The Palliser Novels (465 page)

Lopez had expected the attack and had endeavoured to prepare himself for it. “I should have thought, sir, that you would not have paid much attention to such statements in a newspaper.”

“When they concern myself, I do. I paid your electioneering expenses.”

“You certainly subscribed £500 towards them, Mr. Wharton.”

“I subscribed nothing, sir. There was no question of a subscription, — by which you intend to imply contribution from various sources; You told me that the contest cost you £500 and that sum I handed to you, with the full understanding on your part, as well as on mine, that I was paying for the whole. Was that so?”

“Have it your own way, sir.”

“If you are not more precise, I shall think that you have defrauded me.”

“Defrauded you!”

“Yes, sir; — defrauded me, or the Duke of Omnium. The money is gone, and it matters little which. But if that be so I shall know that either from him or from me you have raised money under false pretences.”

“Of course, Mr. Wharton, from you I must bear whatever you may choose to say.”

“Is it true that you have applied to the Duke of Omnium for money on account of your expenses at Silverbridge, and is it true that he has paid you money on that score?”

“Mr. Wharton, as I said just now, I am bound to hear and to bear from you anything that you may choose to say. Your connection with my wife and your age alike restrain my resentment. But I am not bound to answer your questions when they are accompanied by such language as you have chosen to use, and I refuse to answer any further questions on this subject.”

“Of course I know that you have taken the money from the Duke.”

“Then why do you ask me?”

“And of course I know that you are as well aware as I am of the nature of the transaction. That you can brazen it out without a blush only proves to me that you have got beyond the reach of shame!”

“Very well, sir.”

“And you have no further explanation to make?”

“What do you expect me to say? Without knowing any of the facts of the case, — except the one, that you contributed £500 to my election expenses, — you take upon yourself to tell me that I am a shameless, fraudulent swindler. And then you ask for a further explanation! In such a position is it likely that I shall explain anything; — that I can be in a humour to be explanatory? Just turn it all over in your mind, and ask yourself the question.”

“I have turned it over in my own mind, and I have asked myself the question, and I do not think it probable that you should wish to explain anything. I shall take steps to let the Duke know that I as your father-in-law had paid the full sum which you had stated that you had spent at Silverbridge.”

“Much the Duke will care about that.”

“And after what has passed I am obliged to say that the sooner you leave this house the better I shall be pleased.”

“Very well, sir. Of course I shall take my wife with me.”

“That must be as she pleases.”

“No, Mr. Wharton. That must be as I please. She belongs to me, — not to you or to herself. Under your influence she has forgotten much of what belongs to the duty of a wife, but I do not think that she will so far have forgotten herself as to give me more trouble than to bid her come with me when I desire it.”

“Let that be as it may, I must request that you, sir, will absent yourself. I will not entertain as my guest a man who has acted as you have done in this matter, — even though he be my son-in-law.”

“I can sleep here to-night, I suppose?”

“Or to-morrow if it suits you. As for Emily, she can remain here, if you will allow her to do so.”

“That will not suit me,” said Lopez.

“In that case, as far as I am concerned, I shall do whatever she may ask me to do. Good morning.”

Mr. Wharton left the room, but did not leave the house. Before he did so he would see his daughter; and, thinking it probable that Lopez would also choose to see his wife, he prepared to wait in his own room. But, in about ten minutes, Lopez started from the hall door in a cab, and did so without going upstairs. Mr. Wharton had reason to believe that his son-in-law was almost destitute of money for immediate purposes. Whatever he might have would at any rate be serviceable to him before he started. Any home for Emily must be expensive; and no home in their present circumstances could be so reputable for her as one under her father’s roof. He therefore almost hoped that she might still be left with him till that horrid day should come, — if it ever did come, — in which she would be taken away from him for ever. “Of course, papa, I shall go if he bids me,” she said, when he told her all that he thought right to tell her of that morning’s interview.

“I hardly know how to advise you,” said the father, meaning in truth to bring himself round to the giving of some advice adverse to her husband’s will.

“I want no advice, papa.”

“Want no advice! I never knew a woman who wanted it more.”

“No, papa. I am bound to do as he tells me. I know what I have done. When some poor wretch has got himself into perpetual prison by his misdeeds, no advice can serve him then. So it is with me.”

“You can at any rate escape from your prison.”

“No; — no. I have a feeling of pride which tells me that as I chose to become the wife of my husband, — as I insisted on it in opposition to all my friends, — as I would judge for myself, — I am bound to put up with my choice. If this had come upon me through the authority of others, if I had been constrained to marry him, I think I could have reconciled myself to deserting him. But I did it myself, and I will abide by it. When he bids me go, I shall go.” Poor Mr. Wharton went to his chambers, and sat there the whole day without taking a book or a paper into his hands. Could there be no rescue, no protection, no relief! He turned over in his head various plans, but in a vague and useless manner. What if the Duke were to prosecute Lopez for the fraud! What if he could induce Lopez to abandon his wife, — pledging himself by some deed not to return to her, — for, say, twenty or even thirty thousand pounds! What if he himself were to carry his daughter away to the continent, half forcing and half persuading her to make the journey! Surely there might be some means found by which the man might be frightened into compliance. But there he sat, — and did nothing. And in the evening he ate a solitary mutton chop at The Jolly Blackbird, because he could not bear to face even his club, and then returned to his chambers, — to the great disgust of the old woman who had them in charge at nights. And at about midnight he crept away to his own house, a wretched old man.

Lopez when he left Manchester Square did not go in search of a new home for himself and his wife, nor during the whole of the day did he trouble himself on that subject. He spent most of the day at the rooms in Coleman Street of the San Juan Mining Association, of which Mr. Mills Happerton had once been Chairman. There was now another Chairman and other Directors; but Mr. Mills Happerton’s influence had so far remained with the Company as to enable Lopez to become well known in the Company’s offices, and acknowledged as a claimant for the office of resident Manager at San Juan in Guatemala. Now the present project was this, — that Lopez was to start on behalf of the Company early in May, that the Company was to pay his own personal expenses out to Guatemala, and that they should allow him while there a salary of £1000 a year for managing the affairs of the mine. As far as this offer went, the thing was true enough. It was true that Lopez had absolutely secured the place. But he had done so subject to the burden of one very serious stipulation. He was to become proprietor of 50 shares in the mine, and to pay up £100 each on those shares. It was considered that the man who was to get £1000 a year in Guatemala for managing the affair, should at any rate assist the affair, and show his confidence in the affair to an extent as great as that. Of course the holder of these 50 shares would be as fully entitled as any other shareholder to that 20 per cent. which those who promoted the mine promised as the immediate result of the speculation.

At first Lopez had hoped that he might be enabled to defer the actual payment of the £5000 till after he had sailed. When once out in Guatemala as manager, as manager he would doubtless remain. But by degrees he found that the payment must actually be made in advance. Now there was nobody to whom he could apply but Mr. Wharton. He was, indeed, forced to declare at the office that the money was to come from Mr. Wharton, and had given some excellent but fictitious reason why Mr. Wharton would not pay the money till February.

And in spite of all that had come and gone he still did hope that if the need to go were actually there he might even yet get the money from Mr. Wharton. Surely Mr. Wharton would sooner pay such a sum than be troubled at home with such a son-in-law. Should the worst come to the worst, of course he could raise the money by consenting to leave his wife at home. But this was not part of his plan, if he could avoid it. £5000 would be a very low price at which to sell his wife, and all that he might get from his connection with her. As long as he kept her with him he was in possession at any rate of all that Mr. Wharton would do for her. He had not therefore as yet made his final application to his father-in-law for the money, having found it possible to postpone the payment till the middle of February. His quarrel with Mr. Wharton this morning he regarded as having little or no effect upon his circumstances. Mr. Wharton would not give him the money because he loved him, nor yet from personal respect, nor from any sense of duty as to what he might owe to a son-in-law. It would be simply given as the price by which his absence might be purchased, and his absence would not be the less desirable because of this morning’s quarrel.

But, even yet, he was not quite resolved as to going to Guatemala. Sexty Parker had been sucked nearly dry, and was in truth at this moment so violent with indignation and fear and remorse that Lopez did not dare to show himself in Little Tankard Yard; but still there were, even yet, certain hopes in that direction from which great results might come. If a certain new spirit which had just been concocted from the bark of trees in Central Africa, and which was called Bios, could only be made to go up in the market, everything might be satisfactorily arranged. The hoardings of London were already telling the public that if it wished to get drunk without any of the usual troubles of intoxication it must drink Bios. The public no doubt does read the literature of the hoardings, but then it reads so slowly! This Bios had hardly been twelve months on the boards as yet! But they were now increasing the size of the letters in the advertisements and the jocundity of the pictures, — and the thing might be done. There was, too, another hope, — another hope of instant moneys by which Guatemala might be staved off, as to which further explanation shall be given in a further chapter.

“I suppose I shall find Dixon a decent sort of a fellow?” said Lopez to the Secretary of the Association in Coleman Street.

“Rough, you know.”

“But honest?”

“Oh, yes; — he’s all that.”

“If he’s honest, and what I call loyal, I don’t care a straw for anything else. One doesn’t expect West-end manners in Guatemala. But I shall have a deal to do with him, — and I hate a fellow that you can’t depend on.”

“Mr. Happerton used to think a great deal of Dixon.”

“That’s all right,” said Lopez. Mr. Dixon was the underground manager out at the San Juan mine, and was perhaps as anxious for a loyal and honest colleague as was Mr. Lopez. If so, Mr. Dixon was very much in the way to be disappointed.

Lopez stayed at the office all the day studying the affairs of the San Juan mine, and then went to the Progress for his dinner. Hitherto he had taken no steps whatever as to getting lodgings for himself or for his wife.

When the time came at which Lopez should have left Manchester Square he was still there. Mr. Wharton, in discussing the matter with his daughter, — when wishing to persuade her that she might remain in his house even in opposition to her husband, — had not told her that he had actually desired Lopez to leave it. He had then felt sure that the man would go and would take his wife with him, but he did not even yet know the obduracy and the cleverness and the impregnability of his son-in-law. When the time came, when he saw his daughter in the morning after the notice had been given, he could not bring himself even yet to say to her that he had issued an order for his banishment. Days went by and Lopez was still there, and the old barrister said no further word on the subject. The two men never met; — or met simply in the hall or passages. Wharton himself studiously avoided such meetings, thus denying himself the commonest uses of his own house. At last Emily told him that her husband had fixed the day for her departure. The next Indian mail-packet by which they would leave England would start from Southampton on the 2nd of April, and she was to be ready to go on that day. “How is it to be till then?” the father asked in a low, uncertain voice.

“I suppose I may remain with you.”

“And your husband?”

“He will be here too, — I suppose.”

“Such a misery, — such a destruction of everything no man ever heard of before!” said Mr. Wharton. To this she made no reply, but continued working at some necessary preparation for her final departure. “Emily,” he said, “I will make any sacrifice to prevent it. What can be done? Short of injuring Everett’s interests I will do anything.”

“I do not know,” she said.

“You must understand something of his affairs.”

“Nothing whatever. He has told me nothing of them. In earlier days, — soon after our marriage, — he bade me get money from you.”

“When you wrote to me for money from Italy?”

“And after that. I have refused to do anything; — to say a word. I told him that it must be between you and him. What else could I say? And now he tells me nothing.”

“I cannot think that he should want you to go with him.” Then there was again a pause. “Is it because he loves you?”

“Not that, papa.”