The Palliser Novels (456 page)

Lopez was in a very good humour when he took his wife down, and he walked her round the terraces and esplanades of that not sufficiently well-known marine paradise, now bidding her admire the sea and now laughing at the finery of the people, till she became gradually filled with an idea that as he was making himself pleasant, she also ought to do the same. Of course she was not happy. The gilding had so completely and so rapidly been washed off her idol that she could not be very happy. But she also could be good-humoured. “And now,” said he, smiling, “I have got something for you to do for me, — something that you will find very disagreeable.”

“What is it? It won’t be very bad, I’m sure.”

“It will be very bad, I’m afraid. My excellent but horribly vulgar partner, Mr. Sextus Parker, when he found that I was coming here, insisted on bringing his wife and children here also. I want you to know them.”

“Is that all? She must be very bad indeed if I can’t put up with that.”

“In one sense she isn’t bad at all. I believe her to be an excellent woman, intent on spoiling her children and giving her husband a good dinner every day. But I think you’ll find that she is, — well, — not quite what you call a lady.”

“I shan’t mind that in the least. I’ll help her to spoil the children.”

“You can get a lesson there, you know,” he said, looking into her face. The little joke was one which a young wife might take with pleasure from her husband, but her life had already been too much embittered for any such delight. Yes; the time was coming when that trouble also would be added to her. She dreaded she knew not what, and had often told herself that it would be better that she should be childless.

“Do you like him?” she said.

“Like him. No; — I can’t say I like him. He is useful, and in one sense honest.”

“Is he not honest in all senses?”

“That’s a large order. To tell you the truth, I don’t know any man who is.”

“Everett is honest.”

“He loses money at play which he can’t pay without assistance from his father. If his father had refused, where would then have been his honesty? Sexty is as honest as others, I dare say, but I shouldn’t like to trust him much farther than I can see him. I shan’t go up to town to-morrow, and we’ll both look in on them after luncheon.”

In the afternoon the call was made. The Parkers, having children, had dined early, and he was sitting out in a little porch smoking his pipe, drinking whisky and water, and looking at the sea. His eldest girl was standing between his legs, and his wife, with the other three children round her, was sitting on the doorstep. “I’ve brought my wife to see you,” said Lopez, holding out his hand to Mrs. Parker, as she rose from the ground.

“I told her that you’d be coming,” said Sexty, “and she wanted me to put off my pipe and little drop of drink; but I said that if Mrs. Lopez was the lady I took her to be she wouldn’t begrudge a hard-working fellow his pipe and glass on a holiday.”

There was a soundness of sense in this which mollified any feeling of disgust which Emily might have felt at the man’s vulgarity. “I think you are quite right, Mr. Parker. I should be very sorry if, —
if — “

“If I was to put my pipe out. Well, I won’t. You’ll take a glass of sherry, Lopez? Though I’m drinking spirits myself, I brought down a hamper of sherry wine. Oh, nonsense; — you must take something. That’s right, Jane. Let us have the stuff and the glasses, and then they can do as they like.” Lopez lit a cigar, and allowed his host to pour out for him a glass of “sherry wine,” while Mrs. Lopez went into the house with Mrs. Parker and the children.

Mrs. Parker opened herself out to her new friend immediately. She hoped that they two might see “a deal of each other; — that is, if you don’t think me too pushing.” Sextus, she said, was so much away, coming down to Dovercourt only every other day! And then, within the half hour which was consumed by Lopez with his cigar, the poor woman got upon the general troubles of her life. Did Mrs. Lopez think that “all this speckelation was just the right thing?”

“I don’t think that I know anything about it, Mrs. Parker.”

“But you ought; — oughtn’t you, now? Don’t you think that a wife ought to know what it is that her husband is after; — specially if there’s children? A good bit of the money was mine, Mrs. Lopez; and though I don’t begrudge it, not one bit, if any good is to come out of it to him or them, a woman doesn’t like what her father has given her should be made ducks and drakes of.”

“But are they making ducks and drakes?”

“When he don’t tell me I’m always afeard. And I’ll tell you what I know just as well as two and two. When he comes home a little flustered, and then takes more than his regular allowance, he’s been at something as don’t quite satisfy him. He’s never that way when he’s done a good day’s work at his regular business. He takes to the children then, and has one glass after his dinner, and tells me all about it, — down to the shillings and pence. But it’s very seldom he’s that way now.”

“You may think it very odd, Mrs. Parker, but I don’t in the least know what my husband is — in business.”

“And you never ask?”

“I haven’t been very long married, you know; — only about ten months.”

“I’d had my fust by that time.”

“Only nine months, I think, indeed.”

“Well; I wasn’t very long after that. But I took care to know what it was he was a-doing of in the city long before that time. And I did use to know everything, till — ” She was going to say, till Lopez had come upon the scene. But she did not wish, at any rate as yet, to be harsh to her new friend.

“I hope it is all right,” said Emily.

“Sometimes he’s as though the Bank of England was all his own. And there’s been more money come into the house; — that I must say. And there isn’t an open-handeder one than Sexty anywhere. He’d like to see me in a silk gown every day of my life; — and as for the children, there’s nothing smart enough for them. Only I’d sooner have a little and safe, than anything ever so fine, and never be sure whether it wasn’t going to come to an end.”

“There I agree with you, quite.”

“I don’t suppose men feels it as we do; but, oh, Mrs. Lopez, give me a little, safe, so that I may know that I shan’t see my children want. When I thinks what it would be to have them darlings’ little bellies empty, and nothing in the cupboard, I get that low that I’m nigh fit for Bedlam.”

In the mean time the two men outside the porch were discussing their affairs in somewhat the same spirit. At last Lopez showed his friend Wharton’s letter, and told him of the expected schedule. “Schedule be
d––––d,
you know,” said Lopez. “How am I to put down a rise of 12s. 6d. a ton on Kauri gum in a schedule? But when you come to 2000 tons it’s £1250.”

“He’s very old; — isn’t he?”

“But as strong as a horse.”

“He’s got the money?”

“Yes; — he has got it safe enough. There’s no doubt about the money.”

“What he talks about is only a will. Now you want the money at once.”

“Of course I do; — and he talks to me as if I were some old fogy with an estate of my own. I must concoct a letter and explain my views; and the more I can make him understand how things really are the better. I don’t suppose he wants to see his daughter come to grief.”

“Then the sooner you write it the better,” said Mr. Parker.

As they strolled home Lopez told his wife that he had accepted an invitation to dine the next day at the Parkers’ cottage. In doing this his manner was not quite so gentle as when he had asked her to call on them. He had been a little ruffled by what had been said, and now exhibited his temper. “I don’t suppose it will be very nice,” he said, “but we may have to put up with worse things than that.”

“I have made no objection.”

“But you don’t seem to take to it very cordially.”

“I had thought that I got on very well with Mrs. Parker. If you can eat your dinner with them, I’m sure that I can. You do not seem to like him altogether, and I wish you had got a partner more to your taste.”

“Taste, indeed! When you come to this kind of thing it isn’t a matter of taste. The fact is that I am in that fellow’s hands to an extent I don’t like to think of, and don’t see my way out of it unless your father will do as he ought to do. You altogether refuse to help me with your father, and you must, therefore, put up with Sexty Parker and his wife. It is quite on the cards that worse things may come even than Sexty Parker.” To this she made no immediate answer, but walked on, increasing her pace, not only unhappy, but also very angry. It was becoming a matter of doubt to her whether she could continue to bear these repeated attacks about her father’s money. “I see how it is,” he continued. “You think that a husband should bear all the troubles of life, and that a wife should never be made to hear of them.”

“Ferdinand,” she said, “I declare I did not think that any man could be so unfair to a woman as you are to me.”

“Of course! Because I haven’t got thousands a year to spend on you I am unfair.”

“I am content to live in any way that you may direct. If you are poor, I am satisfied to be poor. If you are even ruined, I am content to be ruined.”

“Who is talking about ruin?”

“If you are in want of everything, I also will be in want and will never complain. Whatever our joint lot may bring to us I will endure, and will endeavour to endure with cheerfulness. But I will not ask my father for money, either for you or for myself. He knows what he ought to do. I trust him implicitly.”

“And me not at all.”

“He is, I know, in communication with you about what should be done. I can only say, — tell him everything.”

“My dear, that is a matter in which it may be possible that I understand my own interest best.”

“Very likely. I certainly understand nothing, for I do not even know the nature of your business. How can I tell him that he ought to give you money?”

“You might ask him for your own.”

“I have got nothing. Did I ever tell you that I had?”

“You ought to have known.”

“Do you mean that when you asked me to marry you I should have refused you because I did not know what money papa would give me? Why did you not ask papa?”

“Had I known him then as well as I do now you may be quite sure that I should have done so.”

“Ferdinand, it will be better that we should not speak about my father. I will in all things strive to do as you would have me, but I cannot hear him abused. If you have anything to say, go to Everett.”

“Yes; — when he is such a gambler that your father won’t even speak to him. Your father will be found dead in his bed some day, and all his money will have been left to some cursed hospital.” They were at their own door when this was said, and she, without further answer, went up to her bedroom.

All these bitter things had been said, not because Lopez had thought that he could further his own views by saying them; — he knew indeed that he was injuring himself by every display of ill-temper; — but she was in his power, and Sexty Parker was rebelling. He thought a good deal that day on the delight he would have in “kicking that ill-conditioned cur,” if only he could afford to kick him. But his wife was his own, and she must be taught to endure his will, and must be made to know that though she was not to be kicked, yet she was to be tormented and ill-used. And it might be possible that he should so cow her spirit as to bring her to act as he should direct. Still, as he walked alone along the sea-shore, he knew that it would be better for him to control his temper.

On that evening he did write to Mr. Wharton, — as follows, — and he dated his letter from Little Tankard Yard, so that Mr. Wharton might suppose that that was really his own place of business, and that he was there, at his
work: —
 

My dear Sir
,

You have asked for a schedule of my affairs, and I have found it quite impossible to give it. As it was with the merchants whom Shakespeare and the other dramatists described, — so it is with me. My caravels are out at sea, and will not always come home in time. My property at this moment consists of certain shares of cargoes of jute, Kauri gum, guano, and sulphur, worth altogether at the present moment something over £26,000, of which Mr. Parker possesses the half; — but then of this property only a portion is paid for, — perhaps something more than a half. For the other half our bills are in the market. But in February next these articles will probably be sold for considerably more than £30,000. If I had £5000 placed to my credit now, I should be worth about £15,000 by the end of next February. I am engaged in sundry other smaller ventures, all returning profits; — but in such a condition of things it is impossible that I should make a schedule.

I am undoubtedly in the condition of a man trading beyond his capital. I have been tempted by fair offers, and what I think I may call something beyond an average understanding of such matters, to go into ventures beyond my means. I have stretched my arm out too far. In such a position it is not perhaps unnatural that I should ask a wealthy father-in-law to assist me. It is certainly not unnatural that I should wish him to do so.

I do not think that I am a mercenary man. When I married your daughter I raised no question as to her fortune. Being embarked in trade I no doubt thought that her means, — whatever they might be, — would be joined to my own. I know that a sum of £20,000, with my experience in the use of money, would give us a noble income. But I would not condescend to ask a question which might lead to a supposition that I was marrying her for her money and not because I loved her.

You now know, I think, all that I can tell you. If there be any other questions I would willingly answer them. It is certainly the case that Emily’s fortune, whatever you may choose to give her, would be of infinitely greater use to me now, — and consequently to her, — than at a future date which I sincerely pray may be very long deferred.

Believe me to be,
Your affectionate son-in-law,

Ferdinand Lopez
.

A. Wharton, Esq.