THE PRIME MINISTER (54 page)

‘Why so?’

‘If he were to the without a will, any land, – houses and that kind of property, – would go to Everett. I never knew a man who told his children so little. I want to make you understand these things. You and I will be badly off if he doesn’t do something
for us.’

‘You don’t think he is really ill?’

‘No; – not ill. Men above seventy are apt to die, you know.’

‘Oh, Ferdinand, – what a way to talk of it!’

‘Well, my love, the thing is so seriously matter-of-fact, that it is better to look at it in a matter-of-fact way. I don’t want your father to die.’

‘I hope not I hope not.’

‘But I should be very glad to learn what he means to do while he
lives. I want to get you into sympathy with me in this matter; – but it is so difficult’

‘Indeed I sympathize with you.’

‘The truth is he has taken an aversion to Everett.’

‘God forbid!’

‘I am doing all I can to prevent it. But if he does throw Everett over we ought to have the advantage of it. There is no harm in saying as much as that. Think what it would be if he should take it into his
head to leave his money to hospitals. My G—; fancy what my condition would be if I were to hear of such a will as that! If he destroyed an old will, partly because he didn’t like our marriage, and partly in anger against Everett, and then the without making another, the property would be divided, – unless he had bought land. You see how many dangers there are. Oh dear! I can look forward and see
myself mad, – or else see myself so proudly triumphant!’ All this horrified her, but he did not see her horror. He knew that she disliked it, but thought that she disliked the trouble, and that she dreaded her father. ‘Now I do think that you could help me a little,’ he continued.

‘What can I do?’

‘Get round him when he’s a little down in the mouth. That is the way in which old men are conquered.’
How utterly ignorant he was of the very nature of her mind and disposition! To be told by her husband that she was to ‘get round’ her father! ‘You should see him every day. He would be delighted if you would go to him at his chambers. Or you could take care to be in the Square when he comes home. I don’t know whether we had not better leave this and go and live near him. Would you mind that?’

‘I would do anything you would suggest as to living anywhere.’

‘But you won’t do anything I suggest as to your father.’

‘As to being with him, if I thought he wished it, – though I had to walk my feet off, I would go to him.’

‘There’s no need of hurting your feet. There’s the brougham.’

‘I do so wish, Ferdinand, you would discontinue the brougham. I don’t at all want it I don’t at all dislike
cabs. And I was only joking about walking. I walk very well.’

‘Certainly not. You fail altogether to understand my ideas about things. If things were going bad with us, I would infinitely prefer getting a pair of horses for you to putting down the one you have.’ She certainly did not understand his ideas. ‘Whatever we do we must hold our heads up. I think he is coming round to cotton to me.
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He is very close, but I can see that he likes my going to him. Of course, as he grows older from day to day, he’ll constantly want someone to lean on more than heretofore.’

‘I would go and stay with him if he wanted me.’

‘I have thought of that too. Now that would be a saving, – without any fall. And if we were both there we could hardly fail to know what he was doing. You could offer that,
couldn’t you? You could say as much as that?’

‘I could ask him if he wished it.’

Just so. Say that it occurs to you that he is lonely by himself, and that we will both go to the Square at a moment’s notice if he thinks it will make him comfortable. I feel sure that that will be the best step to take. I have already had an offer for these rooms, and could get rid of the things we have bought
to advantage.’

This, too, was terrible to her, and at the same time altogether unintelligible. She had been invited to buy little treasures to make their home comfortable, and had already learned to take that delight in her belongings which is one of the greatest pleasures of a young married woman’s life. A girl in her old home, before she is given up to a husband, has many sources of interest,
and probably from day to day sees many people. And the man just married goes out to his work, and occupies his time, and has his thickly-peopled world around him. But the bride, when the bridal honours of the honeymoon are over, when the sweet care of the first cradle has not yet come to her, is apt to be lonely and to be driven to the contemplation of the pretty things with which her husband and
her friends have surrounded her. It had certainly been so with this young bride, whose husband left her in the morning and only returned for their late dinner. And now she was told that her household gods had had a price put upon them, and that they were to be sold. She had
intended to suggest that she would pay her father a visit, and her husband immediately proposed that they should quarter
themselves permanently on the old man! She was ready to give up her brougham, though she liked the comfort of it well enough; but to that he would not consent because the possession of it gave him an air of wealth; but without a moment’s hesitation he could catch at the idea of throwing upon her father the burden of maintaining both her and himself! She understood the meaning of this. She could read
his mind so far. She endeavoured not to read the book too closely, – but there it was, opened to her wider day by day, and she knew that the lessons which it taught were vulgar and damnable.

And yet she had to hide from him her own perception of himself! She had to sympathize with his desires and yet to abstain from doing that which his desires demanded from her. Alas, poor girl! She soon knew
that the marriage had been a mistake. There was probably no one moment in which she made the confession to herself. But the conviction was there, in her mind, as though the confession had been made. Then there would come upon her unbidden, unwelcome reminiscences of Arthur Fletcher, – thoughts that she would struggle to banish, accusing herself of some heinous crime because the thoughts would come
back to her. She remembered his light wavy hair, which she had loved as one loves the beauty of a dog, which had seemed to her young imagination, to her in the ignorance of her early years to lack something of a dreamed-of manliness. She remembered his eager, boyish, honest entreaties to herself, which to her had been without that dignity of a superior being which a husband should possess. She
became aware that she had thought the less of him because he had thought the more of her. She had worshipped this other man because he had assumed superiority and had told her that he was big enough to be her master. But now, – now that it was all too late, – the veil had fallen from her eyes. She could now see the difference between manliness and ‘deportment’. Ah, – that she should ever have been
so blind, she who had given herself credit for seeing so much clearer than they who were her elders! And now, though at last she did see clearly, she could not have the consolation of telling anyone what she had seen. She must bear it all in silence, and live with it, and still love this god of clay that she had chosen. And, above all, she must never allow herself even to think of that
other man
with the wavy light hair, – that man who was rising in the world, of whom all people said all good things,
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who was showing himself to be a man by the work he did, and whose true tenderness she could never doubt.

Her father was left to her. She could still love her father. It might be that it would be best for him that she should go back to her old home, and take care of his old age. If he should
wish it, she would make no difficulty of parting with the things around her. Of what concern were the prettinesses of life to one whose inner soul was hampered with such ugliness? It might be better that they should live in Manchester Square, – if her father wished it. It was clear to her now that her husband was in urgent want of money, though of his affairs, even of his way of making money,
she knew nothing. As that was the case, of course she would consent to any practicable retrenchment which he would propose. And then she thought of other coming joys and coming troubles, – of how in future years she might have to teach a girl falsely to believe that her father was a good man, and to train a boy to honest purposes whatever parental lessons might come from the other side.

But the
mistake she had made was acknowledged. The man who could enjoin her to ‘get round’ her father could never have been worthy of the love she had given him.

The husband was almost jovial when he came home just in time to take his young wife to dine with their father. ‘I’ve had such a day in the city,’ he said, laughing. ‘I wish I could introduce you to my friend, Mr Sextus Parker.’

‘Cannot you do so?’

‘Well, no; not exactly. Of course you’d like him, because he is such a wonderful character, but he’d hardly do for your
drawing-room. He’s the vulgarest little creature you ever put your eyes on; and yet in a certain way he’s my partner.’

‘Then I suppose you trust him?’

‘Indeed I don’t; – but I make him useful. Poor little Sexty! I do trust him to a degree, because he believes in me and thinks he can do best by sticking to me. The old saying of “honour among thieves” isn’t without a dash of truth in it When two
men are in a boat together, they must be true to each other, else neither will get to the shore.’

‘You don’t attribute high motives to your friend.’

‘I’m afraid there are not very many high motives in the world, my girl, especially in the city; – nor yet at Westminster. It can hardly be from high motives when a lot of men, thinking differently on every possible subject, come together for the
sake of pay and power. I don’t know whether, after all, Sextus Parker mayn’t have as high motives as the Duke of Omnium. I don’t suppose anyone ever had lower motives than the Duchess when she chiselled me about Silverbridge. Never mind; – it’ll all be one a hundred years hence. Get ready, for I want you to be with your father a little before dinner.’

Then, when they were in the brougham together,
he began a course of very plain instructions. ‘Look here, dear, you had better get him to talk to you before dinner. I dare say Mrs Roby will be there, and I will get her on one side. At any rate you can manage it, because we shall be early, and I’ll take up a book while you are talking to him.’

‘What do you wish me to say to him. Ferdinand?’

‘I have been thinking of your own proposal, and I
am quite sure that we had better join him in the Square. The thing is, I am in a little mess about the rooms, and can’t stay on without paying very dearly for them.’

‘I thought you had paid for them.’

‘Well; – yes; in one sense I had; but you don’t understand about business. You had better not interrupt me now, as I have got a good deal to say before we get to the Square. It will suit me to
give up the rooms. I don’t like them, and they are very dear. As you yourself said, it will be a capital thing for us to go and stay with your father.’

‘I meant only for a visit.’

‘It will be for a visit, – and we’ll make it a long visit’ It was odd that the man should have been so devoid of right feeling himself as not to have known that the ideas which he expressed were revolting!
‘You can
sound him. Begin by saying that you are afraid he is desolate. He told me himself that he was desolate, and you can refer to that Then tell him that we are both of us prepared to do anything that we can to relieve him. Put your arm over him, and kiss him, and all that sort of thing.’ She shrunk from him into the corner of the brougham, and yet he did not perceive it. ‘Then say that you think he would
be happier if we were to join him here for a time. You can make him understand that there would be no difficulty about the apartments. But don’t say it all in a set speech, as though it were prepared, – though of course you can let him know that you have suggested it to me, and that I am willing. Be sure to let him understand that the idea began with you.’

‘But it did not’

‘You proposed to go
and stay with him. Tell him just that. And you should explain to him that he can dine at the club just as much as he likes. When you were alone with him here, of course he had to come home; but he needn’t do that now unless he chooses. Of course the brougham would be my affair. And if he should say anything about sharing the house expenses, you can tell him that I would do anything he might propose.’
Her father to share the household expenses in his own house, and with his own children! ‘You say as much as you can of all this before dinner, so that when we are sitting below he may suggest it if he pleases. It would suit me to get in there next week if possible.’

And so the lesson had been given. She had said little or nothing in reply, and he had only finished as they entered the Square.
She had hardly a minute allowed her to think how far she might follow, and in what she must ignore, her husband’s instructions. If she might use her own judgment, she would tell her father at once that a residence for a time beneath his roof would be a service to them pecuniarily. But this she might not do. She understood that her duty to her husband did forbid her to proclaim his poverty in opposition
to his wishes. She would tell nothing that he did not wish her to tell, – but then no duty could require her to say what was false. She would make the suggestion about their change of residence, and would make it with proper affection; – but as regarded themselves she would simply say that it would suit their views to give up their rooms if it suited him.

Mr Wharton was all alone when they entered
the drawing-room, – but, as Lopez had surmised, had asked his sister-in-law round the corner to come to dinner. ‘Roby always likes an excuse to get to his club,’ said the old man, ‘and Harriet likes an excuse to go anywhere.’ It was not long before Lopez began to play his part by seating himself close to the open window and looking out into the Square; and Emily when she found herself close
to her father, with her hand in his, could hardly divest herself of a feeling that she also was playing her part. ‘I see so very little of you,’ said the old man plaintively.