THE PRIME MINISTER (80 page)

And thus the knowledge was conveyed to Mrs Lopez that her fate in life was not to carry her to Guatemala. At the very moment in which she had been summoned to meet Arthur Fletcher she had been busy
with her needle preparing that almost endless collection of garments necessary for a journey of many days at sea. And now she was informed, by a chance expression, by
a word aside, as it were, that the journey was not to be made. ‘That is all over,’ he had said, – and then had left her, telling her nothing further. Of course she stayed her needle. Whether the last word had been true or false, she could not work again, at any rate till it had been contradicted. If it were so, what was to be her fate? One thing was certain to her, – that she could not remain under
her father’s roof. It was impossible that an arrangement so utterly distasteful as the present one, both to her father and to herself, should be continued. But where then should they live, – and of what nature would her life be if she should be separated from her father?

That evening she saw her father, and he corroborated her husband’s statement. ‘It is all over now,’ he said, – ‘that scheme
of his of going to superintend the mines. The mines don’t want him, and won’t have him. I can’t say that I wonder at it’

‘What are we to do, papa?’

‘Ah; – that I cannot say. I suppose he will condescend still to honour me with his company. I do not know why he should wish to go to Guatemala or elsewhere. He has everything here that he can want.’

‘You know, papa, that that is impossible.’

‘I cannot say what with him is possible or impossible. He is bound by none of the ordinary rules of mankind.’

That evening Lopez returned to his dinner in Manchester Square, which was still regularly served for him and his wife, though the servants who attended upon him did so under silent and oft-repeated protest. He said not a word more as to Arthur Fletcher, nor did he seek any ground of quarrel
with his wife. But that her continued melancholy and dejection made anything like good-humour impossible, even on his part, he would have been good-humoured. When they were alone, she asked him as to their future destiny. ‘Papa tells me you are not going,’ she began by saying.

‘Did I not tell you so this morning?’

‘Yes; you said so. But I did not know you were in earnest Is it all over?’

‘All
over, – I suppose.’

‘I should have thought that you would have told me with more, – more seriousness.’

‘I don’t know what you would have. I was serious enough. The fact is, that your father has delayed so long the payment of the promised money that the thing has fallen through of necessity. I do not know that I can blame the Company.’

Then there was a pause. ‘And now,’ she said, ‘what do you
mean to do?’

‘Upon my word I cannot say. I am quite as much in the dark as you can be.’

‘That is nonsense, Ferdinand.’

‘Thank you! Let it be nonsense if you will. It seems to me that there is a great deal of nonsense going on in the world; but very little of it as true as what I say now.’

‘But it is your duty to know. Of course you cannot stay here.’

‘Nor you, I suppose, – without me.’

‘I am not speaking of myself. If you choose, I can remain here.’

‘And – just throw me overboard altogether.’

‘If you provide another home for me, I will go to it However poor it may be I will go to it, if you bid me. But for you, – of course you cannot stay here.’

‘Has your father told you to say so to me?’

‘No; – but I can say so without his telling me. You are banishing him from his own house.
He has put up with it while he thought that you were going to this foreign country; but there must be an end of that now. You must have some scheme of life?’

‘Upon my soul I have none.’

‘You must have some intentions for the future?’

‘None in the least. I have had intentions, and they have failed; – from want of that support which I had a right to expect. I have struggled and I have failed,
and now I have got no intentions. What are yours?’

‘It is not my duty to have any purpose, as what I do must depend on your commands.’ Then again there was a silence, during which he lit a cigar, although he was sitting in the drawing-room. This was a profanation of the room on which even he had never ventured before, but at the present moment she was unable to notice it by any words. ‘I must
tell papa,’ she said after a while, ‘what our plans are.’

‘You can tell him what you please. I have literally nothing to say to him. If he will settle an adequate income on us, payable of course to me, I will go and live elsewhere. If he turns me into the street without provision, he must turn you too. That is all that I have got to say. It will come better from you than from me. I am sorry,
of course, that things have gone wrong with me. When I found myself the son-in-law of a very rich man I thought that I might spread my wings a bit. But my rich father-in-law threw me over, and now I am helpless. You are not very cheerful, my dear, and I think I’ll go down to the club.’

He went out of the house and did go down to the Progress. The committee which was to be held with the view of
judging whether he was or was not a proper person to remain a member of that assemblage had not yet been held,
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and there was nothing to impede his entrance to the club, or the execution of the command which he gave for tea and buttered toast But no one spoke to him; nor, though he affected a look of comfort, did he find himself much at his ease. Among the members of the club there was a much
divided opinion whether he should be expelled or not. There was a strong party who declared that his conduct socially, morally, and politically, had been so bad that nothing short of expulsion would meet the case. But there were others who said that no act had been proved against him which the club ought to notice. He had, no doubt, shown himself to be a blackguard, a man without a spark of honour
or honesty. But then, – as they said who thought his position in the club to be unassailable, – what had the club to do with that? ‘If you turn out all the blackguards and all the dishonourable men, where will the club be?’ was a question asked with a great deal of vigour by one middle-aged gentleman who was supposed to know the club-world very thoroughly. He had committed no offence which the law
could recognize and punish, nor had he sinned against the club rules. ‘He is not required to be a man of honour by any regulation of which I am aware,’ said the middle-aged gentleman. The general opinion seemed to be that he should be asked to go, and that, if he declined, no one should speak to him. This penalty was already inflicted on him, for on the evening in question no one did speak to him.

He drank his tea and ate his toast and read a magazine, striving to
look as comfortable and as much at his ease as men at their clubs generally are. He was not a bad actor, and those who saw him and made reports as to his conduct on the following day declared that he had apparently been quite indifferent to the disagreeable incidents of his position. But his indifference had been mere acting.
His careless manner with his wife had been all assumed. Selfish as he was, void as he was of all principle, utterly unmanly and even unconscious of the worth of manliness, still he was alive to the opinions of others. He thought that the world did not understand the facts of his case, and that the world generally would have done as he had done in similar circumstances. He did not know that there was
such a quality as honesty, nor did he understand what the word meant. But he did know that some men, an unfortunate class, became subject to evil report from others who were more successful, and he was aware that he had become one of those unfortunates. Nor could he see any remedy for his position. It was all blank and black before him. It may be doubted whether he got much instruction or amusement
from the pages of the magazine which he turned.

At about twelve o’clock he left the club and took his way homewards. But he did not go straight home. It was a nasty cold March night, with a catching wind, and occasional short showers of something between snow and rain, – as disagreeable a night for a gentleman to walk in as one could well conceive. But he went round by Trafalgar Square, and along
the Strand, and up some dirty streets by the small theatres, and so on to Holborn and by Bloomsbury Square up to Tottenham Court Road, then through some unused street into Portland Place, along the Marylebone Road, and back to Manchester Square by Baker Street. He had more than doubled the distance, – apparently without any object. He had been spoken to frequently by unfortunates of both sexes,
but had answered a word to no one. He had trudged on and on with his umbrella over his head, but almost unconscious of the cold and wet. And yet he was a man sedulously attentive to his own personal comfort and health, who had at any rate shown this virtue in his mode of living, that he had never subjected himself to danger by imprudence. But now the working of his mind kept him warm, and, if not
dry, at least indifferent to the damp. He had thrown aside with affected nonchalance those questions which his wife had asked him, but still it was
necessary that he should answer them. He did not suppose that he could continue to live in Manchester Square in his present condition. Nor, if it was necessary that he should wander forth into the world, could he force his wife to wander with him.
If he would consent to leave her, his father-in-law would probably give him something, – some allowance on which he might exist But then of what sort would be his life?

He did not fail to remind himself over and over again that he had nearly succeeded. He had been the guest of the Prime Minister, and had been the nominee chosen by a Duchess to represent her husband’s borough in Parliament. He
had been intimate with Mills Happerton who was fast becoming a millionaire. He had married much above himself in every way. He had achieved a certain popularity and was conscious of intellect. But at the present moment two or three sovereigns in his pocket were the extent of his worldly wealth and his character was utterly ruined. He regarded his fate as does a card-player who day after day holds
sixes and sevens when other men have aces and kings. Fate was against him. He saw no reason why he should not have had the aces and kings continually, especially as fate had given him perhaps more than his share of them at first. He had, however, lost rubber after rubber, – not paying his stakes for some of the last rubbers lost, – till the players would play with him no longer. The misfortune might
have happened to any man; – but it had happened to him. There was no beginning again. A possible small allowance and some very retired and solitary life, in which there would be no show of honour, no flattery coming to him, was all that was left to him.

He let himself in at the house, and found his wife still awake. ‘I am wet to the skin,’ he said. ‘I made up my mind to walk, and I would do it;
– but I am a fool for my pains.’ She made him some feeble answer, affecting to be half asleep, and merely turned in her bed. ‘I must be out early in the morning. Mind you make them dry my things. They never do anything for my telling.’

‘You don’t want them dried to-night?’

‘Not to-night, of course; – but after I am gone to-morrow. They’ll leave them there without putting a hand to them, if you
don’t speak. I must be off before breakfast to-morrow.’

‘Where are you going? Do you want anything packed?’

‘No; nothing. I shall be back to dinner. But I must go down to Birmingham, to see a friend of Happerton’s on business. I will breakfast at the station. As you said to-day, something must be done. If it’s to sweep a crossing, I must sweep it.’

As she lay awake while he slept, she thought
that those last words were the best she had heard him speak since they were married. There seemed to be some indication of a purpose in them. If he would only sweep a crossing as a man should sweep it, she would stand by him, and at any rate do her duty to him, in spite of all that had happened. Alas! she was not old enough to have learned that a dishonest man cannot begin even to sweep a crossing
honestly till he have in very truth repented of his former dishonesty. The lazy man may become lazy no longer, but there must have been first a process through his mind whereby laziness has become odious to him. And that process can hardly be the immediate result of misfortune arising from misconduct Had Lopez found his crossing at Birmingham he would hardly have swept it well.

Early on the following
morning he was up, and before he left his room he kissed his wife. ‘Good-bye, old girl,’ he said; ‘don’t be down-hearted.’

‘If you have anything before you to do, I will not be downhearted,’ she said.

‘I shall have something to do before night, I think. Tell your father, when you see him, that I will not trouble him here much longer. But tell him, also, that I have no thanks to give him for
his hospitality.’

‘I will not tell him that, Ferdinand.’

‘He shall know it, though. But I do not mean to be cross to you. Good-bye, love.’ Then he stooped over her and kissed her again; – and so he took his leave of her.

It was raining hard, and when he got into the street he looked about for a cab, but there was none to be found. In Baker Street he got an omnibus which took him down to the
underground railway, and by that he went to Gower Street Through the rain he walked up to the Euston Station, and there he ordered breakfast Could he have a mutton chop and some tea? And he was very particular that the mutton chop should be well cooked. He was a good-looking man, of fashionable appearance, and the young lady who attended
him noticed him and was courteous to him. He condescended
even to have a little light conversation with her, and, on the whole, he seemed to enjoy his breakfast ‘Upon my word, I should like to breakfast here every day of my life,’ he said. The young lady assured him that, as far as she could see, there was no objection to such an arrangement. ‘Only it’s a bore, you know, coming out in the rain when there are no cabs,’ he said. Then there were various little
jokes between them, till the young lady was quite impressed with the gentleman’s pleasant affability.