Arthur Fletcher
It may, I think, be a question whether the two old men acted wisely
in having Arthur Fletcher at Wharton Hall when Emily arrived there.
The story of his love for Miss Wharton, as far as it had as yet gone,
must be shortly told. He had been the second son, as he was now the
second brother, of a Herefordshire squire endowed with much larger
property than that belonging to Sir Alured. John Fletcher, Esq., of
Longbarns, some twelve miles from Wharton, was a considerable man in
Herefordshire. This present squire had married Sir Alured's eldest
daughter, and the younger brother had, almost since they were
children together, been known to be in love with Emily Wharton. All
the Fletchers and everything belonging to them were almost worshipped
at Wharton Hall. There had been marriages between the two families
certainly as far back as the time of Henry VII, and they were
accustomed to speak, if not of alliances, at any rate of friendships,
much anterior to that. As regards family, therefore, the pretensions
of a Fletcher would always be held to be good by a Wharton. But this
Fletcher was the very pearl of the Fletcher tribe. Though a younger
brother, he had a very pleasant little fortune of his own. Though
born to comfortable circumstances, he had worked so hard in his young
days as to have already made for himself a name at the bar. He was
a fair-haired, handsome fellow, with sharp, eager eyes, with an
aquiline nose, and just that shape of mouth and chin which such men
as Abel Wharton regarded as characteristic of good blood. He was
rather thin, about five feet ten in height, and had the character of
being one of the best horsemen in the county. He was one of the most
popular men in Herefordshire, and at Longbarns was almost as much
thought of as the squire himself. He certainly was not the man to be
taken, from his appearance, for a forlorn lover. He looked like one
of those happy sons of the gods who are born to success. No young
man of his age was more courted both by men and women. There was no
one who in his youth had suffered fewer troubles from those causes
of trouble which visit English young men,--occasional impecuniosity,
sternness of parents, native shyness, fear of ridicule, inability of
speech, and a general pervading sense of inferiority combined with
an ardent desire to rise to a feeling of conscious superiority. So
much had been done for him by nature that he was never called upon
to pretend to anything. Throughout the county those were the lucky
men,--and those too were the happy girls,--who were allowed to call
him Arthur. And yet this paragon was vainly in love with Emily
Wharton, who, in the way of love, would have nothing to say to him,
preferring,--as her father once said in his extremest wrath,--a
greasy Jew adventurer out of the gutter!
And now it had been thought expedient to have him down to Wharton,
although the lawyers' regular summer vacation had not yet commenced.
But there was some excuse made for this, over and above the emergency
of his own love, in the fact that his brother John, with Mrs.
Fletcher, was also to be at the Hall,--so that there was gathered
there a great family party of the Whartons and Fletchers; for
there was present there also old Mrs. Fletcher, a magnificently
aristocratic and high-minded old lady, with snow-white hair, and lace
worth fifty guineas a yard, who was as anxious as everybody else that
her younger son should marry Emily Wharton. Something of the truth
as to Emily Wharton's £60,000 was, of course, known to the Longbarns
people. Not that I would have it inferred that they wanted their
darling to sell himself for money. The Fletchers were great people,
with great spirits, too good in every way for such baseness. But when
love, old friendship, good birth, together with every other propriety
as to age, manners, and conduct, can be joined to money, such a
combination will always be thought pleasant.
When Arthur reached the Hall it was felt to be necessary that a word
should be said to him as to that wretched interloper, Ferdinand
Lopez. Arthur had not of late been often in Manchester Square. Though
always most cordially welcomed there by old Wharton, and treated
with every kindness by Emily Wharton short of that love which he
desired, he had during the last three or four months abstained from
frequenting the house. During the past winter, and early in the
spring, he had pressed his suit,--but had been rejected, with warmest
assurances of all friendship short of love. It had then been arranged
between him and the elder Whartons that they should all meet down at
the Hall, and there had been sympathetic expressions of hope that all
might yet be well. But at that time little or nothing had been known
of Ferdinand Lopez.
But now the old baronet spoke to him, the father having deputed the
loathsome task to his friend,--being unwilling himself even to hint
his daughter's disgrace. "Oh, yes, I've heard of him," said Arthur
Fletcher. "I met him with Everett, and I don't think I ever took
a stronger dislike to a man. Everett seems very fond of him." The
baronet mournfully shook his head. It was sad to find that Whartons
could go so far astray. "He goes to Carlton Terrace,--to the
Duchess's," continued the young man.
"I don't think that that is very much in his favour," said the
baronet.
"I don't know that it is, sir;--only they try to catch all fish in
that net that are of any use."
"Do you go there, Arthur?"
"I should if I were asked, I suppose. I don't know who wouldn't. You
see it's a Coalition affair, so that everybody is able to feel that
he is supporting his party by going to the Duchess's."
"I hate Coalitions," said the baronet. "I think they are
disgraceful."
"Well;--yes; I don't know. The coach has to be driven somehow. You
mustn't stick in the mud, you know. And after all, sir, the Duke of
Omnium is a respectable man, though he is a Liberal. A Duke of Omnium
can't want to send the country to the dogs." The old man shook his
head. He did not understand much about it, but he felt convinced that
the Duke and his colleagues were sending the country to the dogs,
whatever might be their wishes. "I shan't think of politics for the
next ten years, and so I don't trouble myself about the Duchess's
parties, but I suppose I should go if I were asked."
Sir Alured felt that he had not as yet begun even to approach the
difficult subject. "I'm glad you don't like that man," he said.
"I don't like him at all. Tell me, Sir Alured;--why is he always
going to Manchester Square?"
"Ah;--that is it."
"He has been there constantly;--has he not?"
"No;--no. I don't think that. Mr. Wharton doesn't love him a bit
better than you do. My cousin thinks him a most objectionable young
man."
"But Emily?"
"Ah--. That's where it is."
"You don't mean to say she--cares about that man!"
"He has been encouraged by that aunt of hers, who, as far as I can
make out, is a very unfit sort of person to be much with such a girl
as our dear Emily. I never saw her but once, and then I didn't like
her at all."
"A vulgar, good-natured woman. But what can she have done? She can't
have twisted Emily round her finger."
"I don't suppose there is very much in it, but I thought it better to
tell you. Girls take fancies into their heads,--just for a time."
"He's a handsome fellow, too," said Arthur Fletcher, musing in his
sorrow.
"My cousin says he's a nasty Jew-looking man."
"He's not that, Sir Alured. He's a handsome man, with a fine
voice;--dark, and not just like an Englishman; but still I can
fancy--. That's bad news for me, Sir Alured."
"I think she'll forget all about him down here."
"She never forgets anything. I shall ask her, straight away. She
knows my feeling about her, and I haven't a doubt but she'll tell me.
She's too honest to be able to lie. Has he got any money?"
"My cousin seems to think that he's rich."
"I suppose he is. Oh, Lord! That's a blow. I wish I could have the
pleasure of shooting him as a man might a few years ago. But what
would be the good? The girl would only hate me the more after it. The
best thing to do would be to shoot myself."
"Don't talk like that, Arthur."
"I shan't throw up the sponge as long as there's a chance left, Sir
Alured. But it will go badly with me if I'm beat at last. I shouldn't
have thought it possible that I should have felt anything so much."
Then he pulled his hair, and thrust his hand into his waistcoat; and
turned away, so that his old friend might not see the tear in his
eye.
His old friend also was much moved. It was dreadful to him that the
happiness of a Fletcher, and the comfort of the Whartons generally,
should be marred by a man with such a name as Ferdinand Lopez.
"She'll never marry him without her father's consent," said Sir
Alured.
"If she means it, of course he'll consent."
"That I'm sure he won't. He doesn't like the man a bit better than
you do." Fletcher shook his head. "And he's as fond of you as though
you were already his son."
"What does it matter? If a girl sets her heart on marrying a man, of
course she will marry him. If he had no money it might be different.
But if he's well off, of course he'll succeed. Well--; I suppose
other men have borne the same sort of thing before and it hasn't
killed them."
"Let us hope, my boy. I think of her quite as much as of you."
"Yes,--we can hope. I shan't give it up. As for her, I dare say
she knows what will suit her best. I've nothing to say against the
man,--excepting that I should like to cut him into four quarters."
"But a foreigner!"
"Girls don't think about that,--not as you do and Mr. Wharton. And I
think they like dark, greasy men with slippery voices, who are up to
dodges and full of secrets. Well, sir, I shall go to her at once and
have it out."
"You'll speak to my cousin?"
"Certainly I will. He has always been one of the best friends I ever
had in my life. I know it hasn't been his fault. But what can a man
do? Girls won't marry this man or that because they're told."
Fletcher did speak to Emily's father, and learned more from him than
had been told him by Sir Alured. Indeed he learned the whole truth.
Lopez had been twice with the father pressing his suit and had been
twice repulsed, with as absolute denial as words could convey. Emily,
however, had declared her own feeling openly, expressing her wish to
marry the odious man, promising not to do so without her father's
consent, but evidently feeling that that consent ought not to be
withheld from her. All this Mr. Wharton told very plainly, walking
with Arthur a little before dinner along a shaded, lonely path, which
for half a mile ran along the very marge of the Wye at the bottom of
the park. And then he went on to speak other words which seemed to
rob his young friend of all hope. The old man was walking slowly,
with his hands clasped behind his back and with his eyes fixed on the
path as he went;--and he spoke slowly, evidently weighing his words
as he uttered them, bringing home to his hearer a conviction that the
matter discussed was one of supreme importance to the speaker,--as to
which he had thought much, so as to be able to express his settled
resolutions. "I've told you all now, Arthur;--only this. I do not
know how long I may be able to resist this man's claim if it be
backed by Emily's entreaties. I am thinking very much about it. I do
not know that I have really been able to think of anything else for
the last two months. It is all the world to me,--what she and Everett
do with themselves; and what she may do in this matter of marriage
is of infinitely greater importance than anything that can befall
him. If he makes a mistake, it may be put right. But with a woman's
marrying--, vestigia nulla retrorsum. She has put off all her old
bonds and taken new ones, which must be her bonds for life. Feeling
this very strongly, and disliking this man greatly,--disliking him,
that is to say, in the view of this close relation,--I have felt
myself to be justified in so far opposing my child by the use of a
high hand. I have refused my sanction to the marriage both to him and
to her,--though in truth I have been hard set to find any adequate
reason for doing so. I have no right to fashion my girl's life by my
prejudices. My life has been lived. Hers is to come. In this matter I
should be cruel and unnatural were I to allow myself to be governed
by any selfish inclination. Though I were to know that she would
be lost to me for ever, I must give way,--if once brought to a
conviction that by not giving way I should sacrifice her young
happiness. In this matter, Arthur, I must not even think of you,
though I love you well. I must consider only my child's welfare;--and
in doing so I must try to sift my own feelings and my own judgment,
and ascertain, if it be possible, whether my distaste to the man is
reasonable or irrational;--whether I should serve her or sacrifice
her by obstinacy of refusal. I can speak to you more plainly than to
her. Indeed I have laid bare to you my whole heart and my whole mind.
You have all my wishes, but you will understand that I do not promise
you my continued assistance." When he had so spoken he put out his
hand and pressed his companion's arm. Then he turned slowly into a
little by-path which led across the park up to the house, and left
Arthur Fletcher standing alone by the river's bank.
And so by degrees the blow had come full home to him. He had been
twice refused. Then rumours had reached him,--not at first that he
had a rival, but that there was a man who might possibly become so.
And now this rivalry, and its success, were declared to him plainly.
He told himself from this moment that he had not a chance. Looking
forward he could see it all. He understood the girl's character
sufficiently to be sure that she would not be wafted about, from one
lover to another, by change of scene. Taking her to Dresden,--or to
New Zealand,--would only confirm in her passion such a girl as Emily
Wharton. Nothing could shake her but the ascertained unworthiness of
the man,--and not that unless it were ascertained beneath her own
eyes. And then years must pass by before she would yield to another
lover. There was a further question, too, which he did not fail to
ask himself. Was the man necessarily unworthy because his name was
Lopez, and because he had not come of English blood?
As he strove to think of this, if not coolly yet rationally, he sat
himself down on the river's side and began to pitch stones off the
path in among the rocks, among which at that spot the water made
its way rapidly. There had been moments in which he had been almost
ashamed of his love,--and now he did not know whether to be most
ashamed or most proud of it. But he recognised the fact that it was
crucifying him, and that it would continue to crucify him. He knew
himself in London to be a popular man,--one of those for whom,
according to general opinion, girls should sigh, rather than one who
should break his heart sighing for a girl. He had often told himself
that it was beneath his manliness to be despondent; that he should
let such a trouble run from him like water from a duck's back,
consoling himself with the reflection that if the girl had such bad
taste she could hardly be worthy of him. He had almost tried to
belong to that school which throws the heart away and rules by the
head alone. He knew that others,--perhaps not those who knew him
best, but who nevertheless were the companions of many of his
hours,--gave him the credit for such power. Why should a man afflict
himself by the inward burden of an unsatisfied craving, and allow his
heart to sink into his very feet because a girl would not smile when
he wooed her? "If she be not fair for me, what care I how fair she
be!" He had repeated the lines to himself a score of times, and had
been ashamed of himself because he could not make them come true to
himself.
They had not come true in the least. There he was, Arthur Fletcher,
whom all the world courted, with his heart in his very boots! There
was a miserable load within him, absolutely palpable to his outward
feeling,--a very physical pain,--which he could not shake off. As he
threw the stones into the water he told himself that it must be so
with him always. Though the world did pet him, though he was liked at
his club, and courted in the hunting-field, and loved at balls and
archery meetings, and reputed by old men to be a rising star, he told
himself that he was so maimed and mutilated as to be only half a man.
He could not reason about it. Nature had afflicted him with a certain
weakness. One man has a hump;--another can hardly see out of his
imperfect eyes;--a third can barely utter a few disjointed words.
It was his fate to be constructed with some weak arrangement of the
blood-vessels which left him in this plight. "The whole damned thing
is nothing to me," he said bursting out into absolute tears, after
vainly trying to reassure himself by a recollection of the good
things which the world still had in store for him.
Then he strove to console himself by thinking that he might take a
pride in his love even though it were so intolerable a burden to
him. Was it not something to be able to love as he loved? Was it not
something at any rate that she to whom he had condescended to stoop
was worthy of all love? But even here he could get no comfort,--being
in truth unable to see very clearly into the condition of the thing.
It was a disgrace to him,--to him within his own bosom,--that she
should have preferred to him such a one as Ferdinand Lopez, and this
disgrace he exaggerated, ignoring the fact that the girl herself
might be deficient in judgment, or led away in her love by falsehood
and counterfeit attractions. To him she was such a goddess that she
must be right,--and therefore his own inferiority to such a one as
Ferdinand Lopez was proved. He could take no pride in his rejected
love. He would rid himself of it at a moment's notice if he knew the
way. He would throw himself at the feet of some second-rate, tawdry,
well-born, well-known beauty of the day,--only that there was not now
left to him strength to pretend the feeling that would be necessary.
Then he heard steps, and jumping up from his seat, stood just in the
way of Emily Wharton and her cousin Mary. "Ain't you going to dress
for dinner, young man?" said the latter.
"I shall have time if you have, any way," said Arthur, endeavouring
to pluck up his spirits.
"That's nice of him;--isn't it?" said Mary. "Why, we are dressed.
What more do you want? We came out to look for you, though we didn't
mean to come as far as this. It's past seven now, and we are supposed
to dine at a quarter past."
"Five minutes will do for me."
"But you've got to get to the house. You needn't be in a tremendous
hurry, because papa has only just come in from haymaking. They've got
up the last load, and there has been the usual ceremony. Emily and I
have been looking at them."
"I wish I'd been here all the time," said Emily. "I do so hate London
in July."
"So do I," said Arthur,--"in July and all other times."
"You hate London!" said Mary.
"Yes,--and Herefordshire,--and other places generally. If I've got to
dress I'd better get across the park as quick as I can go," and so
he left them. Mary turned round and looked at her cousin, but at the
moment said nothing. Arthur's passion was well known to Mary Wharton,
but Mary had as yet heard nothing of Ferdinand Lopez.