"He Wants to Get Rich Too Quick"
As they strolled home Lopez told his wife that he had accepted an
invitation to dine the next day at the Parkers' cottage. In doing
this his manner was not quite so gentle as when he had asked her to
call on them. He had been a little ruffled by what had been said, and
now exhibited his temper. "I don't suppose it will be very nice," he
said, "but we may have to put up with worse things than that."
"I have made no objection."
"But you don't seem to take to it very cordially."
"I had thought that I got on very well with Mrs. Parker. If you can
eat your dinner with them, I'm sure that I can. You do not seem to
like him altogether, and I wish you had got a partner more to your
taste."
"Taste, indeed! When you come to this kind of thing it isn't a matter
of taste. The fact is that I am in that fellow's hands to an extent
I don't like to think of, and don't see my way out of it unless your
father will do as he ought to do. You altogether refuse to help me
with your father, and you must, therefore, put up with Sexty Parker
and his wife. It is quite on the cards that worse things may come
even than Sexty Parker." To this she made no immediate answer, but
walked on, increasing her pace, not only unhappy, but also very
angry. It was becoming a matter of doubt to her whether she could
continue to bear these repeated attacks about her father's money. "I
see how it is," he continued. "You think that a husband should bear
all the troubles of life, and that a wife should never be made to
hear of them."
"Ferdinand," she said, "I declare I did not think that any man could
be so unfair to a woman as you are to me."
"Of course! Because I haven't got thousands a year to spend on you I
am unfair."
"I am content to live in any way that you may direct. If you are
poor, I am satisfied to be poor. If you are even ruined, I am content
to be ruined."
"Who is talking about ruin?"
"If you are in want of everything, I also will be in want and will
never complain. Whatever our joint lot may bring to us I will endure,
and will endeavour to endure with cheerfulness. But I will not ask
my father for money, either for you or for myself. He knows what he
ought to do. I trust him implicitly."
"And me not at all."
"He is, I know, in communication with you about what should be done.
I can only say,--tell him everything."
"My dear, that is a matter in which it may be possible that I
understand my own interest best."
"Very likely. I certainly understand nothing, for I do not even know
the nature of your business. How can I tell him that he ought to give
you money?"
"You might ask him for your own."
"I have got nothing. Did I ever tell you that I had?"
"You ought to have known."
"Do you mean that when you asked me to marry you I should have
refused you because I did not know what money papa would give me? Why
did you not ask papa?"
"Had I known him then as well as I do now you may be quite sure that
I should have done so."
"Ferdinand, it will be better that we should not speak about my
father. I will in all things strive to do as you would have me, but I
cannot hear him abused. If you have anything to say, go to Everett."
"Yes;--when he is such a gambler that your father won't even speak
to him. Your father will be found dead in his bed some day, and all
his money will have been left to some cursed hospital." They were at
their own door when this was said, and she, without further answer,
went up to her bedroom.
All these bitter things had been said, not because Lopez had thought
that he could further his own views by saying them;--he knew indeed
that he was injuring himself by every display of ill-temper;--but
she was in his power, and Sexty Parker was rebelling. He thought a
good deal that day on the delight he would have in "kicking that
ill-conditioned cur," if only he could afford to kick him. But his
wife was his own, and she must be taught to endure his will, and must
be made to know that though she was not to be kicked, yet she was to
be tormented and ill-used. And it might be possible that he should so
cow her spirit as to bring her to act as he should direct. Still, as
he walked alone along the sea-shore, he knew that it would be better
for him to control his temper.
On that evening he did write to Mr. Wharton,--as follows,--and he
dated his letter from Little Tankard Yard, so that Mr. Wharton might
suppose that that was really his own place of business, and that he
was there, at his work:--
MY DEAR SIR,
You have asked for a schedule of my affairs, and I have
found it quite impossible to give it. As it was with
the merchants whom Shakespeare and the other dramatists
described,--so it is with me. My caravels are out at sea,
and will not always come home in time. My property at
this moment consists of certain shares of cargoes of jute,
Kauri gum, guano, and sulphur, worth altogether at the
present moment something over £26,000, of which Mr. Parker
possesses the half;--but then of this property only a
portion is paid for,--perhaps something more than a half.
For the other half our bills are in the market. But in
February next these articles will probably be sold for
considerably more than £30,000. If I had £5000 placed to
my credit now, I should be worth about £15,000 by the end
of next February. I am engaged in sundry other smaller
ventures, all returning profits;--but in such a condition
of things it is impossible that I should make a schedule.
I am undoubtedly in the condition of a man trading beyond
his capital. I have been tempted by fair offers, and
what I think I may call something beyond an average
understanding of such matters, to go into ventures beyond
my means. I have stretched my arm out too far. In such a
position it is not perhaps unnatural that I should ask a
wealthy father-in-law to assist me. It is certainly not
unnatural that I should wish him to do so.
I do not think that I am a mercenary man. When I married
your daughter I raised no question as to her fortune.
Being embarked in trade I no doubt thought that her
means,--whatever they might be,--would be joined to my
own. I know that a sum of £20,000, with my experience in
the use of money, would give us a noble income. But I
would not condescend to ask a question which might lead to
a supposition that I was marrying her for her money and
not because I loved her.
You now know, I think, all that I can tell you. If there
be any other questions I would willingly answer them. It
is certainly the case that Emily's fortune, whatever you
may choose to give her, would be of infinitely greater use
to me now,--and consequently to her,--than at a future
date which I sincerely pray may be very long deferred.
Believe me to be,
Your affectionate son-in-law,
FERDINAND LOPEZ.
A. Wharton, Esq.
This letter he himself took up to town on the following day, and
there posted, addressing it to Wharton Hall. He did not expect very
great results from it. As he read it over, he was painfully aware
that all his trash about caravels and cargoes of sulphur would not
go far with Mr. Wharton. But it might go farther than nothing. He
was bound not to neglect Mr. Wharton's letter to him. When a man
is in difficulty about money, even a lie,--even a lie that is sure
to be found out to be a lie,--will serve his immediate turn better
than silence. There is nothing that the courts hate so much as
contempt;--not even perjury. And Lopez felt that Mr. Wharton was the
judge before whom he was bound to plead.
He returned to Dovercourt on that day, and he and his wife dined
with the Parkers. No woman of her age had known better what were
the manners of ladies and gentlemen than Emily Wharton. She had
thoroughly understood that when in Herefordshire she was surrounded
by people of that class, and that when she was with her aunt, Mrs.
Roby, she was not quite so happily placed. No doubt she had been
terribly deceived by her husband,--but the deceit had come from the
fact that his manners gave no indication of his character. When she
found herself in Mrs. Parker's little sitting-room, with Mr. Parker
making florid speeches to her, she knew that she had fallen among
people for whose society she had not been intended. But this was a
part, and only a very trifling part, of the punishment which she felt
that she deserved. If that, and things like that, were all, she would
bear them without a murmur.
"Now I call Dovercourt a dooced nice little place," said Mr. Parker,
as he helped her to the "bit of fish," which he told her he had
brought down with him from London.
"It is very healthy, I should think."
"Just the thing for the children, ma'am. You've none of your own,
Mrs. Lopez, but there's a good time coming. You were up to-day,
weren't you, Lopez? Any news?"
"Things seemed to be very quiet in the city."
"Too quiet, I'm afraid. I hate having 'em quiet. You must come and
see me in Little Tankard Yard some of these days, Mrs. Lopez. We
can give you a glass of cham. and the wing of a chicken;--can't we,
Lopez?"
"I don't know. It's more than you ever gave me," said Lopez, trying
to look good-humoured.
"But you ain't a lady."
"Or me," said Mrs. Parker.
"You're only a wife. If Mrs. Lopez will make a day of it we'll treat
her well in the city;--won't we, Ferdinand?" A black cloud came
across "Ferdinand's" face, but he said nothing. Emily of a sudden
drew herself up, unconsciously,--and then at once relaxed her
features and smiled. If her husband chose that it should be so, she
would make no objection.
"Upon my honour, Sexty, you are very familiar," said Mrs. Parker.
"It's a way we have in the city," said Sexty. Sexty knew what he was
about. His partner called him Sexty, and why shouldn't he call his
partner Ferdinand?
"He'll call you Emily before long," said Lopez.
"When you call my wife Jane, I shall,--and I've no objection in life.
I don't see why people ain't to call each other by their Christian
names. Take a glass of champagne, Mrs. Lopez. I brought down
half-a-dozen to-day so that we might be jolly. Care killed a cat.
Whatever we call each other, I'm very glad to see you here, Mrs.
Lopez, and I hope it's the first of a great many. Here's your
health."
It was all his ordering, and if he bade her dine with a
crossing-sweeper she would do it. But she could not but remember that
not long since he had told her that his partner was not a person with
whom she could fitly associate; and she did not fail to perceive that
he must be going down in the world to admit such association for her
after he had so spoken. And as she sipped the mixture which Sexty
called champagne, she thought of Herefordshire and the banks of the
Wye, and,--alas, alas,--she thought of Arthur Fletcher. Nevertheless,
come what might, she would do her duty, even though it might call
upon her to sit at dinner with Mr. Parker three days in the week.
Lopez was her husband, and would be the father of her child, and she
would make herself one with him. It mattered not what people might
call him,--or even her. She had acted on her own judgment in marrying
him, and had been a fool; and now she would bear the punishment
without complaint.
When dinner was over Mrs. Parker helped the servant to remove the
dinner things from the single sitting-room, and the two men went out
to smoke their cigars in the covered porch. Mrs. Parker herself took
out the whisky and hot water, and sugar and lemons, and then returned
to have a little matronly discourse with her guest. "Does Mr. Lopez
ever take a drop too much?" she asked.
"Never," said Mrs. Lopez.
"Perhaps it don't affect him as it do Sexty. He ain't a
drinker;--certainly not. And he's one that works hard every day of
his life. But he's getting fond of it these last twelve months, and
though he don't take very much it hurries him and flurries him. If I
speaks at night he gets cross;--and in the morning when he gets up,
which he always do regular, though it's ever so bad with him, then I
haven't the heart to scold him. It's very hard sometimes for a wife
to know what to do, Mrs. Lopez."
"Yes, indeed." Emily could not but think how soon she herself had
learned that lesson.
"Of course I'd do anything for Sexty,--the father of my bairns, and
has always been a good husband to me. You don't know him, of course,
but I do. A right good man at bottom;--but so weak!"
"If he,--if he,--injures his health, shouldn't you talk to him
quietly about it?"
"It isn't the drink as is the evil, Mrs. Lopez, but that which makes
him drink. He's not one as goes a mucker merely for the pleasure.
When things are going right he'll sit out in our arbour at home, and
smoke pipe after pipe, playing with the children, and one glass of
gin and water cold will see him to bed. Tobacco, dry, do agree with
him, I think. But when he comes to three or four goes of hot toddy, I
know it's not as it should be."
"You should restrain him, Mrs. Parker."
"Of course I should;--but how? Am I to walk off with the bottle
and disgrace him before the servant girl? Or am I to let the
children know as their father takes too much? If I was as much as
to make one fight of it, it'd be all over Ponder's End that he's
a drunkard;--which he ain't. Restrain him;--oh, yes! If I could
restrain that gambling instead of regular business! That's what I'd
like to restrain."
"Does he gamble?"
"What is it but gambling that he and Mr. Lopez is a-doing together?
Of course, ma'am, I don't know you, and you are different from me.
I ain't foolish enough not to know all that. My father stood in
Smithfield and sold hay, and your father is a gentleman as has been
high up in the Courts all his life. But it's your husband is a-doing
this."
"Oh, Mrs. Parker!"
"He is then. And if he brings Sexty and my little ones to the
workhouse, what'll be the good then of his guano and his gum?"
"Is it not all in the fair way of commerce?"
"I'm sure I don't know about commerce, Mrs. Lopez, because I'm only
a woman; but it can't be fair. They goes and buys things that they
haven't got the money to pay for, and then waits to see if they'll
turn up trumps. Isn't that gambling?"
"I cannot say. I do not know." She felt now that her husband had
been accused, and that part of the accusation had been levelled at
herself. There was something in her manner of saying these few words
which the poor complaining woman perceived, feeling immediately that
she had been inhospitable and perhaps unjust. She put out her hand
softly, touching the other woman's arm, and looking up into her
guest's face. "If this is so, it is terrible," said Emily.
"Perhaps I oughtn't to speak so free."
"Oh, yes;--for your children, and yourself, and your husband."
"It's them,--and him. Of course it's not your doing, and Mr. Lopez,
I'm sure, is a very fine gentleman. And if he gets wrong one way,
he'll get himself right in another." Upon hearing this Emily shook
her head. "Your papa is a rich man, and won't see you and yours come
to want. There's nothing more to come to me or Sexty let it be ever
so."
"Why does he do it?"
"Why does who do it?"
"Your husband. Why don't you speak to him as you do to me, and tell
him to mind only his proper business?"
"Now you are angry with me."
"Angry! No;--indeed I am not angry. Every word that you say is good,
and true, and just what you ought to say. I am not angry, but I am
terrified. I know nothing of my husband's business. I cannot tell you
that you should trust to it. He is very clever, but--"
"But--what, ma'am?"
"Perhaps I should say that he is ambitious."
"You mean he wants to get rich too quick, ma'am."
"I'm afraid so."
"Then it's just the same with Sexty. He's ambitious too. But what's
the good of being ambitious, Mrs. Lopez, if you never know whether
you're on your head or your heels? And what's the good of being
ambitious if you're to get into the workhouse? I know what that
means. There's one or two of them sort of men gets into Parliament,
and has houses as big as the Queen's palace, while hundreds of them
has their wives and children in the gutter. Who ever hears of them?
Nobody. It don't become any man to be ambitious who has got a wife
and family. If he's a bachelor, why, of course, he can go to the
Colonies. There's Mary Jane and the two little ones right down on
the sea, with their feet in the salt water. Shall we put on our hats,
Mrs. Lopez, and go and look after them?" To this proposition Emily
assented, and the two ladies went out after the children.
"Mix yourself another glass," said Sexty to his partner.
"I'd rather not. Don't ask me again. You know I never drink, and I
don't like being pressed."
"By George!--You are particular."
"What's the use of teasing a fellow to do a thing he doesn't like?"
"You won't mind me having another?"
"Fifty if you please, so that I'm not forced to join you."
"Forced! It's liberty 'all here, and you can do as you please. Only
when a fellow will take a drop with me he's better company."
"Then I'm d---- bad company, and you'd better get somebody else to
be jolly with. To tell you the truth, Sexty, I suit you better at
business than at this sort of thing. I'm like Shylock, you know."
"I don't know about Shylock, but I'm blessed if I think you suit me
very well at anything. I'm putting up with a deal of ill-usage, and
when I try to be happy with you, you won't drink, and you tell me
about Shylock. He was a Jew, wasn't he?"
"That is the general idea."
"Then you ain't very much like him, for they're a sort of people that
always have money about 'em."
"How do you suppose he made his money to begin with? What an ass you
are!"
"That's true. I am. Ever since I began putting my name on the same
bit of paper with yours I've been an ass."
"You'll have to be one a bit longer yet;--unless you mean to throw
up everything. At this present moment you are six or seven thousand
pounds richer than you were before you first met me."
"I wish I could see the money."
"That's like you. What's the use of money you can see? How are you
to make money out of money by looking at it? I like to know that my
money is fructifying."
"I like to know that it's all there,--and I did know it before I ever
saw you. I'm blessed if I know it now. Go down and join the ladies,
will you? You ain't much of a companion up here."
Shortly after that Lopez told Mrs. Parker that he had already
bade adieu to her husband, and then he took his wife to their own
lodgings.