Lady Eustace and to Mrs Leslie,’ he said. ‘You can’t think it any sin at any rate to ask your aunt.’

  ‘I will see my aunt,’ she said.

  ‘And remember I am not going to be your father’s guest as you call it. I mean to pay for the dinner myself, and to send in my own wines. Your father shall have nothing to complain of on that head.’

  ‘Could you not ask them to Richmond, or to some hotel?’ she said.

  ‘What; in October! If you think that I am going to live in a house in which I can’t invite a friend to dinner, you are mistaken.’ And with that he took his departure.

  The whole thing had now become so horrible to her that she felt unable any longer to hold up her head. It seemed to her to be sacrilege that these women should come and sit in her father’s room; but when she spoke of her father her husband had cursed him with scorn! Lopez was going to send food and wine into the house, which would be gall and wormwood to her father. At one time she thought she would at once write to her father and tell him of it all, – or perhaps telegraph to him; but she could not do so without letting her husband know what she had done, and then he would have justice on his side in calling her disobedient. Were she to do that, then it would indeed be necessary that she should take part against her husband.

  She had brought all this misery on herself and on her father because she had been obstinate in thinking that she could with certainty read a lover’s character. As for love, – that of course had died away in her heart, – imperceptibly, though, alas, so quickly! It was impossible that she could continue to love a man who from day to day was teaching her mean lessons, and who was ever doing mean things, the meanness of which was so little apparent to himself that he did not scruple to divulge them to her. How could she love a man who would make no sacrifice either to her comfort, her pride, or her conscience? But still she might obey him, – if she could feel sure that obedience to him was a duty. Could it be a duty to sin against her father’s wishes, and to assist in profaning his house and abusing his hospitality after this fashion? Then her mind again went back to the troubles of Mrs Parker, and her absolute inefficiency in that matter. It seemed to her that she had given herself over body and soul and mind to some evil genius, and that there was no escape.

  ‘Of course we’ll come,’ Mrs Roby had said to her when she went round the corner into Berkeley Street early in the day. ‘Lopez spoke to me about it before.’

  ‘What will papa say about it, Aunt Harriet?’

  ‘I suppose he and Lopez understand each other.’

  ‘I do not think papa will understand this.’

  ‘I am sure Mr Wharton would not lend his house to his son-in-law, and then object to the man he had lent it to asking a
friend to dine with him. And I am sure that Mr Lopez would not consent to occupy a house on those terms. If you don’t like it, of course we won’t come.’

  ‘Pray don’t say that. As these other women are to come, pray do not desert me. But I cannot say I think it is right.’ Mrs Dick, however, only laughed at her scruples.

  In the course of the evening Emily got letters addressed to herself, from Lady Eustace and Mrs Leslie, informing her that they would have very much pleasure in dining with her on the day named. And Lady Eustace went on to say, with much pleasantry, that she always regarded little parties, got up without any ceremony, as being the pleasantest, and that she should come on this occasion without any ceremonial observance. Then Emily was aware that her husband had not only written the notes in her name, but had put into her mouth some studied apology as to the shortness of the invitation. Well! She was the man’s wife, and she supposed that he was entitled to put any words that he pleased into her mouth.

  CHAPTER 48

  ‘Has he ill-treated you?’

  Lopez relieved his wife from all care as to provision for his guests. ‘I’ve been to a shop in Wigmore Street,’ he said, ‘and everything will be done. They’ll send in a cook to make the things hot, and your father won’t have to pay even for a crust of bread.’

  ‘Papa doesn’t mind paying for anything,’ she said in her indignation.

  ‘It is all very pretty for you to say so, but my experience of him goes just the other way. At any rate there will be nothing to be paid for. Stewam and Sugarscraps will send in everything, if you’ll only tell the old fogies downstairs not to interfere.’ Then she made a little request Might she ask Everett, who was now in town? ‘I’ve already got Major Pountney and Captain Gunner,’ he said. She pleaded that one more would make no difference. ‘But that’s just what one more always does. It destroys everything, and turns a pretty little dinner into an awkward feed. We won’t have him this time. Pountney’ll take you, and I’ll take her ladyship. Dick will take Mrs Leslie, and Gunner will have Aunt Harriet. Dick will sit opposite to me, and the four ladies will sit at the four corners. We shall be very pleasant, but one more would spoil us.’

  She did speak to the ‘old fogies’ downstairs, – the housekeeper, who had lived with her father since she was a child; and the butler, who had been there still longer, and the cook, who, having been in her place only three years, resigned impetuously within half an hour after the advent of Mr Sugarscraps’ head man. The ‘fogies’ were indignant. The butler expressed his intention of locking himself up in his own peculiar pantry, and the housekeeper took upon herself to tell her young mistress that ‘Master wouldn’t like it’. Since she had known Mr Wharton such a thing as cooked food being sent into the house from a shop had never been so much as heard of. Emily, who had hitherto been regarded in the house as a rather strong-minded young woman, could only break down and weep. Why, oh why, had she consented to bring herself and her misery into her father’s house? She could at any rate have prevented that by explaining to her father the unfitness of such an arrangement.

  The ‘party’ came. There was Major Pountney, very fine, rather loud, very intimate with the host, whom on one occasion he called ‘Ferdy, my boy’, and very full of abuse of the Duke and Duchess of Omnium. ‘And yet she was a good creature when I knew her,’ said Lady Eustace. Pountney suggested that the Duchess had not then taken up politics. ‘I’ve got out of her way,’ said Lady Eustace, ‘since she did that.’ And there was Captain Gunner, who defended the Duchess, but who acknowledged that the Duke was the ‘most con-sumedly stuck up coxcomb’ then existing. ‘And the most dishonest,’ said Lopez, who had told his new friends nothing about the repayment of the election expenses. And Dick was there. He liked these little parties, in which a good deal of wine could be drunk, and at which ladies were not supposed to be very stiff. The Major and the Captain, and Mrs Leslie and Lady Eustace, were such people as he liked, – all within the pale, but having a piquant relish of fastness and impropriety. Dick was wont to declare that he hated the world in buckram.6 Aunt Harriet was triumphant in a manner which disgusted Emily, and which she thought to be most disrespectful to her father; – but in truth Aunt Harriet did not now care very much for Mr Wharton, preferring the friendship of Mr Wharton’s son-in-law. Mrs Leslie came in gorgeous clothes, which, as she was known to be very poor, and to have attached herself lately with almost more than feminine affection to Lady Eustace, were at any rate open to suspicious cavil. In former days Mrs Leslie had taken upon herself to say bitter things about Mr Lopez, which Emily could now have repeated, to that lady’s discomfiture, had such a mode of revenge suited her disposition. With Mrs Leslie there was Lady Eustace, pretty as ever, and sharp and witty, with the old passion for some excitement, the old proneness to pretend to trust everybody, and the old incapacity for trusting anybody. Ferdinand Lopez had lately been at her feet, and had fired her imagination with stories of the grand things to be done in trade. Ladies do it? Yes; why not women as well as men? Anyone might do it who had money in his pocket and experience to tell him or to tell her, what to buy and what to sell. And the experience, luckily, might be vicarious. At the present moment half the jewels worn in London were, – if Ferdinand Lopez knew anything about it, – bought from the proceeds of such commerce. Of course there were misfortunes. But these came from a want of that experience which Ferdinand Lopez possessed, and which he was quite willing to place at the service of one whom he admired so thoroughly as he did Lady Eustace. Lady Eustace had been charmed, had seen her way into a new and most delightful life, – but had not yet put any of her money into the hands of Ferdinand Lopez.

  I cannot say that the dinner was good. It may be a doubt whether such tradesmen as Messrs Stewam and Sugarscraps do ever produce good food; – or whether, with all the will in the world to do so, such a result is within their power. It is certain, I think, that the humblest mutton chop is better eating than any ‘Supreme of chicken after martial manner’,7 – as I have seen the dish named in a French bill of fare, translated by a French pastrycook for the benefit of his English customers, – when sent in from Messrs Stewam and Sugarscraps even with their best exertions. Nor can it be said that the wine was good, though Mr Sugarscraps, when he contracted for the whole entertainment, was eager in his assurance that he procured the very best that London could produce. But the outside look of the things was handsome, and there were many dishes, and enough of servants to hand them, and the wines, if not good, were various. Probably Pountney and Gunner did not know good wines. Roby did, but was contented on this occasion to drink them bad. And everything went pleasantly, with perhaps a little too much noise; – everything except the hostess, who was allowed by general consent to be sad and silent; – till there came a loud double-rap at the door.

  ‘There’s papa,’ said Emily, jumping up from her seat.

  Mrs Dick looked at Lopez, and saw at a glance that for a moment his courage had failed him. But he recovered himself quickly. ‘Hadn’t you better keep your seat, my dear?’ he said to his wife. ‘The servants will attend to Mr Wharton, and I will go to him presently.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Emily, who by this time was almost at the door.

  ‘You didn’t expect him, – did you?’ asked Dick Roby.

  ‘Nobody knew when he was coming. I think he told Emily that he might be here any day.’

  ‘He’s the most uncertain man alive,’ said Mrs Dick, who was a good deal scared by the arrival, though determined to hold up her head and exhibit no fear.

  ‘I suppose the old gentleman will come in and have some dinner,’ whispered Captain Gunner to his neighbour Mrs Leslie.

  ‘Not if he knows I’m here,’ replied Mrs Leslie, tittering. ‘He thinks that I am, – oh, something a great deal worse than I can tell you.’

  ‘Is he given to be cross?’ asked Lady Eustace, also affecting to whisper.

  ‘Never saw him in my Life,’ answered the Major, ‘but I shouldn’t wonder if he was. Old gentlemen generall
y are cross. Gout, and that kind of thing, you know.’

  For a minute or two the servants stopped their ministrations, and things were very uncomfortable; but Lopez, as soon as he had recovered himself, directed Mr Sugarscraps’ men to proceed with the banquet. ‘We can eat our dinner, I suppose, though my father-in-law has come back,’ he said. ‘I wish my wife was not so fussy, though that is a kind of thing, Lady Eustace, that one has to expect from young wives.’ The banquet did go on, but the feeling was general that a misfortune had come upon them, and that something dreadful might possibly happen.

  Emily, when she rushed out, met her father in the hall, and ran into his arms. ‘Oh, papa!’ she exclaimed.

  ‘What’s all this about?’ he asked, and as he spoke he passed on through the hall to his own room at the back of the house. There were of course many evidences on all sides of the party, – the strange servants, the dishes going in and out, the clatter of glasses, and the smell of viands. ‘You’ve got a dinner party,’ he said. ‘Had you not better go back to your friends?’

  ‘No, papa.’

  ‘What is the matter, Emily? You are unhappy.’

  ‘Oh, so unhappy!’

  ‘What is it all about? Who are they? Whose doing is it, – yours or his? What makes you unhappy?’

  He was now seated in his arm-chair, and she threw herself on her knees at his feet. ‘He would have them. You mustn’t be angry with me. You won’t be angry with me; – will you?’

  He put his hand upon her head, and stroked her hair. ‘Why should I be angry with you because your husband has asked friends to dinner?’ She was so unlike her usual self that he knew not what to make of it. It had not been her nature to kneel and to ask for pardon, or to be timid and submissive. ‘What is it, Emily, that makes you like this?’