The Widow and Her Friends
The catastrophe described in the last chapter had taken place during
the first week in March. By the end of that month old Mr. Wharton
had probably reconciled himself to the tragedy, although in fact it
had affected him very deeply. In the first days after the news had
reached him he seemed to be bowed to the ground. Stone Buildings were
neglected, and the Eldon saw nothing of him. Indeed, he barely left
the house from which he had been so long banished by the presence of
his son-in-law. It seemed to Everett, who now came to live with him
and his sister, as though his father were overcome by the horror of
the affair. But after awhile he recovered himself, and appeared one
morning in court with his wig and gown, and argued a case,--which was
now unusual with him,--as though to show the world that a dreadful
episode in his life was passed, and should be thought of no more. At
this period, three or four weeks after the occurrence,--he rarely
spoke to his daughter about Lopez; but to Everett the man's name
would be often on his tongue. "I do not know that there could have
been any other deliverance," he said to his son one day. "I thought
it would have killed me when I first heard it, and it nearly killed
her. But, at any rate, now there is peace."
But the widow seemed to feel it more as time went on. At first she
was stunned, and for a while absolutely senseless. It was not till
two days after the occurrence that the fact became known to her,--nor
known as a certainty to her father and brother. It seemed as though
the man had been careful to carry with him no record of identity, the
nature of which would permit it to outlive the crash of the train.
No card was found, no scrap of paper with his name; and it was
discovered at last that when he left the house on the fatal morning
he had been careful to dress himself in shirt and socks, with
handkerchief and collar that had been newly purchased for his
proposed journey and which bore no mark. The fragments of his body
set identity at defiance, and even his watch had been crumpled into
ashes. Of course the fact became certain with no great delay. The man
himself was missing, and was accurately described both by the young
lady from the refreshment room, and by the suspicious pundit who had
actually seen the thing done. There was first belief that it was so,
which was not communicated to Emily,--and then certainty.
There was an inquest held of course,--well, we will say on the
body,--and, singularly enough, great difference of opinion as to the
manner, though of course none as to the immediate cause of the death.
Had it been accidental, or premeditated? The pundit, who in the
performance of his duties on the Tenway platforms was so efficient
and valuable, gave half-a-dozen opinions in half-a-dozen minutes when
subjected to the questions of the Coroner. In his own mind he had not
the least doubt in the world as to what had happened. But he was made
to believe that he was not to speak his own mind. The gentleman, he
said, certainly might have walked down by accident. The gentleman's
back was turned, and it was possible that the gentleman did not hear
the train. He was quite certain the gentleman knew of the train; but
yet he could not say. The gentleman walked down before the train o'
purpose; but perhaps he didn't mean to do himself an injury. There
was a deal of this, till the Coroner, putting all his wrath into
his brow, told the man that he was a disgrace to the service, and
expressed a hope that the Company would no longer employ a man
so evidently unfit for his position. But the man was in truth
a conscientious and useful railway pundit, with a large family,
and evident capabilities for his business. At last a verdict was
given,--that the man's name was Ferdinand Lopez, that he had been
crushed by an express train on the London and North Western Line, and
that there was no evidence to show how his presence on the line had
been occasioned. Of course Mr. Wharton had employed counsel, and of
course the counsel's object had been to avoid a verdict of felo de
se. Appended to the verdict was a recommendation from the jury that
the Railway Company should be advised to signalise their express
trains more clearly at the Tenway Junction Station.
When these tidings were told to the widow she had already given
way to many fears. Lopez had gone, purporting,--as he said,--to be
back to dinner. He had not come then, nor on the following morning;
nor had he written. Then she remembered all that he had done and
said;--how he had kissed her, and left a parting malediction for her
father. She did not at first imagine that he had destroyed himself,
but that he had gone away, intending to vanish as other men before
now have vanished. As she thought of this something almost like love
came back upon her heart. Of course he was bad. Even in her sorrow,
even when alarmed as to his fate, she could not deny that. But her
oath to him had not been to love him only while he was good. She had
made herself a part of him, and was she not bound to be true to him,
whether good or bad? She implored her father and she implored her
brother to be ceaseless in their endeavours to trace him,--sometimes
seeming almost to fear that in this respect she could not fully
trust them. Then she discerned from their manner a doubt as to her
husband's fate. "Oh, papa, if you think anything, tell me what you
think," she said late on the evening of the second day. He was then
nearly sure that the man who had been killed at Tenway was Ferdinand
Lopez;--but he was not quite sure, and he would not tell her. But on
the following morning, somewhat before noon, having himself gone out
early to Euston Square, he came back to his own house,--and then he
told her all. For the first hour she did not shed a tear or lose her
consciousness of the horror of the thing;--but sat still and silent,
gazing at nothing, casting back her mind over the history of her
life, and the misery which she had brought on all who belonged to
her. Then at last she gave way, fell into tears, hysteric sobbings,
convulsions so violent as for a time to take the appearance of
epileptic fits, and was at last exhausted and, happily for herself,
unconscious.
After that she was ill for many weeks,--so ill that at times both
her father and her brother thought that she would die. When the
first month or six weeks had passed by she would often speak of her
husband, especially to her father, and always speaking of him as
though she had brought him to his untimely fate. Nor could she endure
at this time that her father should say a word against him, even when
she obliged the old man to speak of one whose conduct had been so
infamous. It had all been her doing! Had she not married him there
would have been no misfortune! She did not say that he had been
noble, true, or honest,--but she asserted that all the evils which
had come upon him had been produced by herself. "My dear," her father
said to her one evening, "it is a matter which we cannot forget, but
on which it is well that we should be silent."
"I shall always know what that silence means," she replied.
"It will never mean condemnation of you by me," said he.
"But I have destroyed your life,--and his. I know I ought not to have
married him, because you bade me not. And I know that I should have
been gentler with him, and more obedient, when I was his wife. I
sometimes wish that I were a Catholic, and that I could go into a
convent, and bury it all amidst sackcloths and ashes."
"That would not bury it," said her father.
"But I should at least be buried. If I were out of sight, you might
forget it all."
She once stirred Everett up to speak more plainly than her father
ever dared to do, and then also she herself used language that was
very plain. "My darling," said her brother once, when she had been
trying to make out that her husband had been more sinned against than
sinning,--"he was a bad man. It is better that the truth should be
told."
"And who is a good man?" she said, raising herself in her bed and
looking him full in the face with her deep-sunken eyes. "If there be
any truth in our religion, are we not all bad? Who is to tell the
shades of difference in badness? He was not a drunkard, or a gambler.
Through it all he was true to his wife." She, poor creature, was of
course ignorant of that little scene in the little street near May
Fair, in which Lopez had offered to carry Lizzie Eustace away with
him to Guatemala. "He was industrious. His ideas about money were
not the same as yours or papa's. How was he worse than others? It
happened that his faults were distasteful to you--and so, perhaps,
were his virtues."
"His faults, such as they were, brought all these miseries."
"He would have been successful now if he had never seen me. But why
should we talk of it? We shall never agree. And you, Everett, can
never understand all that has passed through my mind during the last
two years."
There were two or three persons who attempted to see her at this
period, but she avoided them all. First came Mrs. Roby, who, as her
nearest neighbour, as her aunt, and as an aunt who had been so nearly
allied to her, had almost a right to demand admittance. But she would
not see Mrs. Roby. She sent down word to say that she was too ill.
And when Mrs. Roby wrote to her, she got her father to answer the
notes. "You had better let it drop," the old man said at last to his
sister-in-law. "Of course she remembers that it was you who brought
them together."
"But I didn't bring them together, Mr. Wharton. How often am I to
tell you so? It was Everett who brought Mr. Lopez here."
"The marriage was made up in your house, and it has destroyed me and
my child. I will not quarrel with my wife's sister if I can help
it, but at present you had better keep apart." Then he had left her
abruptly, and Mrs. Roby had not dared either to write or to call
again.
At this time Arthur Fletcher saw both Everett and Mr. Wharton
frequently, but he did not go to the Square, contenting himself with
asking whether he might be allowed to do so. "Not yet, Arthur," said
the old man. "I am sure she thinks of you as one of her best friends,
but she could not see you yet."
"She would have nothing to fear," said Arthur. "We knew each other
when we were children, and I should be now only as I was then."
"Not yet, Arthur;--not yet," said the barrister.
Then there came a letter, or rather two letters, from Mary
Wharton;--one to Mr. Wharton and the other to Emily. To tell the
truth as to these letters, they contained the combined wisdom and
tenderness of Wharton Hall and Longbarns. As soon as the fate of
Lopez had been ascertained and thoroughly discussed in Herefordshire,
there went forth an edict that Emily had suffered punishment
sufficient and was to be forgiven. Old Mrs. Fletcher did not come
to this at once,--having some deep-seated feeling which she did
not dare to express even to her son, though she muttered it to her
daughter-in-law, that Arthur would be disgraced for ever were he
to marry the widow of such a man as Ferdinand Lopez. But when this
question of receiving Emily back into family favour was mooted in
the Longbarns Parliament no one alluded to the possibility of such
a marriage. There was the fact that she whom they had all loved had
been freed by a great tragedy from the husband whom they had all
condemned,--and also the knowledge that the poor victim had suffered
greatly during the period of her married life. Mrs. Fletcher had
frowned, and shaken her head, and made a little speech about the
duties of women, and the necessarily fatal consequences when those
duties are neglected. There were present there, with the old lady,
John Fletcher and his wife, Sir Alured and Lady Wharton, and Mary
Wharton. Arthur was not in the county, nor could the discussion have
been held in his presence. "I can only say," said John, getting up
and looking away from his mother, "that she shall always find a home
at Longbarns when she chooses to come here, and I hope Sir Alured
will say the same as to Wharton Hall." After all, John Fletcher was
king in these parts, and Mrs. Fletcher, with many noddings and some
sobbing, had to give way to King John. The end of all this was that
Mary Wharton wrote her letters. In that to Mr. Wharton she asked
whether it would not be better that her cousin should change the
scene and come at once into the country. Let her come and stay a
month at Wharton, and then go on to Longbarns. She might be sure that
there would be no company in either house. In June the Fletchers
would go up to town for a week, and then Emily might return to
Wharton Hall. It was a long letter, and Mary gave many reasons why
the poor sufferer would be better in the country than in town. The
letter to Emily herself was shorter but full of affection. "Do, do,
do come. You know how we all love you. Let it be as it used to be.
You always liked the country. I will devote myself to try and comfort
you." But Emily could not as yet submit to receive devotion even from
her cousin Mary. Through it all, and under it all,--though she would
ever defend her husband because he was dead,--she knew that she
had disgraced the Whartons and brought a load of sorrow upon the
Fletchers, and she was too proud to be forgiven so quickly.
Then she received another tender of affection from a quarter whence
she certainly did not expect it. The Duchess of Omnium wrote to her.
The Duchess, though she had lately been considerably restrained by
the condition of the Duke's mind, and by the effects of her own
political and social mistakes, still from time to time made renewed
efforts to keep together the Coalition by giving dinners, balls, and
garden parties, and by binding to herself the gratitude and worship
of young parliamentary aspirants. In carrying out her plans, she had
lately showered her courtesies upon Arthur Fletcher, who had been
made welcome even by the Duke as the sitting member for Silverbridge.
With Arthur she had of course discussed the conduct of Lopez as
to the election bills, and had been very loud in condemning him.
And from Arthur also she had heard something of the sorrows of
Emily Lopez. Arthur had been very desirous that the Duchess, who
had received them both at her house, should distinguish between
the husband and the wife. Then had come the tragedy, to which the
notoriety of the man's conduct of course gave additional interest. It
was believed that Lopez had destroyed himself because of the disgrace
which had fallen upon him from the Silverbridge affair. And for much
of that Silverbridge affair the Duchess herself was responsible.
She waited till a couple of months had gone by, and then, in the
beginning of May, sent to the widow what was intended to be, and
indeed was, a very kind note. The Duchess had heard the sad story
with the greatest grief. She hoped that Mrs. Lopez would permit her
to avail herself of a short acquaintance to express her sincere
sympathy. She would not venture to call as yet, but hoped that before
long she might be allowed to come to Manchester Square.
This note touched the poor woman to whom it was written, not because
she herself was solicitous to be acquainted with the Duchess of
Omnium, but because the application seemed to her to contain
something like an acquittal, or at any rate a pardon, of her husband.
His sin in that measure of the Silverbridge election,--a sin which
her father had been loud in denouncing before the wretch had
destroyed himself,--had been especially against the Duke of Omnium.
And now the Duchess came forward to say that it should be forgiven
and forgotten. When she showed the letter to her father, and asked
him what she should say in answer to it, he only shook his head. "It
is meant for kindness, papa."
"Yes;--I think it is. There are people who have no right to be kind
to me. If a man stopped me in the street and offered me half-a-crown
it might be kindness;--but I don't want the man's half-crown."
"I don't think it is the same, papa. There is a reason here."
"Perhaps so, my dear; but I do not see the reason."
She became very red, but even to him she would not explain her ideas.
"I think I shall answer it."
"Certainly answer it. Your compliments to the Duchess and thank her
for her kind inquiries."
"But she says she will come here."
"I should not notice that."
"Very well, papa. If you think so, of course I will not. Perhaps it
would be an inconvenience, if she were really to come." On the next
day she did write a note, not quite so cold as that which her father
proposed, but still saying nothing as to the offered visit. She felt,
she said, very grateful for the Duchess's kind remembrance of her.
The Duchess would perhaps understand that at present her sorrow
overwhelmed her.
And there was one other tender of kindness which was more surprising
than even that from the Duchess. The reader may perhaps remember that
Ferdinand Lopez and Lady Eustace had not parted when they last saw
each other on the pleasantest terms. He had been very affectionate,
but when he had proposed to devote his whole life to her and to carry
her off to Guatemala she had simply told him that he was--a fool.
Then he had escaped from her house and had never again seen Lizzie
Eustace. She had not thought very much about it. Had he returned to
her the next day with some more tempting proposition for making money
she would have listened to him,--and had he begged her pardon for
what had taken place on the former day she would have merely laughed.
She was not more offended than she would have been had he asked her
for half her fortune instead of her person and her honour. But, as it
was, he had escaped and had never again shown himself in the little
street near May Fair. Then she had the tidings of his death, first
seeing the account in a very sensational article from the pen of Mr.
Quintus Slide himself. She was immediately filled with an intense
interest which was infinitely increased by the fact that the man
had but a few days before declared himself to be her lover. It was
bringing her almost as near to the event as though she had seen it!
She was, perhaps, entitled to think that she had caused it! Nay;--in
one sense she had caused it, for he certainly would not have
destroyed himself had she consented to go with him to Guatemala or
elsewhere. And she knew his wife. An uninteresting, dowdy creature
she had called her. But, nevertheless, they had been in company
together more than once. So she presented her compliments, and
expressed her sorrow, and hoped that she might be allowed to call.
There had been no one for whom she had felt more sincere respect and
esteem than for her late friend Mr. Ferdinand Lopez. To this note
there was sent an answer written by Mr. Wharton himself.
MADAM,
My daughter is too ill to see even her own friends.
I am, Madam,
Your obedient servant,
ABEL WHARTON.
After this, life went on in a very quiet way at Manchester Square
for many weeks. Gradually Mrs. Lopez recovered her capability of
attending to the duties of life. Gradually she became again able
to interest herself in her brother's pursuits and in her father's
comforts, and the house returned to its old form as it had been
before these terrible two years, in which the happiness of the
Wharton and Fletcher families had been marred, and scotched, and
almost destroyed for ever by the interference of Ferdinand Lopez.
But Mrs. Lopez never for a moment forgot that she had done the
mischief,--and that the black enduring cloud had been created solely
by her own perversity and self-will. Though she would still defend
her late husband if any attack were made upon his memory, not the
less did she feel that hers had been the fault, though the punishment
had come upon them all.