Mr. Wharton Intends to Make a New Will
On that afternoon, immediately on the husband's return to the house,
his wife spoke to him as her father had desired. On that evening Mr.
Wharton was dining at his club, and therefore there was the whole
evening before them; but the thing to be done was disagreeable, and
therefore she did it at once,--rushing into the matter almost before
he had seated himself in the arm-chair which he had appropriated to
his use in the drawing-room. "Papa was talking about our affairs
after you left this morning, and he thinks that it would be so much
better if you would tell him all about them."
"What made him talk of that to-day?" he said, turning at her almost
angrily and thinking at once of the Duke's cheque.
"I suppose it is natural that he should be anxious about us,
Ferdinand;--and the more natural as he has money to give if he
chooses to give it."
"I have asked him for nothing lately;--though, by George, I intend to
ask him and that very roundly. Three thousand pounds isn't much of a
sum of money for your father to have given you."
"And he paid the election bill;--didn't he?"
"He has been complaining of that behind my back,--has he? I didn't
ask him for it. He offered it. I wasn't such a fool as to refuse, but
he needn't bring that up as a grievance to you."
"It wasn't brought up as a grievance. I was saying that your standing
had been a heavy expenditure--"
"Why did you say so? What made you talk about it at all? Why should
you be discussing my affairs behind my back?"
"To my own father! And that too when you are telling me every day
that I am to induce him to help you!"
"Not by complaining that I am poor. But how did it all begin?" She
had to think for a moment before she could recollect how it did
begin. "There has been something," he said, "which you are ashamed to
tell me."
"There is nothing that I am ashamed to tell you. There never has been
and never will be anything." And she stood up as she spoke, with open
eyes and extended nostrils. "Whatever may come, however wretched it
may be, I shall not be ashamed of myself."
"But of me!"
"Why do you say so? Why do you try to make unhappiness between us?"
"You have been talking of--my poverty."
"My father asked why you should go to Dovercourt,--and whether it was
because it would save expense."
"You want to go somewhere?"
"Not at all. I am contented to stay in London. But I said that I
thought the expense had a good deal to do with it. Of course it has."
"Where do you want to be taken? I suppose Dovercourt is not
fashionable."
"I want nothing."
"If you are thinking of travelling abroad, I can't spare the time.
It isn't an affair of money, and you had no business to say so. I
thought of the place because it is quiet and because I can get up and
down easily. I am sorry that I ever came to live in this house."
"Why do you say that, Ferdinand?"
"Because you and your father make cabals behind my back. If there is
anything I hate it is that kind of thing."
"You are very unjust," she said to him sobbing. "I have never
caballed. I have never done anything against you. Of course papa
ought to know."
"Why ought he to know? Why is your father to have the right of
inquiry into all my private affairs?"
"Because you want his assistance. It is only natural. You always tell
me to get him to assist you. He spoke most kindly, saying that he
would like to know how the things are."
"Then he won't know. As for wanting his assistance, of course I
want the fortune which he ought to give you. He is man of the world
enough to know that as I am in business capital must be useful to
me. I should have thought that you would understand as much as that
yourself."
"I do understand it, I suppose."
"Then why don't you act as my friend rather than his? Why don't you
take my part? It seems to me that you are much more his daughter than
my wife."
"That is most unfair."
"If you had any pluck you would make him understand that for your
sake he ought to say what he means to do, so that I might have the
advantage of the fortune which I suppose he means to give you some
day. If you had the slightest anxiety to help me you could influence
him. Instead of that you talk to him about my poverty. I don't want
him to think that I am a pauper. That's not the way to get round
a man like your father, who is rich himself and who thinks it a
disgrace in other men not to be rich too."
"I can't tell him in the same breath that you are rich and that you
want money."
"Money is the means by which men make money. If he was confident of
my business he'd shell out his cash quick enough! It is because he
has been taught to think that I am in a small way. He'll find his
mistake some day."
"You won't speak to him then?"
"I don't say that at all. If I find that it will answer my own
purpose I shall speak to him. But it would be very much easier to me
if I could get you to be cordial in helping me."
Emily by this time quite knew what such cordiality meant. He had been
so free in his words to her that there could be no mistake. He had
instructed her to "get round" her father. And now again he spoke
of her influence over her father. Although her illusions were all
melting away,--oh, so quickly vanishing,--still she knew that it was
her duty to be true to her husband, and to be his wife rather than
her father's daughter. But what could she say on his behalf, knowing
nothing of his affairs? She had no idea what was his business, what
was his income, what amount of money she ought to spend as his
wife. As far as she could see,--and her common sense in seeing such
things was good,--he had no regular income, and was justified in no
expenditure. On her own account she would ask for no information. She
was too proud to request that from him which should be given to her
without any request. But in her own defence she must tell him that
she could use no influence with her father as she knew none of the
circumstances by which her father would be guided. "I cannot help you
in the manner you mean," she said, "because I know nothing myself."
"You know that you can trust me to do the best with your money if I
could get hold of it, I suppose?" She certainly did not know this,
and held her tongue. "You could assure him of that?"
"I could only tell him to judge for himself."
"What you mean is that you'd see me d----d before you would open your
mouth for me to the old man!"
He had never sworn at her before, and now she burst out into a flood
of tears. It was to her a terrible outrage. I do not know that a
woman is very much the worse because her husband may forget himself
on an occasion and "rap out an oath at her," as he would call it when
making the best of his own sin. Such an offence is compatible with
uniform kindness and most affectionate consideration. I have known
ladies who would think little or nothing about it,--who would go no
farther than the mildest protest,--"Do remember where you are!" or,
"My dear John!"--if no stranger were present. But then a wife should
be initiated into it by degrees; and there are different tones of
bad language, of which by far the most general is the good-humoured
tone. We all of us know men who never damn their servants, or any
inferiors, or strangers, or women,--who in fact keep it all for
their bosom friends; and if a little does sometimes flow over in
the freedom of domestic life, the wife is apt to remember that she
is the bosomest of her husband's friends, and so to pardon the
transgression. But here the word had been uttered with all its
foulest violence, with virulence and vulgarity. It seemed to the
victim to be the sign of a terrible crisis in her early married
life,--as though the man who had so spoken to her could never again
love her, never again be kind to her, never again be sweetly gentle
and like a lover. And as he spoke it he looked at her as though he
would like to tear her limbs asunder. She was frightened as well as
horrified and astounded. She had not a word to say to him. She did
not know in what language to make her complaint of such treatment.
She burst into tears, and throwing herself on the sofa hid her face
in her hands. "You provoke me to be violent," he said. But still she
could not speak to him. "I come away from the city, tired with work
and troubled with a thousand things, and you have not a kind word to
say to me." Then there was a pause, during which she still sobbed.
"If your father has anything to say to me, let him say it. I shall
not run away. But as to going to him of my own accord with a story as
long as my arm about my own affairs, I don't mean to do it." Then he
paused a moment again. "Come, old girl, cheer up! Don't pretend to
be broken-hearted because I used a hard word. There are worse things
than that to be borne in the world."
"I--I--I was so startled, Ferdinand."
"A man can't always remember that he isn't with another man. Don't
think anything more about it; but do bear this in mind,--that,
situated as we are, your influence with your father may be the making
or the marring of me." And so he left the room.
She sat for the next ten minutes thinking of it all. The words which
he had spoken were so horrible that she could not get them out of her
mind,--could not bring herself to look upon them as a trifle. The
darkness of his countenance still dwelt with her,--and that absence
of all tenderness, that coarse un-marital and yet marital roughness,
which should not at any rate have come to him so soon. The whole man
too was so different from what she had thought him to be. Before
their marriage no word as to money had ever reached her ears from
his lips. He had talked to her of books,--and especially of poetry.
Shakespeare and Moliere, Dante and Goethe, had been or had seemed
to be dear to him. And he had been full of fine ideas about women,
and about men in their intercourse with women. For his sake she had
separated herself from all her old friends. For his sake she had
hurried into a marriage altogether distasteful to her father. For
his sake she had closed her heart against that other lover. Trusting
altogether in him she had ventured to think that she had known what
was good for her better than all those who had been her counsellors,
and had given herself to him utterly. Now she was awake; her dream
was over, and the natural language of the man was still ringing in
her ears!
They met together at dinner and passed the evening without a further
allusion to the scene which had been acted. He sat with a magazine
in his hand, every now and then making some remark intended to be
pleasant but which grated on her ears as being fictitious. She would
answer him,--because it was her duty to do so, and because she would
not condescend to sulk; but she could not bring herself even to say
to herself that all should be with her as though that horrid word had
not been spoken. She sat over her work till ten, answering him when
he spoke in a voice which was also fictitious, and then took herself
off to her bed that she might weep alone. It would, she knew, be late
before he would come to her.
On the next morning there came a message to him as he was dressing.
Mr. Wharton wished to speak to him. Would he come down before
breakfast, or would he call on Mr. Wharton in Stone Buildings? He
sent down word that he would do the latter at an hour he fixed, and
then did not show himself in the breakfast-room till Mr. Wharton was
gone. "I've got to go to your father to-day," he said to his wife,
"and I thought it best not to begin till we come to the regular
business. I hope he does not mean to be unreasonable." To this she
made no answer. "Of course you think the want of reason will be all
on my side."
"I don't know why you should say so."
"Because I can read your mind. You do think so. You've been in the
same boat with your father all your life, and you can't get out of
that boat and get into mine. I was wrong to come and live here.
Of course it was not the way to withdraw you from his influence."
She had nothing to say that would not anger him, and was therefore
silent. "Well; I must do the best I can by myself, I suppose.
Good-bye," and so he was off.
"I want to know," said Mr. Wharton, on whom was thrown by
premeditation on the part of Lopez the task of beginning the
conversation,--"I want to know what is the nature of your operation.
I have never been quite able to understand it."
"I do not know that I quite understand it myself," said Lopez,
laughing.
"No man alive," continued the old barrister almost solemnly, "has a
greater objection to thrust himself into another man's affairs than
I have. And as I didn't ask the question before your marriage,--as
perhaps I ought to have done,--I should not do so now, were it not
that the disposition of some part of the earnings of my life must
depend on the condition of your affairs." Lopez immediately perceived
that it behoved him to be very much on the alert. It might be that
if he showed himself to be very poor, his father-in-law would see
the necessity of assisting him at once; or, it might be, that
unless he could show himself to be in prosperous circumstances,
his father-in-law would not assist him at all. "To tell you the
plain truth, I am minded to make a new will. I had of course made
arrangements as to my property before Emily's marriage. Those
arrangements I think I shall now alter. I am greatly distressed with
Everett; and from what I see and from a few words which have dropped
from Emily, I am not, to tell you the truth, quite happy as to your
position. If I understand rightly you are a general merchant, buying
and selling goods in the market?"
"That's about it, sir."
"What capital have you in the business?"
"What capital?"
"Yes;--how much did you put into it at starting?"
Lopez paused a moment. He had got his wife. The marriage could not
be undone. Mr. Wharton had money enough for them all, and would not
certainly discard his daughter. Mr. Wharton could place him on a
really firm footing, and might not improbably do so if he could be
made to feel some confidence in his son-in-law. At this moment there
was much doubt with the son-in-law whether he had better not tell the
simple truth. "It has gone in by degrees," he said. "Altogether I
have had about £8000 in it." In truth he had never been possessed of
a shilling.
"Does that include the £3000 you had from me?"
"Yes; it does."
"Then you have married my girl and started into the world with a
business based on £5000, and which had so far miscarried that within
a month or two after your marriage you were driven to apply to me for
funds!"
"I wanted money for a certain purpose."
"Have you any partner, Mr. Lopez?" This address was felt to be very
ominous.
"Yes. I have a partner who is possessed of capital. His name is
Parker."
"Then his capital is your capital."
"Well;--I can't explain it, but it is not so."
"What is the name of your firm?"
"We haven't a registered name."
"Have you a place of business?"
"Parker has a place of business in Little Tankard Yard."
Mr. Wharton turned to a directory and found out Parker's name. "Mr.
Parker is a stockbroker. Are you also a stockbroker?"
"No,--I am not."
"Then, sir, it seems to me that you are a commercial adventurer."
"I am not at all ashamed of the name, Mr. Wharton. According to your
manner of reckoning, half the business in the City of London is done
by commercial adventurers. I watch the markets and buy goods,--and
sell them at a profit. Mr. Parker is a moneyed man, who happens also
to be a stockbroker. We can very easily call ourselves merchants, and
put up the names of Lopez and Parker over the door."
"Do you sign bills together?"
"Yes."
"As Lopez and Parker?"
"No. I sign them and he signs them. I trade also by myself, and so, I
believe, does he."
"One other question, Mr. Lopez. On what income have you paid
income-tax for the last three years?"
"On £2000 a-year," said Lopez. This was a direct lie.
"Can you make out any schedule showing your exact assets and
liabilities at the present time?"
"Certainly I can."
"Then do so, and send it to me before I go into Herefordshire. My
will as it stands at present would not be to your advantage. But I
cannot change it till I know more of your circumstances than I do
now." And so the interview was over.