THE PRIME MINISTER (25 page)

‘Then I suppose I was right to catch it the first time?’

‘I don’t say how that may be.’

‘I was right. Oh, dear me! – Suppose I had doubted, just for once, and you had gone off. You would have tried once
more; – wouldn’t you?’

‘You’d have gone about like a broken-winged old hen, and have softened me that way.’

‘And now poor Arthur has had his wing broken.’

‘You mustn’t let on to know that it’s broken, and the wing will be healed in due time. But what fools girls are!’

‘Indeed they are, John; – particularly me.’

‘Fancy a girl like Emily Wharton,’ said he, not condescending to notice her little
joke, ‘throwing over a fellow like Arthur for a greasy, black foreigner.’

‘A foreigner!’

‘Yes; – a man named Lopez. Don’t say anything about it at present. Won’t she live to find out the difference, and to know what she has done! I can tell her of one that won’t pity her.’

Arthur Fletcher received his brother’s teaching as true, and took his brother’s advice in good part; – so that, before the morning following, he had resolved that however deep the wound might be, he would so live before the world, that the world should not see his wound. What people already knew they must know, – but they should learn nothing further either by words or signs
from him. He would, as he had said to his brother, ‘have it out with Emily’; and then, if she told him plainly that she loved the man, he would bid her adieu, simply expressing regret that their course for life should be divided. He was confident that she would tell him the entire truth. She would be restrained neither by false modesty, nor by any assumed unwillingness to discuss her own affairs
with a friend so true to her as he had
been. He knew her well enough to be sure that she recognized the value of his love though she could not bring herself to accept it. There are rejected lovers who, merely because they are lovers, become subject to the scorn and even to the disgust of the girls they love. But again there are men who, even when they are rejected, are almost loved, who are considered
to be worthy of all reverence, almost of worship; – and yet the worshippers will not love them. Not analysing all this, but somewhat conscious of the light in which this girl regarded him, he knew that what he might say would be treated with deference. As to shaking her, – as to talking her out of one purpose and into another, – that to him did not for a moment seem to be practicable. There
was no hope of that. He hardly knew why he should endeavour to say a word to her before he left Wharton. And yet he felt that it must be said. Were he to allow her to be married to this man, without any further previous word between them, it would appear that he had resolved to quarrel with her for ever. But now, at this very moment of time, as he lay in his bed, as he dressed himself in the morning,
as he sauntered about among the new hay-stacks with his pipe in his mouth after breakfast, he came to some conclusion in his mind very much averse to such quarrelling.

He had loved her with all his heart. It had not been a mere drawing-room love begotten between a couple of waltzes, and fostered by five minutes in a crush.
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He knew himself to be a man of the world, and he did not wish to be
other than he was. He could talk among men as men talked, and act as men acted; – and he could do the same with women. But there was one person who had been to him above all, and round everything, and under everything. There had been a private nook within him into which there had been no entrance but for the one image. There had been a holy of holies, which he had guarded within himself, keeping it
free from all outer contamination for his own use. He had cherished the idea of a clear fountain of ever-running water which would at last be his, always ready for the comfort of his own lips. Now all his hope was shattered, his trust was gone, and his longing disappointed. But the person was the same person, though she could not be his. The nook was there, though she would not fill it. The holy
of holies was not less holy, though he himself might not dare to lift the curtain. The fountain would still run, – still the clearest fountain of all, – though
he might not put his lips to it. He would never allow himself to think of it with lessened reverence, or with changed ideas as to her nature.

And then, as he stood leaning against a ladder which still kept its place against one of the
hay-ricks, and filled his second pipe unconsciously, he had to realize to himself the probable condition of his future life. Of course she would marry this man with very little further delay. Her father had already declared himself to be too weak to interfere much longer with her wishes. Of course Mr Wharton would give way. He had himself declared that he would give way. And then, – what sort of life
would be her life? No one knew anything about the man. There was an idea that he was rich, – but wealth such as his, wealth that is subject to speculation, will fly away at a moment’s notice. He might be cruel, a mere adventurer, or a thorough ruffian for all that was known of him. There should, thought Arthur Fletcher to himself, be more stability in the giving and taking of wives than could
be reckoned upon here. He became old in that half-hour, taking home to himself and appreciating many saws of wisdom and finger-directions of experience which hitherto had been to him matters almost of ridicule. But he could only come to this conclusion, – that as she was still to be to him his holy of holies though he might not lay his hand upon the altar, his fountain though he might not drink of
it, the one image which alone could have filled that nook, he would not cease to regard her happiness when she should have become the wife of this stranger. With the stranger himself he never could be on friendly terms; – but for the stranger’s wife there should always be a friend, if the friend were needed.

About an hour before lunch John Fletcher, who had been hanging about the house all the
morning in a manner very unusual to him, caught Emily Wharton as she was passing through the hall, and told her that Arthur was in a certain part of the grounds and wished to speak to her. ‘Alone?’ she asked. ‘Yes, certainly alone.’ ‘Ought I to go to him, John?’ she asked again. ‘Certainly I think you ought.’ Then he had done his commission and was able to apply himself to whatever business he had
on hand.

Emily at once put on her hat, took her parasol, and left the house. There was something distasteful to her in the idea of this going out
at a lover’s bidding, to meet him; but like all Whartons and all Fletchers, she trusted John Fletcher. And then she was aware that there were circumstances which might make such a meeting as this serviceable. She knew nothing of what had taken place
during the last four-and-twenty hours. She had no idea that in consequence of words spoken to him by her father and his brother, Arthur Fletcher was about to abandon his suit There would have been no doubt about her going to meet him had she thought this. She supposed that she would have to hear again the old story. If so, she would hear it, and would then have an opportunity of telling him that
her heart had been given entirely to another. She knew all that she owed to him. After a fashion she did love him. He was entitled to all kindest consideration from her hands. But he should be told the truth.

As she entered the shrubbery he came out to meet her, giving her his hand with a frank, easy air and a pleasant smile. His smile was as bright as the ripple of the sea, and his eye would
then gleam, and the slightest sparkle of his white teeth would be seen between his lips, and the dimple of his chin would show itself deeper than at other times. ‘It is very good of you. I thought you’d come. John asked you, I suppose.’

‘Yes; – he told me you were here, and he said I ought to come.’

‘I don’t know about ought, but I think it better. Will you mind walking on, as I’ve got something
that I want to say?’ Then he turned and she turned with him into the little wood. ‘I’m not going to bother you any more, my darling,’ he said. ‘You are still my darling, though I will not call you so after this.’ Her heart sank almost in her bosom as she heard this, – though it was exactly what she would have wished to hear. But now there must be some close understanding between them and some
tenderness. She knew how much she had owed him, how good he had been to her, how true had been his love; and she felt that words would fail her to say that which ought to be said. ‘So you have given yourself to – one Ferdinand Lopez!’

‘Yes,’ she said, in a hard, dry voice. ‘Yes; I have. I do not know who told you; but I have.’

‘Your father told me. It was better, – was it not? – that I should
know. You are not sorry that I should know?’

‘It is better.’

‘I am not going to say a word against him.’

‘No; – do not do that.’

‘Nor against you. I am simply here now to let you know that – I retire.’

‘You will not quarrel with me, Arthur?’

‘Quarrel with you! I could not quarrel with you, if I would. No; – there shall be no quarrel. But I do not suppose we shall see each other very often.’

‘I hope we may.’

‘Sometimes, perhaps. A man should not, I think, affect to be friends with a successful rival. I dare say he is an excellent fellow, but how is it possible that he and I should get on together? But you will always have one, – one besides him, – who will love you best in this world.’

‘No; – no; – no.’

‘It must be so. There will be nothing wrong in that Everyone has some dearest
friend, and you will always be mine. If anything of evil should ever happen to you, – which of course there won’t, – there would be someone who would –. But I don’t want to talk buncum; I only want you to believe me. Good-bye, and God bless you.’ Then he put out his right hand, holding his hat under his left arm.

‘You are not going away?’

‘To-morrow, perhaps. But I will say my real good-bye
to you here, now, to-day. I hope you may be happy. I hope it with all my heart. Good-bye. God bless you!’

‘Oh, Arthur!’ Then she put her hand in his.

‘Oh, I have loved you so dearly. It has been with my whole heart You have never quite understood me, but it has been as true as heaven. I have thought sometimes that had I been a little less earnest about it, I should have been a little less stupid.
A man shouldn’t let it get the better of him, as I have done. Say good-bye to me, Emily.’

‘Good-bye,’ she said, still leaving her hand in his.

‘I suppose that’s about all. Don’t let them quarrel with you here if you can help it. Of course at Longbarns they won’t like it for a time. Oh, – if it could have been different!’ Then he dropped her hand, and turning his back quickly upon her, went away
along the path.

She had expected and had almost wished that he should kiss her. A girl’s cheek is never so holy to herself as it is to her lover, – if he
do love her. There would have been something of reconciliation, something of a promise of future kindness in a kiss, which even Ferdinand would not have grudged. It would, for her, have robbed the parting of that bitterness of pain which his
words had given to it. As to all that he had made no calculation; but the bitterness was there for him, and he could have done nothing that would have expelled it.

She wept bitterly as she returned to the house. There might have been cause for joy. It was clear enough that her father, though he had shown no sign to her of yielding, was nevertheless prepared to yield. It was her father who had
caused Arthur Fletcher to take himself off, as a lover really dismissed. But, at this moment, she could not bring herself to look at that aspect of the affair. Her mind would revert to all those choicest moments in her early years in which she had been happy with Arthur Fletcher, in which she had first learned to love him, and had then taught herself to understand by some confused and perplexed lesson
that she did not love him as men and women love. But why should she not so have loved him? Would she not have done so could she then have understood how true and firm he was? And then, independently of herself, throwing herself aside for the time as she was bound to do when thinking of one so good to her as Arthur Fletcher, she found that no personal joy could drown the grief which she shared
with him. For a moment the idea of a comparison between the men forced itself upon her, – but she drove it from her as she hurried back to the house.

The blaze made by the Duchess of Omnium during the three months of the season up in London had been very great, but it was little in comparison with the social coruscation expected to be achieved at Gatherum Castle, – little at least as far as public report went, and the general opinion of the day. No doubt the house in
Carlton Gardens had been thrown
open as the house of no Prime Minister, perhaps of no duke, had been opened before in this country; but it had been done by degrees, and had not been accompanied by such a blowing of trumpets as was sounded with reference to the entertainments at Gatherum. I would not have it supposed that the trumpets were blown by the direct order of the Duchess. The trumpets were blown by the customary trumpeters
as it became known that great things were to be done, – all newspapers and very many tongues lending their assistance, till the sounds of the instruments almost frightened the Duchess herself. ‘Isn’t it odd,’ she said to her friend, Mrs Finn, ‘that one can’t have a few friends down in the country without such a fuss about it as the people are making?’ Mrs Finn did not think that it was odd,
and so she said. Thousands of pounds were being spent in a very conspicuous way. Invitations to the place even for a couple of days, – for twenty-four hours, – had been begged for abjectly. It was understood everywhere that the Prime Minister was bidding for greatness and popularity. Of course the trumpets were blown very loudly. ‘If people don’t take care,’ said the Duchess, ‘I’ll put everybody
off and have the whole place shut up. I’d do it for sixpence, now.’

Perhaps of all the persons, much or little concerned, the one who heard the least of the trumpets, – or rather who was the last to hear them, – was the Duke himself. He could not fail to see something in the newspapers, but what he did see did not attract him so frequently or so strongly as it did others. It was a pity, he thought,
that a man’s social and private life should be made subject to so many remarks, but this misfortune was one of those to which wealth and rank are liable. He had long recognized that fact, and for a time endeavoured to believe that his intended sojourn at Gatherum Castle was not more public than are the autumn doings of other dukes and other prime ministers. But gradually the trumpets did reach
even his ears. Blind as he was to many things himself, he always had near to him that other duke who was never blind to anything. ‘You are going to do great things at Gatherum this year,’ said the Duke.