The Palliser Novels (402 page)

“I’ll tell you what it is, Lopez,” said Wharton, as they strolled out of the club together, a little after ten o’clock, “the men of the present day won’t give themselves the trouble to occupy their minds with matters which have, or should have, real interest. Pope knew all about it when he said that ‘The proper study of mankind is man.’ But people don’t read Pope now, or if they do they don’t take the trouble to understand him.”

“Men are too busy making money, my dear fellow.”

“That’s just it. Money’s a very nice thing.”

“Very nice,” said Lopez.

“But the search after it is debasing. If a man could make money for four, or six, or even eight hours a day, and then wash his mind of the pursuit, as a clerk in an office washes the copies and ledgers out of his mind,
then — “

“He would never make money in that way, — and keep it.”

“And therefore the whole thing is debasing. A man ceases to care for the great interests of the world, or even to be aware of their existence, when his whole soul is in Spanish bonds. They wanted to make a banker of me, but I found that it would kill me.”

“It would kill me, I think, if I had to confine myself to Spanish bonds.”

“You know what I mean. You at any rate can understand me, though I fear you are too far gone to abandon the idea of making a fortune.”

“I would abandon it to-morrow if I could come into a fortune ready made. A man must at any rate eat.”

“Yes; — he must eat. But I am not quite sure,” said Wharton thoughtfully, “that he need think about what he eats.”

“Unless the beef is sent up without horse radish!” It had happened that when the two men sat down to their dinner the insufficient quantity of that vegetable supplied by the steward of the club had been all consumed, and Wharton had complained of the grievance.

“A man has a right to that for which he has paid,” said Wharton, with mock solemnity, “and if he passes over laches of that nature without observation he does an injury to humanity at large. I’m not going to be caught in a trap, you know, because I like horse radish with my beef. Well, I can’t go farther out of my way, as I have a deal of reading to do before I court my Morpheus. If you’ll take my advice you’ll go straight to the governor. Whatever Emily may feel I don’t think she’ll say much to encourage you unless you go about it after that fashion. She has prim notions of her own, which perhaps are not after all so much amiss when a man wants to marry a girl.”

“God forbid that I should think that anything about your sister was amiss!”

“I don’t think there is much myself. Women are generally superficial, — but some are honestly superficial and some dishonestly. Emily at any rate is honest.”

“Stop half a moment.” Then they sauntered arm in arm down the broad pavement leading from Pall Mall to the Duke of York’s column. “I wish I could make out your father more clearly. He is always civil to me, but he has a cold way of looking at me which makes me think I am not in his good books.”

“He is like that to everybody.”

“I never seem to get beyond the skin with him. You must have heard him speak of me in my absence?”

“He never says very much about anybody.”

“But a word would let me know how the land lies. You know me well enough to be aware that I am the last man to be curious as to what others think of me. Indeed I do not care about it as much as a man should do. I am utterly indifferent to the opinion of the world at large, and would never object to the company of a pleasant person because the pleasant person abused me behind my back. What I value is the pleasantness of the man and not his liking or disliking for myself. But here the dearest aim of my life is concerned, and I might be guided either this way or that, to my great advantage, by knowing whether I stand well or ill with him.”

“You have dined three times within the last three months in Manchester Square, and I don’t know any other man, — certainly no other young man, — who has had such strong proof of intimacy from my father.”

“Yes, and I know my advantages. But I have been there as your friend, not as his.”

“He doesn’t care twopence about my friends. I wanted to give Charlie Skate a dinner, but my father wouldn’t have him at any price.”

“Charlie Skate is out at elbows, and bets at billiards. I am respectable, — or at any rate your father thinks so. Your father is more anxious about you than you are aware of, and wishes to make his house pleasant to you as long as he can do so to your advantage. As far as you are concerned he rather approves of me, fancying that my turn for making money is stronger than my turn for spending it. Nevertheless, he looks upon me as a friend of yours rather than his own. Though he has given me three dinners in three months, — and I own the greatness of his hospitality, — I don’t suppose he ever said a word in my favour. I wish I knew what he does say.”

“He says he knows nothing about you.”

“Oh; — that’s it, is it? Then he can know no harm. When next he says so ask him of how many of the men who dine at his house he can say as much. Good night; — I won’t keep you any longer. But I can tell you this; — if between us we can manage to handle him rightly, you may get your seat in Parliament and I may get my wife; — that is, of course, if she will have me.”

Then they parted, but Lopez remained in the pathway, walking up and down by the side of the old military club, thinking of things. He certainly knew his friend, the younger Wharton, intimately, appreciating the man’s good qualities, and being fully aware of the man’s weakness. By his questions he had extracted quite enough to assure himself that Emily’s father would be adverse to his proposition. He had not felt much doubt before, but now he was certain. “He doesn’t know much about me,” he said, musing to himself. “Well, no; he doesn’t; — and there isn’t very much that I can tell him. Of course he’s wise, — as wisdom goes. But then, wise men do do foolish things at intervals. The discreetest of city bankers are talked out of their money; the most scrupulous of matrons are talked out of their virtue; the most experienced of statesmen are talked out of their principles. And who can really calculate chances? Men who lead forlorn hopes generally push through without being wounded; — and the fifth or sixth heir comes to a title.” So much he said, palpably, though to himself, with his inner voice. Then, — impalpably, with no even inner voice, — he asked himself what chance he might have of prevailing with the girl herself; and he almost ventured to tell himself that in that direction he need not despair.

In very truth he loved the girl and reverenced her, believing her to be better and higher and nobler than other human beings, — as a man does when he is in love; and so believing, he had those doubts as to his own success which such reverence produces.

Lopez was not a man to let grass grow under his feet when he had anything to do. When he was tired of walking backwards and forwards over the same bit of pavement, subject all the while to a cold east wind, he went home and thought of the same matter while he lay in bed. Even were he to get the girl’s assurances of love, without the father’s consent he might find himself farther from his object than ever. Mr. Wharton was a man of old fashions, who would think himself ill-used and his daughter ill-used, and who would think also that a general offence would have been committed against good social manners, if his daughter were to be asked for her hand without his previous consent. Should he absolutely refuse, — why then the battle, though it would be a desperate battle, might perhaps be fought with other strategy; but, giving to the matter his best consideration, Lopez thought it expedient to go at once to the father. In doing this he would have no silly tremors. Whatever he might feel in speaking to the girl, he had sufficient self-confidence to be able to ask the father, if not with assurance, at any rate without trepidation. It was, he thought, probable that the father, at the first attack, would neither altogether accede, or altogether refuse. The disposition of the man was averse to the probability of an absolute reply at the first moment. The lover imagined that it might be possible for him to take advantage of the period of doubt which would thus be created.

Mr. Wharton was and had for a great many years been a barrister practising in the Equity Courts, — or rather in one Equity Court, for throughout a life’s work now extending to nearly fifty years, he had hardly ever gone out of the single Vice-Chancellor’s Court which was much better known by Mr. Wharton’s name than by that of the less eminent judge who now sat there. His had been a very peculiar, a very toilsome, but yet probably a very satisfactory life. He had begun his practice early, and had worked in a stuff gown till he was nearly sixty. At that time he had amassed a large fortune, mainly from his profession, but partly also by the careful use of his own small patrimony and by his wife’s money. Men knew that he was rich, but no one knew the extent of his wealth. When he submitted to take a silk gown, he declared among his friends that he did so as a step preparatory to his retirement. The altered method of work would not suit him at his age, nor, — as he said, — would it be profitable. He would take his silk as an honour for his declining years, so that he might become a bencher at his Inn. But he had now been working for the last twelve or fourteen years with his silk gown, — almost as hard as in younger days, and with pecuniary results almost as serviceable; and though from month to month he declared his intention of taking no fresh briefs, and though he did now occasionally refuse work, still he was there with his mind as clear as ever, and with his body apparently as little affected by fatigue.

Mr. Wharton had not married till he was forty, and his wife had now been two years dead. He had had six children, — of whom but two were now left to make a household for his old age. He had been nearly fifty when his youngest daughter was born, and was therefore now an old father of a young child. But he was one of those men who, as in youth they are never very young, so in age are they never very old. He could still ride his cob in the park jauntily; and did so carefully every morning in his life, after an early cup of tea and before his breakfast. And he could walk home from his chambers every day, and on Sundays could do the round of the parks on foot. Twice a week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays, he dined at that old law club, the Eldon, and played whist after dinner till twelve o’clock. This was the great dissipation and, I think, the chief charm of his life. In the middle of August he and his daughter usually went for a month to Wharton Hall in Herefordshire, the seat of his cousin Sir Alured Wharton; — and this was the one duty of his life which was a burthen to him. But he had been made to believe that it was essential to his health, and to his wife’s, and then to his girl’s health, that he should every summer leave town for a time, — and where else was he to go? Sir Alured was a relation and a gentleman. Emily liked Wharton Hall. It was the proper thing. He hated Wharton Hall, but then he did not know any place out of London that he would not hate worse. He had once been induced to go up the Rhine, but had never repeated the experiment of foreign travel. Emily sometimes went abroad with her cousins, during which periods it was supposed that the old lawyer spent a good deal of his time at the Eldon. He was a spare, thin, strongly made man, with spare light brown hair, hardly yet grizzled, with small grey whiskers, clear eyes, bushy eyebrows, with a long ugly nose, on which young barristers had been heard to declare that you might hang a small kettle, and with considerable vehemence of talk when he was opposed in argument. For, with all his well-known coolness of temper, Mr. Wharton could become very hot in an argument, when the nature of the case in hand required heat. On one subject all who knew him were agreed. He was a thorough lawyer. Many doubted his eloquence, and some declared that he had known well the extent of his own powers in abstaining from seeking the higher honours of his profession; but no one doubted his law. He had once written a book, — on the mortgage of stocks in trade; but that had been in early life, and he had never since dabbled in literature.

He was certainly a man of whom men were generally afraid. At the whist-table no one would venture to scold him. In the court no one ever contradicted him. In his own house, though he was very quiet, the servants dreaded to offend him, and were attentive to his slightest behests. When he condescended to ride with any acquaintance in the park, it was always acknowledged that old Wharton was to regulate the pace. His name was Abel, and all his life he had been known as able Abe; — a silent, far-seeing, close-fisted, just old man, who was not, however, by any means deficient in sympathy either with the sufferings or with the joys of humanity.

It was Easter time and the courts were not sitting, but Mr. Wharton was in his chamber as a matter of course at ten o’clock. He knew no real homely comforts elsewhere, — unless at the whist-table at the Eldon. He ate and drank and slept in his own house in Manchester Square, but he could hardly be said to live there. It was not there that his mind was awake, and that the powers of the man were exercised. When he came up from the dining-room to join his daughter after dinner he would get her to sing him a song, and would then seat himself with a book. But he never read in his own house, invariably falling into a sweet and placid slumber, from which he was never disturbed till his daughter kissed him as she went to bed. Then he would walk about the room, and look at his watch, and shuffle uneasily through half-an-hour till his conscience allowed him to take himself to his chamber. He was a man of no pursuits in his own house. But from ten in the morning till five, or often till six, in the evening, his mind was active in some work. It was not now all law, as it used to be. In the drawer of the old piece of furniture which stood just at the right hand of his own arm-chair there were various books hidden away, which he was sometimes ashamed to have seen by his clients, — poetry and novels and even fairy tales. For there was nothing Mr. Wharton could not read in his chambers, though there was nothing that he could read in his own house. He had a large pleasant room in which to sit, looking out from the ground floor of Stone Buildings on to the gardens belonging to the Inn, — and here, in the centre of the metropolis, but in perfect quiet as far as the outside world was concerned, he had lived and still lived his life.