THE PRIME MINISTER (23 page)

‘If she means it, of course he’ll consent’

‘That I’m sure he won’t. He doesn’t like the man a bit better than you do.’ Fletcher shook his head. ‘And he’s as fond of you as though you were already his son.’

‘What does it matter? If a girl sets her heart on marrying a man, of course she will marry him. If he had no money it might be different.
But if he’s well off, of course he’ll succeed. Well –; I suppose other men have borne the same sort of thing before and it hasn’t killed them.’

‘Let us hope, my boy. I think of her quite as much as of you.’

‘Yes, – we can hope. I shan’t give it up. As for her, I dare say she knows what will suit her best. I’ve nothing to say against the man, – excepting that I should like to cut him into four
quarters.’

‘But a foreigner!’

‘Girls don’t think about that, – not as you do and Mr Wharton. And I think they like dark, greasy men with slippery voices, who are up to dodges and full of secrets. Well, sir, I shall go to her at once and have it out’

‘You’ll speak to my cousin?’

‘Certainly I will. He has always been one of the best friends I ever had in my life. I know it hasn’t been his fault
.But what can a man do? Girls won’t marry this man or that because they’re told.’

Fletcher did speak to Emily’s father, and learned more from him than had been told him by Sir Alured. Indeed he learned the whole truth. Lopez had been twice with the father pressing his suit and had been twice repulsed, with as absolute denial as words could convey. Emily, however, had declared her own feeling
openly, expressing her wish to marry the odious man, promising not to do so without her father’s consent, but evidently feeling that that consent ought not to be withheld from her. All this Mr Wharton told very plainly, walking with Arthur a little before dinner along a shaded, lonely path, which for half a mile ran along the very marge of the Wye at the bottom of the park. And then he went on to
speak other words which seemed to rob his young friend of all hope. The old man was
walking slowly, with his hands clasped behind his back and with his eyes fixed on the path as he went; – and he spoke slowly, evidently weighing his words as he uttered them, bringing home to his hearer a conviction that the matter discussed was one of supreme importance to the speaker, – as to which he had thought
much, so as to be able to express his settled resolutions. ‘I’ve told you all now, Arthur; – only this. I do not know how long I may be able to resist this man’s claim if it be backed by Emily’s entreaties. I am thinking very much about it. I do not know that I have really been able to think of anything else for the last two months. It is all the world to me, – what she and Everett do with themselves;
and what she may do in this matter of marriage is of infinitely greater importance than anything that can befall him. If he makes a mistake, it may be put right. But with a woman’s marrying –,
vestigia nulla retrorsum
.
³⁹
She has put off all her old bonds and taken new ones, which must be her bonds for life. Feeling this very strongly, and disliking this man greatly, – disliking him, that is to
say, in the view of this close relation, – I have felt myself to be justified in so far opposing my child by the use of a high hand. I have refused my sanction to the marriage both to him and to her, – though in truth I have been hard set to find any adequate reason for doing so. I have no right to fashion my girl’s life by my prejudices. My life has been lived. Hers is to come. In this matter I
should be cruel and unnatural were I to allow myself to be governed by any selfish inclination. Though I were to know that she would be lost to me for ever, I must give way, – if once brought to a conviction that by not giving way I should sacrifice her young happiness. In this matter, Arthur, I must not even think of you, though I love you well. I must consider only my child’s welfare; and in doing
so I must try to sift my own feelings and my own judgment, and ascertain, if it be possible, whether my distaste to the man is reasonable or irrational; – whether I should serve her or sacrifice her by obstinacy of refusal. I can speak to you more plainly than to her. Indeed I have laid bare to you my whole heart and my whole mind. You have all my wishes, but you will understand that I do not promise
you my continued assistance.’ When he had so spoken he put out his hand and pressed his companion’s arm. Then he turned slowly into a little by-path which led across the park up to the house, and left Arthur Fletcher standing alone by the river’s bank.

And so by degrees the blow had come full home to him. He had been twice refused. Then rumours had reached him, – not at first that he had a rival,
but that there was a man who might possibly become so. And now this rivalry, and its success, were declared to him plainly. He told himself from this moment that he had not a chance. Looking forward he could see it all. He understood the girl’s character sufficiently to be sure that she would not be wafted about, from one lover to another, by change of scene. Taking her to Dresden, – or to New
Zealand, – would only confirm in her passion such a girl as Emily Wharton. Nothing could shake her but the ascertained unworthiness of the man, – and not that unless it were ascertained beneath her own eyes. And then years must pass by before she would yield to another lover. There was a further question, too, which he did not fail to ask himself. Was the man necessarily unworthy because his name
was Lopez, and because he had not come of English blood?

As he strove to think of this, if not coolly yet rationally, he sat himself down on the river’s side and began to pitch stones off the path in among the rocks, among which at that spot the water made its way rapidly. There had been moments in which he had been almost ashamed of his love, – and now he did not know whether to be most ashamed
or most proud of it But he recognized the fact that it was crucifying him, and that it would continue to crucify him. He knew himself in London to be a popular man, – one of those for whom, according to general opinion, girls should sigh, rather than one who should break his heart sighing for a girl. He had often told himself that it was beneath his manliness to be despondent; that he should let
such a trouble run from him like water from a duck’s back, consoling himself with the reflection that if the girl had such bad taste she could hardly be worthy of him. He had almost tried to belong to that school which throws the heart away and rules by the head alone. He knew that others, – perhaps not those who knew him best, but who nevertheless were the companions of many of his hours, – gave
him credit for such power. Why should a man afflict himself by the inward burden of an unsatisfied craving, and allow his heart to sink into his very feet because a girl would not smile when he wooed her? ‘If she be not fair for me, what care I how fair she be!’
⁴⁰
He had repeated the lines to himself a score of times, and had
been ashamed of himself because he could not make them come true to
himself.

They had not come true in the least. There he was, Arthur Fletcher, whom all the world courted, with his heart in his very boots! There was a miserable load within him, absolutely palpable to his outward feeling, – a very physical pain, – which he could not shake off. As he threw the stones into the water he told himself that it must be so with him always. Though the world did pet him,
though he was liked at his club, and courted in the hunting-field, and loved at balls and archery meetings, and reputed by old men to be a rising star, he told himself that he was so maimed and mutilated as to be only half a man. He could not reason about it Nature had afflicted him with a certain weakness. One man has a hump; – another can hardly see out of his imperfect eyes; – a third can barely
utter a few disjointed words. It was his fate to be constructed with some weak arrangement of the blood vessels which left him in this plight. ‘The whole damned thing is nothing to me,’ he said bursting out into absolute tears, after vainly trying to reassure himself by a recollection of the good things which the world still had in store for him.

Then he strove to console himself by thinking
that he might take a pride in his love, even though it were so intolerable a burden to him. Was it not something to be able to love as he loved? Was it not something at any rate that she to whom he had condescended to stoop was worthy of all love? But even here he could get no comfort, – being in truth unable to see very clearly into the condition of the thing. It was a disgrace to him, – to him within
his own bosom, – that she should have preferred to him such a one as Ferdinand Lopez, and this disgrace he exaggerated, ignoring the fact that the girl herself might be deficient in judgment, or led away in her love by falsehood and counterfeit attractions. To him she was such a goddess that she must be right, – and therefore his own inferiority to such a one as Ferdinand Lopez was proved. He
could take no pride in his rejected love. He would rid himself of it at a moment’s notice if he knew the way. He would throw himself at the feet of some second-rate, tawdry, well-born, well-known beauty of the day, – only that there was not now left to him strength to pretend the feeling that would be necessary. Then he heard steps, and jumping
up from his seat, stood just in the way of Emily
Wharton and her cousin Mary. ‘Ain’t you going to dress for dinner, young man?’ said the latter.

‘I shall have time if you have, anyway,’ said Arthur endeavouring to pluck up his spirits.

‘That’s nice of him; – isn’t it?’ said Mary. ‘Why, we are dressed. What more do you want? We came out to look for you, though we didn’t mean to come as far as this. It’s past seven now, and we are supposed to
dine at a quarter past’

‘Five minutes will do for me.’

‘But you’ve got to get to the house. You needn’t be in a tremendous hurry, because papa has only just come in from haymaking. They’ve got up the last load, and there has been the usual ceremony. Emily and I have been looking at them.’

‘I wish I’d been here all the time,’ said Emily. ‘I do so hate London in July.’

‘So do I,’ said Arthur,
– ‘in July and all other times.’

‘You hate London!’ said Mary.

‘Yes, – and Herefordshire, – and other places generally. If I’ve got to dress I’d better get across the park as quick as I can go,’ and so he left them. Mary turned round and looked at her cousin, but at the moment said nothing. Arthur’s passion was well known to Mary Wharton, but Mary had as yet heard nothing of Ferdinand Lopez.

During the whole of that evening there was a forced attempt on the part of all the party at Wharton Hall to be merry, – which, however, as is the case whenever such attempts are forced, was a failure. There had been a haymaking harvest-home which was supposed to give the special occasion for mirth, as Sir Alured farmed the land around the park himself, and was great
in hay. ‘I don’t think it pays very well,’ he said with a gentle smile, ‘but I like to employ some of
the people myself. I think the old people find it easier with me than with the tenants.’

‘I shouldn’t wonder,’ said his cousin; – ‘but that’s charity; not employment’

‘No, no,’ exclaimed the baronet. ‘They work for their wages and do their best. Powell sees to that.’ Powell was the bailiff,
who knew the length of his master’s foot to a quarter of an inch, and was quite aware that the Wharton haymakers were not to be overtasked. ‘Powell doesn’t keep any cats about the place, but what catch mice. But I am not quite sure that haymaking does pay.’

‘How do the tenants manage?’

‘Of course they look to things closer. You wouldn’t wish me to let the land up to the house door.’

‘I think,’
said old Mrs Fletcher, ‘that a landlord should consent to lose a little by his own farming. It does good in the long run.’ Both Mr Wharton and Sir Alured felt that this might be very well at Longbarns, though it could hardly be afforded at Wharton.

‘I don’t think I lose much by my farming,’ said the squire of Longbarns. ‘I have about four hundred acres on hand, and I keep my accounts pretty regularly.’

‘Johnson is a very good man, I dare say,’ said the baronet.

‘Like most of the others,’ continued the squire, ‘he’s very well as long as he’s looked after. I think I know as much about it as Johnson. Of course I don’t expect a farmer’s profit; but I do expect my rent, and I get it’

‘I don’t think I manage it quite in that way,’ said the baronet in a melancholy tone.

‘I’m afraid not,’ said the
barrister.

John is as hard upon the men as any one of the tenants,’ said John’s wife, Mrs Fletcher of Longbarns.

‘I’m not hard at all,’ said John, ‘and you understand nothing about it. I’m paying three shillings a week more to every man, and eighteen pence a week more to every woman, than I did three years ago.’

‘That’s because of the Unions,’ said the barrister.

‘I don’t care a straw for
the Unions. If the Unions interfered with my comfort I’d let the land and leave the place.’

‘Oh, John!’ ejaculated John’s mother.

‘I would not consent to be made a slave even for the sake of the country. But the wages had to be raised, – and having raised them I expect to get proper value for my money. If anything has to be given away, let it be given away, – so that the people should know what
it is that they receive.’

‘That’s just what we don’t want to do here,’ said Lady Wharton, who did not often join in any of these arguments.

‘You’re wrong, my lady,’ said her stepson. ‘You’re only breeding idleness when you teach people to think that they are earning wages without working for their money. Whatever you do with ’em, let ’em know and feel the truth. It’ll be the best in the long
run.’

‘I’m sometimes happy when I think that I shan’t live to see the long run,’ said the baronet. This was the manner in which they tried to be merry that evening after dinner at Wharton Hall. The two girls sat listening to their seniors in contented silence, – listening or perhaps thinking of their own peculiar troubles, while Arthur Fletcher held some book in his hand which he strove to read
with all his might.