THE PRIME MINISTER (22 page)

‘I explained it
before as far as I found myself called upon to explain it.’

‘Are we both to be sacrificed for some reason that we neither of us understand?’

‘How dare you take upon yourself to say that she doesn’t understand! Because I refuse to be more explicit to you, a stranger, do you suppose that I am equally silent to my own child?’

‘In regard to money and social rank I am able to place your daughter
as my wife in a position as good as she now holds as Miss Wharton.’

‘I care nothing about money, Mr Lopez, and our ideas of social rank are perhaps different. I have nothing further to say to you, and I do not think that you can have anything further to say to me that can be of any avail.’ Then, having finished his speech, he got up
from his chair and stood upright, thereby demanding of his visitor
that he should depart.

‘I think it no more than honest, Mr Wharton, to declare this one thing. I regard myself as irrevocably engaged to your daughter; and she, although she has refused to bind herself to me by that special word, is, I am certain, as firmly fixed in her choice as I am in mine. My happiness, as a matter of course, can be nothing to you.’

‘Not much,’ said the lawyer, with angry
impatience.

Lopez smiled, but he put down the word in his memory and determined he would treasure it there. ‘Not much, at any rate as yet,’ he said. ‘But her happiness must be much to you.’

‘It is everything. But in thinking of her happiness I must look beyond what might be the satisfaction of the present day. You must excuse me, Mr Lopez, if I say that I would rather not discuss the matter
with you any further.’ Then he rang the bell and passed quickly into an inner room. When the clerk came Lopez of course marched out of the chambers and went his way.

Mr Wharton had been very firm, and yet he was shaken. It was by degrees becoming a fixed idea in his mind that the man’s material prosperity was assured. He was afraid even to allude to the subject when talking to the man himself,
lest he should be overwhelmed by evidence on that subject. Then the man’s manner, though it was distasteful to Wharton himself, would, he well knew, recommend him to others. He was good-looking, he lived with people who were highly regarded, he could speak up for himself, and he was a favoured guest at Carlton House Terrace. So great had been the fame of the Duchess and her hospitality during the
last two months, that the fact of the man’s success in this respect had come home even to Mr Wharton. He feared that the world would be against him, and he already began to dread the joint opposition of the world and his own child. The world of this day did not, he thought, care whether its daughters’ husbands had or had not any fathers or mothers. The world as it was now didn’t care whether its
sons-in-law were Christian or Jewish; – whether they had the fair skin and bold eyes and uncertain words of an English gentleman, or the swarthy colour and false grimace and glib tongue of some inferior Latin race. But he cared for those things; – and it was dreadful to him to think that his daughter should not care for them. ‘I suppose I
had better the and leave them to look after themselves,’
he said, as he returned to his arm-chair.

Lopez himself was not altogether ill-satisfied with the interview, not having expected that Mr Wharton would have given way at once, and bestowed upon him then and there the kind father-in-law’s ‘bless you, – bless you!’ Something had yet to be done before the blessing would come, or the girl, – or the money. He had to-day asserted his own material success,
speaking of himself as of a moneyed man, – and the statement had been received with no contradiction, – even without the suggestion of a doubt. He did not therefore suppose that the difficulty was over; but he was clever enough to perceive that the aversion to him on another score might help to tide him over that difficulty. And if once he could call the girl his wife, he did not doubt but
that he could build himself up with the old barrister’s money. After leaving Lincoln’s Inn he went at once to Berkeley Street, and was soon closeted with Mrs Roby. ‘You can get her here before they go?’ he said.

‘She wouldn’t come; – and if we arranged it without letting her know that you were to be here, she would tell her father. She hasn’t a particle of female intrigue in her.’

‘So much the
better,’ said the lover.

‘That’s all very well for you to say, but when a man makes such a tyrant of himself as Mr Wharton is doing, a girl is bound to look after herself. If it was me I’d go off with my young man before I’d stand such treatment.’

‘You could give her a letter.’

‘She’d only show it to her father. She is so perverse that I sometimes feel inclined to say that I’ll have nothing
further to do with her.’

‘You’ll give her a message at any rate?’

‘Yes, – I can do that; – because I can do it in a way that won’t seem to make it important.’

‘But I want my message to be very important. Tell her that I’ve seen her father, and have offered to explain all my affairs to him, – so that he may know that there is nothing to fear on her behalf.’

‘It isn’t any thought of money that
is troubling him.’

‘But tell her what I say. He, however, would listen to nothing. Then I assured him that no consideration on earth would induce me
to surrender her, and that I was as sure of her as I am of myself Tell her that; – and tell her that I think she owes it to me to say one word to me before she goes into the country.’

It may, I think, be a question whether the two old men acted wisely in having Arthur Fletcher at Wharton Hall when Emily arrived there. The story of his love for Miss Wharton, as far as it had as yet gone, must be shortly told. He had been the second son, as he was now the second brother, of a Herefordshire squire endowed with much larger property than that belonging
to Sir Alured. John Fletcher, Esq., of Longbarns, some twelve miles from Wharton, was a considerable man in Herefordshire. This present squire had married Sir Alured’s eldest daughter, and the younger brother had, almost since they were children together, been known to be in love with Emily Wharton. All the Fletchers and everything belonging to them were almost worshipped at Wharton Hall. There had
been marriages between the two families certainly as far back as the time of Henry VII, and they were accustomed to speak, if not of alliances, at any rate of friendships, much anterior to that. As regards family, therefore, the pretensions of a Fletcher would always be held to be good by a Wharton. But this Fletcher was the very pearl of the Fletcher tribe. Though a younger brother, he had a very
pleasant little fortune of his own. Though born to comfortable circumstances, he had worked so hard in his younger days as to have already made for himself a name at the bar. He was a fair-haired, handsome fellow, with sharp, eager eyes, with an aquiline nose and just that shape of mouth and chin which such men as Abel Wharton regarded as characteristic of good blood. He was rather thin, about
five feet ten in height, and had the character of being one of the best horsemen in the county. He was one of the most popular men in Herefordshire, and at Longbarns was almost as much thought of as the squire himself. He
certainly was not the man to be taken, from his appearance, for a forlorn lover. He looked like one of those happy sons of the gods who are born to success. No young man of his
age was more courted both by men and women. There was no one who in his youth had suffered fewer troubles from those causes of trouble which visit English young men, – occasional impecuniosity, sternness of parents, native shyness, fear of ridicule, inability of speech, and a general pervading sense of inferiority combined with an ardent desire to rise to a feeling of conscious superiority. So
much had been done for him by nature that he was never called upon to pretend to anything. Throughout the county those were the lucky men – and those too were the happy girls, – who were allowed to call him Arthur. And yet this paragon was vainly in love with Emily Wharton, who, in the way of love, would have nothing to say to him, preferring, – as her father once said in his extremest wrath, – a
greasy Jew adventurer out of the gutter!

And now it had been thought expedient to have him down to Wharton, although the lawyer’s regular summer vacation had not yet commenced. But there was some excuse made for this, over and above the emergency of his own love, in the fact that his brother John, with Mrs Fletcher, was also to be at the Hall, – so that there was gathered there a great family
party of the Whartons and Fletchers; for there was present there also old Mrs Fletcher, a magnificently aristocratic and high-minded old lady, with snow-white hair, and lace worth fifty guineas a yard, who was as anxious as everybody else that her younger son should marry Emily Wharton. Something of the truth as to Emily Wharton’s £60,000 was, of course, known to the Longbarns people. Not that I
would have it inferred that they wanted their darling to sell himself for money. The Fletchers were great people, with great spirits, too good in every way for such baseness. But when love, old friendship, good birth, together with every other propriety as to age, manners, and conduct, can be joined to money, such a combination will always be thought pleasant.

When Arthur reached the Hall it
was felt to be necessary that a word should be said to him as to that wretched interloper, Ferdinand Lopez. Arthur had not of late been often in Manchester Square. Though always most cordially welcomed there by old Wharton, and
treated with every kindness by Emily Wharton short of that love which he desired, he had during the last three or four months abstained from frequenting the house. During
the past winter, and early in the spring, he had pressed his suit – but had been rejected, with warmest assurances of all friendship short of love. It had then been arranged between him and the elder Whartons that they should all meet down at the Hall, and there had been sympathetic expressions of hope that all might yet be well. But at that time little or nothing had been known of Ferdinand Lopez.

But now the old baronet spoke to him, the father having deputed the loathsome task to his friend, – being unwilling himself even to hint his daughter’s disgrace. ‘Oh, yes, I’ve heard of him,’ said Arthur Fletcher. ‘I met him with Everett, and I don’t think I never took a stronger dislike to a man. Everett seems very fond of him.’ The baronet mournfully shook his head. It was sad to find that Whartons
could go so far astray. ‘He goes to Carlton House Terrace, – to the Duchess’s,’ continued the young man.

‘I don’t think that that is very much in his favour,’ said the baronet.

‘I don’t know that it is, sir; – only they try to catch all fish in that net that are of any use.’

‘Do you go there, Arthur?’

‘I should if I were asked, I suppose. I don’t know who wouldn’t. You see it’s a Coalition
affair, so that everybody is able to feel that he is supporting his party by going to the Duchess’s.’

‘I hate Coalitions,’ said the baronet. ‘I think they are disgraceful.’

‘Well; – yes; I don’t know. The coach has to be driven somehow. You mustn’t stick in the mud, you know. And after all, sir, the Duke of Omnium is a respectable man, though he is a Liberal. A Duke of Omnium can’t want to send
the country to the dogs.’ The old man shook his head. He did not understand much about it, but he felt convinced that the Duke and his colleagues were sending the country to the dogs whatever might be their wishes. ‘I shan’t think of politics for the next ten years, and so I don’t trouble myself about the Duchess’s parties, but I suppose I should go if I were asked.’

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.