THE PRIME MINISTER (63 page)

‘Yes, indeed.’ Emily could not but think how soon she herself had learned that lesson.

‘Of course I’d do anything for Sexty, – the father of my bairns, and has always been a good husband to me. You don’t know him, of course, but I do. A right good man at bottom; but so weak!’

‘If he, –
if he, – injures his health, shouldn’t you talk to him quietly about it?’

‘It isn’t the drink as is the evil, Mrs Lopez, but that which makes him drink. He’s not one as goes a mucker merely for the pleasure. When things are going right he’ll sit out in our arbour at home, and smoke pipe after pipe, playing with the children, and one glass of gin
and water cold will see him to bed. Tobacco, dry,
do agree with him, I think. But when he comes to three or four goes of hot toddy, I know it’s not as it should be.’

‘You should restrain him, Mrs Parker.’

‘Of course I should; – but how? Am I to walk off with the bottle and disgrace him before the servant girl? Or am I to let the children know as their father takes too much? If I was as much as to make one fight of it, it’d be all over Ponder’s
End that he’s a drunkard; – which he ain’t. Restrain him; – oh, yes! If I could restrain that gambling instead of regular business. That’s what I’d like to restrain.’

‘Does he gamble?’

‘What is it but gambling that he and Mr Lopez is a-doing together? Of course, ma’am, I don’t know you, and you are different from me. I ain’t foolish enough not to know all that. My father stood in Smithfield
and sold hay, and your father is a gentleman as has been high up in the Courts all his life. But it’s your husband is a-doing this.’

‘Oh, Mrs Parker!’

‘He is then. And if he brings Sexty and my little ones to the workhouse, what’ll be the good then of his guano and his gum?’

‘Is it not all in the fair way of commerce?’

‘I’m sure I don’t know about commerce, Mrs Lopez, because I’m only a woman;
but it can’t be fair. They goes and buys things that they haven’t got the money to pay for, and then waits to see if they’ll turn up trumps. Isn’t that gambling?’

‘I cannot say. I do not know.’ She felt now that her husband had been accused, and that part of the accusation had been levelled at herself. There was something in her manner of saying these few words which the poor complaining woman
perceived, feeling immediately that she had been inhospitable and perhaps unjust. She put out her hand softly, touching the other woman’s arm, and looking up into her guest’s face. ‘If this is so, it is terrible,’ said Emily.

‘Perhaps I oughtn’t to speak so free.’

‘Oh, yes; – for your children, and yourself, and your husband.’

‘It’s them, – and him. Of course it’s not your doing, and Mr Lopez,
I’m sure, is a very fine gentleman. And if he gets wrong one way, he’ll get himself right in another.’ Upon hearing this Emily shook her head. ‘Your papa is a rich man, and won’t see you and yours
come to want. There’s nothing more to come to me or Sexty let it be ever so.’

‘Why does he do it?’

‘Why does who do it?’

‘Your husband. Why don’t you speak to him as you do to me, and tell him to
mind only his proper business?’

‘Now you are angry with me.’

‘Angry! No; – indeed I am not angry. Every word that you say is good and true, and just what you ought to say. I am not angry, but I am terrified. I know nothing of my husband’s business. I cannot tell you that you should trust to it. He is very clever, but –’

‘But – what, ma’am?’

‘Perhaps I should say that he is ambitious.’

‘You
mean he wants to get rich too quick, ma’am.’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘Then it’s just the same with Sexty. He’s ambitious too. But what’s the good of being ambitious, Mrs Lopez, if you never know whether you’re on your head or your heels? And what’s the good of being ambitious if you’re to get into the workhouse? I know what that means. There’s one or two of them sort of men gets into Parliament, and
has houses as big as the Queen’s palace, while hundreds of them has their wives and children in the gutter. Who ever hears of them? Nobody. It don’t become any man to be ambitious who has got a wife and family. If he’s a bachelor, why, of course, he can go to the Colonies. There’s Mary Jane and the two little ones right down on the sea, with their feet in the salt water. Shall we put on our hats,
Mrs Lopez, and go and look after them?’ To this proposition Emily assented, and the two ladies went out after the children.

‘Mix yourself another glass,’ said Sexty to his partner.

‘I’d rather not. Don’t ask me again. You know I never drink, and I don’t like being pressed.’

‘By George! – You are particular.’

‘What’s the use of teasing a fellow to do a thing he doesn’t like?’

‘You won’t mind
me having another?’

‘Fifty if you please, so that I’m not forced to join you.’

‘Forced! It’s liberty ’all here, and you can do as you please. Only when a fellow will take a drop with me he’s better company.’

‘Then I’m d—d bad company, and you’d better get somebody else
to be jolly with. To tell you the truth, Sexty, I suit you better at business than at this sort of thing. I’m like Shylock,
you know.’
⁵

‘I don’t know about Shylock, but I’m blessed if I think you suit me very well at anything. I’m putting up with a deal of ill-usage, and when I try to be happy with you, you won’t drink, and you tell me about Shylock. He was a Jew, wasn’t he?’

‘That is the general idea.’

‘Then you ain’t very much like him, for they’re a sort of people that always have money about ’em.’

‘How do you
suppose he made his money to begin with? What an ass you are!’

‘That’s true. I am. Ever since I began putting my name on the same bit of paper with yours I’ve been an ass.’

‘You’ll have to be one a bit longer yet; – unless you mean to throw up everything. At this present moment you are six or seven thousand pounds richer than you were before you first met me.’

‘I wish I could see the money.’

‘That’s like you. What’s the use of money you can see? How are you to make money out of money by looking at it? I like to know that my money is fructifying.’

‘I like to know that it’s all there, – and I did know it before I ever saw you. I’m blessed if I know it now. Go down and join the ladies, will you? You ain’t much of a companion up here.’

Shortly after that Lopez told Mrs Parker that he
had already bade adieu to her husband, and then he took his wife to their own lodgings.

The time spent by Mrs Lopez at Dovercourt was by no means one of complete happiness. Her husband did not come down very frequently, alleging that his business kept him in town, and that the journey was too long. When he did come he annoyed her either by
moroseness and tyranny, or by an affectation of loving good-humour, which was the more disagreeable alternative of the
two. She knew that he had no right to be good-humoured, and she was quite able to appreciate the difference between fictitious love and love that was real. He did not while she was at Dovercourt speak to her again directly about her father’s money, – but he gave her to understand that he required from her very close economy. Then again she referred to the brougham which she knew was to be in readiness
on her return to London; but he told her that he was the best judge of that. The economy which he demanded was that comfortless heartrending economy which nips the practiser at every turn, but does not betray itself to the world at large. He would have her save out of her washerwoman and linendraper, and yet have a smart gown and go in a brougham. He begrudged her postage stamps, and stopped
the subscription at Mudie’s, though he insisted on a front seat in the Dovercourt church, paying half a guinea more for it than he would for a place at the side. And then before their sojourn at the place had come to an end he left her for a while absolutely penniless, so that when the butcher and baker called for their money she could not pay them. That was a dreadful calamity to her, and of which
she was hardly able to measure the real worth. It had never happened to her before to have to refuse an application for money that was due. In her father’s house such a thing, as far as she knew, had never happened. She had sometimes heard that Everett was impecunious, but that had simply indicated an additional call upon her father. When the butcher came the second time she wrote to her husband
in an agony. Should she write to her father for a supply? She was sure that her father would not leave them in actual want. Then he sent her a cheque, enclosed in a very angry letter. Apply to her father! Had she not learned as yet that she was not to lean on her father any longer, but simply on him? And was she such a fool as to suppose that a tradesman could not wait a month for his money?

During all this time she had no friend, – no person to whom she could speak, – except Mrs Parker. Mrs Parker was very open and very confidential about the business, really knowing very much more about it than did Mrs Lopez. There was some sympathy and confidence between her and her husband, though they had latterly
been much lessened by Sexty’s conduct. Mrs Parker talked daily about the business
now that her mouth had been opened, and was very clearly of opinion that it was not a good business. ‘Sexty don’t think it good himself,’ she said.

‘Then why does he go on with it?’

‘Business is a thing, Mrs Lopez, as people can’t drop out of just at a moment. A man gets hisself entangled, and must free hisself as best he can. I know he’s terribly afeared; – and sometimes he does say such things
of your husband!’ Emily shrunk almost into herself as she heard this. ‘You mustn’t be angry, for indeed it’s better you should know all.’

‘I’m not angry; only very unhappy. Surely Mr Parker could separate himself from Mr Lopez if he pleased?’

‘That’s what I say to him. Give it up, though it be ever so much as you’ve to lose by him. Give it up, and begin again. You’ve always got your experience,
and if it’s only a crust you can earn, that’s sure and safe. But then he declares that he means to pull through yet. I know what men are at when they talk of pulling through, Mrs Lopez. There shouldn’t be no need of pulling through. It should all come just of its own accord, – little and little; but safe.’ Then, when the days of their marine holiday were coming to an end, – in the first week in
October, – the day before the return of the Parkers to Ponder’s End, she made a strong appeal to her new friend. ‘You ain’t afraid of him; are you?’

‘Of my husband?’ said Mrs Lopez. ‘I hope not. Why should you ask?’

‘Believe me, a woman should never be afraid of ’em. I never would give in to be bullied and made little of by Sexty. I’d do a’most anything to make him comfortable, I’m soft-hearted.
And why not, when he’s the father of my children? But I’m not going not to say a thing if I think it right, because I’m afeard.’

‘I think I could say anything if I thought it right.’

‘Then tell him of me and my babes, – as how I can never have a quiet night while this is going on. It isn’t that they two men are fond of one another. Nothing of the sort! Now you; – I’ve got to be downright fond
of you, though, of course, you think me common.’ Mrs Lopez would not contradict her but stooped forward and kissed her cheek. ‘I’m downright fond of you, I am,’ continued Mrs Parker,
snuffling and sobbing, ‘but they two men are only together because Mr Lopez wants to gamble, and Parker has got a little money to gamble with.’ This aspect of the thing was so terrible to Mrs Lopez that she could
only weep and hide her face. ‘Now, if you would tell him just the truth! Tell him what I say, and that I’ve been a-saying it! Tell him it’s for my children I’m a-speaking, who won’t have bread in their very mouths if their father’s squeezed dry like a sponge! Sure, if you’d tell him this, he wouldn’t go on!’ Then she paused a moment, looking up into the other woman’s face. ‘He’d have some bowels of
compassion; – wouldn’t he now?’

‘I’ll try,’ said Mrs Lopez.

‘I know you’re good and kind-hearted, my dear. I saw it in your eyes from the very first. But them men, when they get on at money-making, – or money-losing, which makes ’em worse, – are like tigers clawing one another. They don’t care how many they kills, so that they has the least bit for themselves. There ain’t no fear of God in it,
nor yet no mercy, nor ere a morsel of heart. It ain’t what I call manly, – not that longing after other folk’s money. When it’s come by hard work, as I tell Sexty, – by the very sweat of his brow, – oh, – it’s sweet as sweet. When he’d tell me that he’d made his three pound, or his five pound, or, perhaps, his ten in a day, and’d calculate it up, how much it’d come to if he did that every day,
and where we could go to, and what we could do for the children, I loved to hear him talk about his money. But now –! why, it’s altered the looks of the man altogether. It’s just as though he was a-thirsting for blood.’

Thirsting for blood! Yes, indeed. It was the very idea that had occurred to Mrs Lopez herself when her husband had bade her to ‘get round her father’. No; – it certainly was not
manly. There certainly was neither fear of God in it, nor mercy. Yes; – she would try. But as for bowels of compassion in Ferdinand Lopez –; she, the young wife, had already seen enough of her husband to think that he was not to be moved by any prayers on that side. Then the two women bade each other farewell. ‘Parker has been talking of my going to Manchester Square,’ said Mrs Parker, ‘but I shan’t.
What’d I be in Manchester Square? And, besides, there’d better be an end of it. Mr Lopez’d turn Sexty and me out of the house at a moment’s notice if it wasn’t for the money.’

‘It’s papa’s house,’ said Mrs Lopez, not, however, meaning to make an attack on her husband.

‘I suppose so, but I shan’t come to trouble no one; and we live ever so far away, at Ponder’s End, – out of your line altogether,
Mrs Lopez. But I’ve taken to you and will never think ill of you any way; – only do as you said you would.’

‘I will try,’ said Mrs Lopez.

In the meantime Lopez had received from Mr Wharton an answer to his letter about the missing caravels, which did not please him. Here is the letter: