On that afternoon, immediately on
the husband’s return to the house, his wife
spoke to him as her father had desired. On that
evening Mr. Wharton was dining at his club, and therefore
there was the whole evening before them; but the thing
to be done was disagreeable, and therefore she did
it at once, - rushing into the matter almost
before he had seated himself in the arm-chair which
he had appropriated to his use in the drawing-room.
“Papa was talking about our affairs after you
left this morning, and he thinks that it would be so
much better if you would tell him all about them.”
“What made him talk of that
to-day?” he said, turning at her almost angrily
and thinking at once of the Duke’s cheque.
“I suppose it is natural that
he should be anxious about us, Ferdinand; - and
the more natural as he has money to give if he chooses
to give it.”
“I have asked him for nothing
lately; - though, by George, I intend to
ask him and that very roundly. Three thousand
pounds isn’t much of a sum of money for your
father to have given you.”
“And he paid the election bill; - didn’t
he?”
“He has been complaining of
that behind my back, - has he? I didn’t
ask him for it. He offered it. I wasn’t
such a fool as to refuse, but he needn’t bring
that up as a grievance to you.”
“It wasn’t brought up
as a grievance. I was saying that your standing
had been a heavy expenditure -
“Why did you say so? What
made you talk about it at all? Why should you
be discussing my affairs behind my back?”
“To my own father! And
that too when you are telling me every day that I
am to induce him to help you!”
“Not by complaining that I am
poor. But how did it all begin?” She had
to think for a moment before she could recollect how
it did begin. “There has been something,”
he said, “which you are ashamed to tell me.”
“There is nothing that I am
ashamed to tell you. There never has been and
never will be anything.” And she stood up
as she spoke, with open eyes and extended nostrils.
“Whatever may come, however wretched it may
be, I shall not be ashamed of myself.”
“But of me!”
“Why do you say so? Why do you try to make
unhappiness between us?”
“You have been talking of - my poverty.”
“My father asked why you should
go to Dovercourt, - and whether it was because
it would save expense.”
“You want to go somewhere?”
“Not at all. I am contented
to stay in London. But I said that I thought
the expense had a good deal to do with it. Of
course it has.”
“Where do you want to be taken?
I suppose Dovercourt is not fashionable.”
“I want nothing.”
“If you are thinking of travelling
abroad, I can’t spare the time. It isn’t
an affair of money, and you had no business to say
so. I thought of the place because it is quiet
and because I can get up and down easily. I am
sorry that I ever came to live in this house.”
“Why do you say that, Ferdinand?”
“Because you and your father
make cabals behind my back. If there is anything
I hate it is that kind of thing.”
“You are very unjust,”
she said to him sobbing. “I have never
caballed. I have never done anything against you.
Of course papa ought to know.”
“Why ought he to know?
Why is your father to have the right of inquiry into
all my private affairs?”
“Because you want his assistance.
It is only natural. You always tell me to get
him to assist you. He spoke most kindly, saying
that he would like to know how the things are.”
“Then he won’t know.
As for wanting his assistance, of course I want the
fortune which he ought to give you. He is man
of the world enough to know that as I am in business
capital must be useful to me. I should have thought
that you would understand as much as that yourself.”
“I do understand it, I suppose.”
“Then why don’t you act
as my friend rather than his? Why don’t
you take my part? It seems to me that you are
much more his daughter than my wife.”
“That is most unfair.”
“If you had any pluck you would
make him understand that for your sake he ought to
say what he means to do, so that I might have the
advantage of the fortune which I suppose he means to
give you some day. If you had the slightest anxiety
to help me you could influence him. Instead of
that you talk to him about my poverty. I don’t
want him to think that I am a pauper. That’s
not the way to get round a man like your father, who
is rich himself and who thinks it a disgrace in other
men not to be rich too.”
“I can’t tell him in the
same breath that you are rich and that you want money.”
“Money is the means by which
men make money. If he was confident of my business
he’d shell out his cash quick enough! It
is because he has been taught to think that I am in
a small way. He’ll find his mistake some
day.”
“You won’t speak to him then?”
“I don’t say that at all.
If I find that it will answer my own purpose I shall
speak to him. But it would be very much easier
to me if I could get you to be cordial in helping
me.”
Emily by this time quite knew what
such cordiality meant. He had been so free in
his words to her that there could be no mistake.
He had instructed her to “get round” her
father. And now again he spoke of her influence
over her father. Although her illusions were all
melting away, - oh, so quickly vanishing, - still
she knew that it was her duty to be true to her husband,
and to be his wife rather than her father’s
daughter. But what could she say on his behalf,
knowing nothing of his affairs? She had no idea
what was his business, what was his income, what amount
of money she ought to spend as his wife. As far
as she could see, - and her common sense in
seeing such things was good, - he had no
regular income, and was justified in no expenditure.
On her own account she would ask for no information.
She was too proud to request that from him which should
be given to her without any request. But in her
own defence she must tell him that she could use no
influence with her father as she knew none of the
circumstances by which her father would be guided.
“I cannot help you in the manner you mean,”
she said, “because I know nothing myself.”
“You know that you can trust
me to do the best with your money if I could get hold
of it, I suppose?” She certainly did not know
this, and held her tongue. “You could assure
him of that?”
“I could only tell him to judge for himself.”
“What you mean is that you’d
see me d - d before you would open
your mouth for me to the old man!”
He had never sworn at her before,
and now she burst out into a flood of tears.
It was to her a terrible outrage. I do not know
that a woman is very much the worse because her husband
may forget himself on an occasion and “rap out
an oath at her,” as he would call it when making
the best of his own sin. Such an offence is compatible
with uniform kindness and most affectionate consideration.
I have known ladies who would think little or nothing
about it, - who would go no farther than
the mildest protest, - “Do remember
where you are!” or, “My dear John!” - if
no stranger were present. But then a wife should
be initiated into it by degrees; and there are different
tones of bad language, of which by far the most general
is the good-humoured tone. We all of us know
men who never damn their servants, or any inferiors,
or strangers, or women, - who in fact keep
it all for their bosom friends; and if a little does
sometimes flow over in the freedom of domestic life,
the wife is apt to remember that she is the bosomest
of her husband’s friends, and so to pardon the
transgression. But here the word had been uttered
with all its foulest violence, with virulence and
vulgarity. It seemed to the victim to be the
sign of a terrible crisis in her early married life, - as
though the man who had so spoken to her could never
again love her, never again be kind to her, never
again be sweetly gentle and like a lover. And
as he spoke it he looked at her as though he would
like to tear her limbs asunder. She was frightened
as well as horrified and astounded. She had not
a word to say to him. She did not know in what
language to make her complaint of such treatment.
She burst into tears, and throwing herself on the sofa
hid her face in her hands. “You provoke
me to be violent,” he said. But still she
could not speak to him. “I come away from
the city, tired with work and troubled with a thousand
things, and you have not a kind word to say to me.”
Then there was a pause, during which she still sobbed.
“If your father has anything to say to me, let
him say it. I shall not run away. But as
to going to him of my own accord with a story as long
as my arm about my own affairs, I don’t mean
to do it.” Then he paused a moment again.
“Come, old girl, cheer up! Don’t pretend
to be broken-hearted because I used a hard word.
There are worse things than that to be borne in the
world.”
“I - I - I was so startled,
Ferdinand.”
“A man can’t always remember
that he isn’t with another man. Don’t
think anything more about it; but do bear this in mind, - that,
situated as we are, your influence with your father
may be the making or the marring of me.”
And so he left the room.
She sat for the next ten minutes thinking
of it all. The words which he had spoken were
so horrible that she could not get them out of her
mind, - could not bring herself to look upon
them as a trifle. The darkness of his countenance
still dwelt with her, - and that absence
of all tenderness, that coarse un-marital and yet marital
roughness, which should not at any rate have come
to him so soon. The whole man too was so different
from what she had thought him to be. Before their
marriage no word as to money had ever reached her ears
from his lips. He had talked to her of books, - and
especially of poetry. Shakespeare and Moliere,
Dante and Goethe, had been or had seemed to be dear
to him. And he had been full of fine ideas about
women, and about men in their intercourse with women.
For his sake she had separated herself from all her
old friends. For his sake she had hurried into
a marriage altogether distasteful to her father.
For his sake she had closed her heart against that
other lover. Trusting altogether in him she had
ventured to think that she had known what was good
for her better than all those who had been her counsellors,
and had given herself to him utterly. Now she
was awake; her dream was over, and the natural language
of the man was still ringing in her ears!
They met together at dinner and passed
the evening without a further allusion to the scene
which had been acted. He sat with a magazine
in his hand, every now and then making some remark
intended to be pleasant but which grated on her ears
as being fictitious. She would answer him, - because
it was her duty to do so, and because she would not
condescend to sulk; but she could not bring herself
even to say to herself that all should be with her
as though that horrid word had not been spoken.
She sat over her work till ten, answering him when
he spoke in a voice which was also fictitious, and
then took herself off to her bed that she might weep
alone. It would, she knew, be late before he
would come to her.
On the next morning there came a message
to him as he was dressing. Mr. Wharton wished
to speak to him. Would he come down before breakfast,
or would he call on Mr. Wharton in Stone Buildings?
He sent down word that he would do the latter at an
hour he fixed, and then did not show himself in the
breakfast-room till Mr. Wharton was gone. “I’ve
got to go to your father to-day,” he said to
his wife, “and I thought it best not to begin
till we come to the regular business. I hope
he does not mean to be unreasonable.” To
this she made no answer. “Of course you
think the want of reason will be all on my side.”
“I don’t know why you should say so.”
“Because I can read your mind.
You do think so. You’ve been in the same
boat with your father all your life, and you can’t
get out of that boat and get into mine. I was
wrong to come and live here. Of course it was
not the way to withdraw you from his influence.”
She had nothing to say that would not anger him, and
was therefore silent. “Well; I must do
the best I can by myself, I suppose. Good-bye,”
and so he was off.
“I want to know,” said
Mr. Wharton, on whom was thrown by premeditation on
the part of Lopez the task of beginning the conversation, - “I
want to know what is the nature of your operation.
I have never been quite able to understand it.”
“I do not know that I quite
understand it myself,” said Lopez, laughing.
“No man alive,” continued
the old barrister almost solemnly, “has a greater
objection to thrust himself into another man’s
affairs than I have. And as I didn’t ask
the question before your marriage, - as perhaps
I ought to have done, - I should not do so
now, were it not that the disposition of some part
of the earnings of my life must depend on the condition
of your affairs.” Lopez immediately perceived
that it behoved him to be very much on the alert.
It might be that if he showed himself to be very poor,
his father-in-law would see the necessity of assisting
him at once; or, it might be, that unless he could
show himself to be in prosperous circumstances, his
father-in-law would not assist him at all. “To
tell you the plain truth, I am minded to make a new
will. I had of course made arrangements as to
my property before Emily’s marriage. Those
arrangements I think I shall now alter. I am greatly
distressed with Everett; and from what I see and from
a few words which have dropped from Emily, I am not,
to tell you the truth, quite happy as to your position.
If I understand rightly you are a general merchant,
buying and selling goods in the market?”
“That’s about it, sir.”
“What capital have you in the business?”
“What capital?”
“Yes; - how much did you put into it
at starting?”
Lopez paused a moment. He had
got his wife. The marriage could not be undone.
Mr. Wharton had money enough for them all, and would
not certainly discard his daughter. Mr. Wharton
could place him on a really firm footing, and might
not improbably do so if he could be made to feel some
confidence in his son-in-law. At this moment there
was much doubt with the son-in-law whether he had better
not tell the simple truth. “It has gone
in by degrees,” he said. “Altogether
I have had about L8000 in it.” In truth
he had never been possessed of a shilling.
“Does that include the L3000 you had from me?”
“Yes; it does.”
“Then you have married my girl
and started into the world with a business based on
L5000, and which had so far miscarried that within
a month or two after your marriage you were driven
to apply to me for funds!”
“I wanted money for a certain purpose.”
“Have you any partner, Mr. Lopez?”
This address was felt to be very ominous.
“Yes. I have a partner
who is possessed of capital. His name is Parker.”
“Then his capital is your capital.”
“Well; - I can’t explain it,
but it is not so.”
“What is the name of your firm?”
“We haven’t a registered name.”
“Have you a place of business?”
“Parker has a place of business in Little Tankard
Yard.”
Mr. Wharton turned to a directory
and found out Parker’s name. “Mr.
Parker is a stockbroker. Are you also a stockbroker?”
“No, - I am not.”
“Then, sir, it seems to me that you are a commercial
adventurer.”
“I am not at all ashamed of
the name, Mr. Wharton. According to your manner
of reckoning, half the business in the City of London
is done by commercial adventurers. I watch the
markets and buy goods, - and sell them at
a profit. Mr. Parker is a moneyed man, who happens
also to be a stockbroker. We can very easily
call ourselves merchants, and put up the names of
Lopez and Parker over the door.”
“Do you sign bills together?”
“Yes.”
“As Lopez and Parker?”
“No. I sign them and he
signs them. I trade also by myself, and so, I
believe, does he.”
“One other question, Mr. Lopez.
On what income have you paid income-tax for the last
three years?”
“On L2000 a-year,” said Lopez. This
was a direct lie.
“Can you make out any schedule
showing your exact assets and liabilities at the present
time?”
“Certainly I can.”
“Then do so, and send it to
me before I go into Herefordshire. My will as
it stands at present would not be to your advantage.
But I cannot change it till I know more of your circumstances
than I do now.” And so the interview was
over.