THE PRIME MINISTER (24 page)

There was not one there in the room who did not know that it was the wish of the united families that Arthur Fletcher should marry Emily Wharton, and also that Emily had refused him. To Arthur of course the feeling that it was so could not but be an additional vexation; but the knowledge had grown up and had become common in the two families without any power on his part to
prevent so disagreeable a condition of affairs. There was not one in that room, unless it was Mary Wharton, who was not more or less angry with Emily, thinking her to be perverse and unreasonable. Even to Mary her cousin’s strange obstinacy was matter of surprise and sorrow, – for to her Arthur Fletcher was one of those demigods, who should never be refused, who are not expected to do more than
express a wish and be accepted. Her own heart had not strayed that way because she thought but little of herself, knowing herself to be portionless, and believing from long thought on the subject that it was not her destiny to be the wife of any man. She regarded Arthur Fletcher as being of all men the most lovable, – though, knowing her own condition, she did not dream of loving him. It did not become
her to be angry with another girl on such a cause; – but she was amazed that Arthur Fletcher should sigh in vain.

The girl’s folly and perverseness on this head were known to them all, – but as yet her greater folly and worse perverseness, her vitiated taste and dreadful partiality for the Portuguese adventurer, were known but to the two old men and to poor Arthur himself. When that sternly magnificent
old lady, Mrs Fletcher, – whose ancestors had been Welsh kings in the time of the Romans, – when she should hear this story, the roof of the old hall would hardly be able to hold her wrath and her dismay! The old kings had died away, but the Fletchers, and the Vaughans, – of whom she had been one, – and the Whartons remained, a peculiar people in an age that was then surrendering itself
to quick perdition, and with peculiar duties. Among these duties, the chiefest of them incumbent on females was that of so restraining their affections that they should never damage the good cause by leaving it. They might marry within the pale, – or remain single, as might be their lot. She would not take upon herself to say that Emily Wharton was bound to accept Arthur Fletcher, merely because
such a marriage was fitting, – although she did think that there was much perverseness in the girl, who might have taught herself, had she not been stubborn, to comply with the wishes of the families. But to love one below herself, a man without a father, a foreigner, a black Portuguese nameless Jew, merely because he had a bright eye, and a hook nose, and a glib tongue, – that a girl from the Whartons
should do this –! It was so unnatural to Mrs Fletcher that it would be hardly possible to her to be civil to the girl after she had heard that her mind and taste were so astray. All this Sir Alured knew and the barrister knew it, – and they feared her indignation the more because they sympathized with the old lady’s feelings.

‘Emily Wharton doesn’t seem to me to be a bit more gracious than she
used to be,’ Mrs Fletcher said to Lady Wharton that night The two old ladies were sitting together upstairs, and Mrs John Fletcher was with them. In such conferences Mrs Fletcher always domineered, – to the perfect contentment of old Lady Wharton, but not equally so to that of her daughter-in-law.

‘I’m afraid she is not very happy,’ said Lady Wharton.

‘She has everything that ought to make a
girl happy, and I don’t know what it is she wants. It makes me quite angry to see her so discontented. She doesn’t say a word, but sits there as glum as death. If I were Arthur I would leave her for six months, and never speak to her during the time.’

‘I suppose, mother,’ said the younger Mrs Fletcher, – who called her husband’s mother, mother, and her own mother, mamma, – ‘a girl needn’t marry
a man unless she likes him.’

‘But she should try to like him if it is suitable in other respects. I don’t mean to take any trouble about it. Arthur needn’t beg for any favour. Only I wouldn’t have come here if I had thought that she had intended to sit silent like that always.’

‘It makes her unhappy, I suppose,’ said Lady Wharton, ‘because she can’t do what we all want’

‘Fall, lall! She’d have
wanted it herself if nobody else had wished it. I’m surprised that Arthur should be so much taken with her.’

‘You’d better say nothing more about it, mother.’

‘I don’t mean to say anything more about it. It’s nothing to me. Arthur can do very well in the world without Emily Wharton. Only a girl like that will sometimes make a disgraceful match; and we should all feel that’

‘I don’t think Emily
will do anything disgraceful,’ said Lady Wharton. And so they parted.

In the meantime the two brothers were smoking their pipes in the housekeeper’s room, which, at Wharton, when the Fletchers or Everett were there, was freely used for that purpose.

‘Isn’t it rather quaint of you,’ said the elder brother, ‘coming down here in the middle of term time?’

‘It doesn’t matter much.’

‘I should have
thought it would matter; – that is, if you mean to go on with it.’

‘I’m not going to make a slave of myself about it, if you mean that. I don’t suppose I shall ever marry, – and as for rising to be a swell in the profession, I don’t care about it’

‘You used to care about it, – very much. You used to say that if you didn’t get to the top it shouldn’t be your own fault.’

‘And I have worked; –
and I do work. But things get changed somehow. I’ve half a mind to give it all up, – to raise a lot of money, and to start off with a resolution to see every corner of the world. I suppose a man could do it in about thirty years if he lived so long. It’s the kind of thing would suit me.’

‘Exactly. I don’t know any fellow who has been more into society, and therefore you are exactly the man to
live alone for the rest of
your life. You’ve always worked hard, I will say that for you; – and therefore you’re just the man to be contented with idleness. You’ve always been ambitious and self-confident, and therefore it will suit you to a T, to be nobody and to do nothing.’ Arthur sat silent, smoking his pipe with all his might, and his brother continued, – ‘Besides, – you read sometimes, I
fancy.’

‘I should read all the more.’

‘Very likely. But what you have read, in the old plays, for instance, must have taught you that when a man is cut up about a woman, – which I suppose is your case just at present, – he never does get over it. He never gets all right after a time, – does he? Such a one had better go and turn monk at once, as the world is over for him altogether; – isn’t it?
Men don’t recover after a month or two, and go on just the same. You’ve never seen that kind of thing yourself?’

‘I’m not going to cut my throat or turn monk either.’

‘No. There are so many steamboats and railways now that travelling seems easier. Suppose you go as far as St Petersburg, and see if that does you any good. If it don’t, you needn’t go on, because it will be hopeless. If it does,
– why, you can come back, because the second journey will do the rest.’

‘There never was anything, John, that wasn’t matter for chaff with you.’

‘And I hope there never will be. People understand it when logic would be thrown away. I suppose the truth is the girl cares for somebody else.’ Arthur nodded his head. ‘Who is it? Anyone I know?’

‘I think not.’

‘Anyone you know?’

‘I have met the
man.’

‘Decent?’

‘Disgustingly indecent, I should say.’ John looked very black, for even with him the feeling about the Whartons and the Vaughans and the Fletchers was very strong. ‘He’s a man I should say you wouldn’t let into Longbarns.’

‘There might be various reasons for that. It might be that you wouldn’t care to meet him.’

‘Well; – no, – I don’t suppose I should. But without that you
wouldn’t like him. I don’t think he’s an Englishman.’

‘A foreigner!’

‘He has got a foreign name.’

‘An Italian nobleman?’

‘I don’t think he’s noble in any country.’

‘Who the d— is he?’

‘His name is – Lopez.’

‘Everett’s friend?’

‘Yes; – Everett’s friend. I ain’t very much obliged to Master Everett for what he has done.’

‘I’ve seen the man. Indeed, I may say I know him, – for I dined with
him once in Manchester Square. Old Wharton himself must have asked him there.’

‘He was there as Everett’s friend. I only heard all this to-day, you know; – though I had heard about it before.’

‘And therefore you want to set out on your travels. As far as I saw I should say he is a clever fellow.’

‘I don’t doubt that.’

‘And a gentleman.’

‘I don’t know that he is not,’ said Arthur. ‘I’ve no
right to say a word against him. From what Wharton says I suppose he’s rich.’

‘He’s good-looking too; – at least he’s the son of man that women like to look at.’

‘Just so. I’ve no cause of quarrel with him, – nor with her. But –’

‘Yes, my friend, I see it all,’ said the elder brother. ‘I think I know all about it. But running away is not the thing. One may be pretty nearly sure that one is
right when one says that a man shouldn’t run away from anything.’

‘The thing is to be happy if you can,’ said Arthur.

‘No; – that is not the thing. I’m not much of a philosopher, but as far as I can see there are two philosophies in the world. The one is to make one’s self happy, and the other is to make other people happy. The latter answers the best.’

‘I can’t add to her happiness by hanging
about London.’

‘That’s a quibble. It isn’t her happiness we are talking about, – nor yet your hanging about London. Gird yourself up and go on with what you’ve got to do. Put your work before your feelings. What does a poor man do, who goes out hedging and ditching with a dead child lying in his house? If you get a blow in the face, return it if it
ought to be returned, but never complain of
the pain. If you must have your vitals eaten into, – have them eaten into like a man. But, mind you, – these ain’t your vitals.’

‘It goes pretty near.’

‘These ain’t your vitals. A man gets cured of it, – almost always. I believe always; though some men get hit so hard they can never bring themselves to try it again. But tell me this. Has old Wharton given his consent?’

‘No. He has refused,’
said Arthur with strong emphasis.

‘How is it to be, then?’

‘He has dealt very fairly by me. He has done all he could to get rid of the man, – both with him and with her. He has told Emily that he will have nothing to do with the man. And she will do nothing without his sanction.’

‘Then it will remain just as it is.’

‘No, John; it will not. He has gone on to say that though he has refused,
– and has refused roughly enough, – he must give way if he sees that she has really set her heart upon him. And she has.’

‘Has she told you so?’

‘No; – but he has told me. I shall have it out with her to-morrow, if I can. And then I shall be off.’

‘You’ll be here for shooting on the Ist?’

‘No. I dare say you’re right in what you say about sticking to my work. It does seem unmanly to run away
because of a girl.’

‘Because of anything! Stop and face it, whatever it is.’

‘Just so; – but I can’t stop and face her. It would do no good. For all our sakes I should be better away. I can get shooting with Musgrave and Carnegie in Perthshire. I dare say I shall go there, and take a share with them.’

‘That’s better than going into all the quarters of the globe.’

‘I didn’t mean that I was
to surrender and start at once. You take a fellow up so short. I shall do very well, I’ve no doubt, and shall be hunting here as jolly as ever at Christmas. But a fellow must say it all to somebody.’ The elder brother put his hand out and laid it affectionately upon the younger one’s arm. ‘I’m not going to whimper about the world like a whipped dog. The worst of it is so many people have known of
this.’

‘You mean down here.’

‘Oh; – everywhere. I have never told them. It has been a kind of family affair and thought to be fit for general discussions.’

‘That’ll wear away.’

‘In the meantime it’s a bore. But that shall be the end of it. Don’t you say another word to me about it, and I won’t to you. And tell mother not to, or Sarah.’ Sarah was John Fletcher’s wife. ‘It has got to be dropped,
and let us drop it as quickly as we can. If she does marry this man I don’t suppose she’ll be much at Longbarns or Wharton.’

‘Not at Longbarns certainly, I should say,’ replied John. ‘Fancy mother having to curtsey to her as Mrs Lopez! And I doubt whether Sir Alured would like him. He isn’t of our sort He’s too clever, too cosmopolitan, – a sort of man whitewashed of all prejudices, who wouldn’t
mind whether he ate horseflesh or beef if horseflesh were as good as beef, and never had an association in his life. I’m not sure that he’s not on the safest side.
⁴¹
Good night, old fellow. Pluck up, and send us plenty of grouse if you do go to Scotland.’

John Fletcher, as I hope may have been already seen, was by no means a weak man or an indifferent brother. He was warm-hearted, sharp-witted,
and, though perhaps a little self-opinionated, considered throughout the county to be one of the most prudent in it. Indeed no one ever ventured to doubt his wisdom on all practical matters, – save his mother, who seeing him almost every day, had a stronger bias towards her younger son. ‘Arthur has been hit hard about that girl,’ he said to his wife that night.

‘Emily Wharton?’

‘Yes; – your
cousin Emily. Don’t say anything to him, but be as good to him as you know how.’

‘Good to Arthur! Am not I always good to him?’

‘Be a little more than usually tender with him. It makes one almost cry to see such a fellow hurt like that. I can understand it, though I never had anything of it myself.’

‘You never had, John,’ said the wife leaning close upon the husband’s breast as she spoke. ‘It
all came very easily to you; – too easily perhaps.’

‘If any girl had ever refused me, I should have taken her at her word, I can tell you. There would have been no second “hop” to that ball.’