The Palliser Novels (468 page)

Lopez allowed four days to pass by, during each of which he was closeted for a time with Lady Eustace, and then made an attempt to get at Mr. Wharton through his wife. “Your father has said that he will pay the money for me,” said Lopez.

“If he has said so he certainly will do it.”

“But he has promised it on the condition that you should remain at home. Do you wish to desert your husband?” To this she made no immediate answer. “Are you already anxious to be rid of me?”

“I should prefer to remain at home,” she said in a very low voice.

“Then you do wish to desert your husband?”

“What is the use of all this, Ferdinand? You do not love me. You did not marry me because I loved you.”

“By heaven I did; — for that and that only.”

“And how have you treated me?”

“What have I done to you?”

“But I do not mean to make accusations, Ferdinand. I should only add to our miseries by that. We should be happier apart.”

“Not I. Nor is that my idea of marriage. Tell your father that you wish to go with me, and then he will let us have the money.”

“I will tell him no lie, Ferdinand. If you bid me go, I will go. Where you find a home I must find one too if it be your pleasure to take me. But I will not ask my father to give you money because it is my pleasure to go. Were I to say so he would not believe me.”

“It is you who have told him to give it me only on the condition of your staying.”

“I have told him nothing. He knows that I do not wish to go. He cannot but know that. But he knows that I mean to go if you require it.”

“And you will do nothing for me?”

“Nothing, — in regard to my father.” He raised his fist with the thought of striking her, and she saw the motion. But his arm fell again to his side. He had not quite come to that yet. “Surely you will have the charity to tell me whether I am to go, if it be fixed,” she said.

“Have I not told you so twenty times?”

“Then it is fixed.”

“Yes; — it is fixed. Your father will tell you about your things. He has promised you some beggarly sum, — about as much as a tallow-chandler would give his daughter.”

“Whatever he does for me will be sufficient for me. I am not afraid of my father, Ferdinand.”

“You shall be afraid of me before I have done with you,” said he, leaving the room.

Then as he sat at his club, dining there alone, there came across his mind ideas of what the world would be like to him if he could leave his wife at home and take Lizzie Eustace with him to Guatemala. Guatemala was very distant, and it would matter little there whether the woman he brought with him was his wife or no. It was clear enough to him that his wife desired no more of his company. What were the conventions of the world to him? This other woman had money at her own command. He could not make it his own because he could not marry her, but he fancied that it might be possible to bring her so far under his control as to make the money almost as good as his own. Mr. Wharton’s money was very hard to reach, and would be as hard to reach, — perhaps harder, — when Mr. Wharton was dead, as now, during his life. He had said a good deal to the lady since the interview of which a report has been given. She had declared herself to be afraid of Bios. She did not in the least doubt that great things might be ultimately done with Bios, but she did not quite see the way with her small capital, — thus humbly did she speak of her wealth, — to be one of those who should take the initiative in the matter. Bios evidently required a great deal of advertisement, and Lizzie Eustace had a short-sighted objection to expend what money she had saved on the hoardings of London. Then he opened to her the glories of Guatemala, not contenting himself with describing the certainty of the 20 per cent., but enlarging on the luxurious happiness of life in a country so golden, so green, so gorgeous, and so grand. It had been the very apple of the eye of the old Spaniards. In Guatemala, he said, Cortez and Pizarro had met and embraced. They might have done so for anything Lizzie Eustace knew to the contrary. And here our hero took advantage of his name. Don Diego di Lopez had been the first to raise the banner of freedom in Guatemala when the kings of Spain became tyrants to their American subjects. All is fair in love and war, and Lizzie amidst the hard business of her life still loved a dash of romance. Yes, he was about to change the scene and try his fortune in that golden, green, and gorgeous country. “You will take your wife of course,” Lady Eustace had said. Then Lopez had smiled, and shrugging his shoulders had left the room.

It was certainly the fact that she could not eat him. Other men before Lopez have had to pick up what courage they could in their attacks upon women by remembering that fact. She had flirted with him in a very pleasant way, mixing up her prettiness and her percentages in a manner that was peculiar to herself. He did not know her, and he knew that he did not know her; — but still there was the chance. She had thrown his wife more than once in his face, after the fashion of women when they are wooed by married men since the days of Cleopatra downwards. But he had taken that simply as encouragement. He had already let her know that his wife was a vixen who troubled his life. Lizzie had given him her sympathy, and had almost given him a tear. “But I am not a man to be broken-hearted because I have made a mistake,” said Lopez. “Marriage vows are very well, but they shall never bind me to misery.” “Marriage vows are not very well. They may be very ill,” Lizzie had replied, remembering certain passages in her own life.

There was no doubt about her money, and certainly she could not eat him. The fortnight allowed him by the San Juan Company had nearly gone by when he called at the little house in the little street, resolved to push his fortune in that direction without fear and without hesitation. Mrs. Leslie again took her departure, leaving them together, and Lizzie allowed her friend to go, although the last words that Lopez had spoken had been, as he thought, a fair prelude to the words he intended to speak to-day. “And what do you think of it?” he said, taking both her hands in his.

“Think of what?”

“Of our Spanish venture.”

“Have you given up Bios, my friend?”

“No; certainly not,” said Lopez, seating himself beside her. “I have not taken the other half share, but I have kept my old venture in the scheme. I believe in Bios, you know.”

“Ah; — it is so nice to believe.”

“But I believe more firmly in the country to which I am going.”

“You are going then?”

“Yes, my friend; — I am going. The allurements are too strong to be resisted. Think of that climate and of this.” He probably had not heard of the mosquitoes of Central America when he so spoke. “Remember that an income which gives you comfort here will there produce for you every luxury which wealth can purchase. It is to be a king there, or to be but very common among commoners here.”

“And yet England is a dear old country.”

“Have you found it so? Think of the wrongs which you have endured; — of the injuries which you have suffered.”

“Yes, indeed.” For Lizzie Eustace had gone through hard days in her time.

“I certainly will fly from such a country to those golden shores on which man may be free and unshackled.”

“And your wife?”

“Oh, Lizzie!” It was the first time that he had called her Lizzie, and she was apparently neither shocked nor abashed. Perhaps he thought too much of this, not knowing how many men had called her Lizzie in her time. “Do not you at least understand that a man or a woman may undergo that tie, and yet be justified in disregarding it altogether?”

“Oh, yes; — if there has been bigamy, or divorce, or anything of that kind.” Now Lizzie had convicted her second husband of bigamy, and had freed herself after that fashion.

“To h–––– with their prurient laws,” said Lopez, rising suddenly from his chair. “I will neither appeal to them nor will I obey them. And I expect from you as little subservience as I myself am prepared to pay. Lizzie Eustace, will you go with me, to that land of the sun,
 

Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle,
Now melt into sorrow, now madden to crime?
 

Will you dare to escape with me from the cold conventionalities, from the miserable thraldom of this country bound in swaddling cloths? Lizzie Eustace, if you will say the word, I will take you to that land of glorious happiness.”

But Lizzie Eustace had £4000 a year and a balance at her banker’s. “Mr. Lopez,” she said.

“What answer have you to make me?”

“Mr. Lopez, I think you must be a fool.”

He did at last succeed in getting himself into the street, and at any rate she had not eaten him.

The end of February had come, and as far as Mrs. Lopez knew she was to start for Guatemala in a month’s time. And yet there was so much of indecision in her husband’s manner, and apparently so little done by him in regard to personal preparation, that she could hardly bring herself to feel certain that she would have to make the journey. From day to day her father would ask her whether she had made her intended purchases, and she would tell him that she had still postponed the work. Then he would say no more, for he himself was hesitating, doubtful what he would do, and still thinking that when at last the time should come, he would buy his daughter’s release at any price that might be demanded. Mr. Walker, the attorney, had as yet been able to manage nothing. He had seen Lopez more than once, and had also seen Mr. Hartlepod. Mr. Hartlepod had simply told him that he would be very happy to register the shares on behalf of Lopez as soon as the money was paid. Lopez had been almost insolent in his bearing. “Did Mr. Wharton think,” he asked, “that he was going to sell his wife for £5000?” “I think you’ll have to raise your offer,” Mr. Walker had said to Mr. Wharton. That was all very well. Mr. Wharton was willing enough to raise his offer. He would have doubled his offer could he thereby have secured the annihilation of Lopez. “I will raise it if he will go without his wife, and give her a written assurance that he will never trouble her again.” But the arrangement was one which Mr. Walker found it very difficult to carry out. So things went on till the end of February had come.

And during all this time Lopez was still resident in Mr. Wharton’s house. “Papa,” she said to him one day, “this is the cruellest thing of all. Why don’t you tell him that he must go?”

“Because he would take you with him.”

“It would be better so. I could come to see you.”

“I did tell him to go, — in my passion. I repented of it instantly, because I should have lost you. But what did my telling matter to him? He was very indignant, and yet he is still here.”

“You told him to go?”

“Yes; — but I am glad that he did not obey me. There must be an end to this soon, I suppose.”

“I do not know, papa.”

“Do you think that he will not go?”

“I feel that I know nothing, papa. You must not let him stay here always, you know.”

“And what will become of you when he goes?”

“I must go with him. Why should you be sacrificed also? I will tell him that he must leave the house. I am not afraid of him, papa.”

“Not yet, my dear; — not yet. We will see.”

At this time Lopez declared his purpose one day of dining at the Progress, and Mr. Wharton took advantage of the occasion to remain at home with his daughter. Everett was now expected, and there was a probability that he might come on this evening. Mr. Wharton therefore returned from his chambers early; but when he reached the house he was told that there was a woman in the dining-room with Mrs. Lopez. The servant did not know what woman. She had asked to see Mrs. Lopez, and Mrs. Lopez had gone down to her.

The woman in the dining-room was Mrs. Parker. She had called at the house at about half-past five, and Emily had at once come down when summoned by tidings that a “lady” wanted to see her. Servants have a way of announcing a woman as a lady, which clearly expresses their own opinion that the person in question is not a lady. So it had been on the present occasion, but Mrs. Lopez had at once gone to her visitor. “Oh, Mrs. Parker, I am so glad to see you. I hope you are well.”

“Indeed, then, Mrs. Lopez, I am very far from well. No poor woman, who is the mother of five children, was ever farther from being well than I am.”

“Is anything wrong?”

“Wrong, ma’am! Everything is wrong. When is Mr. Lopez going to pay my husband all the money he has took from him?”

“Has he taken money?”

“Taken! he has taken everything. He has shorn my husband as bare as a board. We’re ruined, Mrs. Lopez, and it’s your husband has done it. When we were at Dovercourt, I told you how it was going to be. His business has left him, and now there is nothing. What are we to do?” The woman was seated on a chair, leaning forward with her two hands on her knees. The day was wet, the streets were half mud and half snow, and the poor woman, who had made her way through the slush, was soiled and wet. “I look to you to tell me what me and my children is to do. He’s your husband, Mrs. Lopez.”

“Yes, Mrs. Parker; he is my husband.”

“Why couldn’t he let Sexty alone? Why should the like of him be taking the bread out of my children’s mouths? What had we ever done to him? You’re rich.”

“Indeed I am not, Mrs. Parker.”

“Yes, you are. You’re living here in a grand house, and your father’s made of money. You’ll know nothing of want, let the worst come to the worst. What are we to do, Mrs. Lopez? I’m the wife of that poor creature, and you’re the wife of the man that has ruined him. What are we to do, Mrs. Lopez?”

“I do not understand my husband’s business, Mrs. Parker.”

“You’re one with him, ain’t you? If anybody had ever come to me and said my husband had robbed him, I’d never have stopped till I knew the truth of it. If any woman had ever said to me that Parker had taken the bread out of her children’s mouths, do you think that I’d sit as you are sitting? I tell you that Lopez has robbed us, — has robbed us, and taken everything.”