Mrs. Lopez Prepares to Move
The Duchess of Omnium was not the most discreet woman in the world.
That was admitted by her best friends, and was the great sin alleged
against her by her worst enemies. In her desire to say sharp things,
she would say the sharp thing in the wrong place, and in her wish to
be good-natured she was apt to run into offences. Just as she was
about to leave town, which did not take place for some days after
Parliament had risen, she made an indiscreet proposition to her
husband. "Should you mind my asking Mrs. Lopez down to Matching? We
shall only be a very small party."
Now the very name of Lopez was terrible to the Duke's ears. Anything
which recalled the wretch and that wretched tragedy to the Duke's
mind gave him a stab. The Duchess ought to have felt that any
communication between her husband and even the man's widow was to be
avoided rather than sought. "Quite out of the question!" said the
Duke, drawing himself up.
"Why out of the question?"
"There are a thousand reasons. I could not have it."
"Then I will say nothing more about it. But there is a romance
there,--something quite touching."
"You don't mean that she has--a lover?"
"Well;--yes."
"And she lost her husband only the other day,--lost him in so
terrible a manner! If that is so, certainly I do not wish to see her
again."
"Ah, that is because you don't know the story."
"I don't wish to know it."
"The man who now wants to marry her knew her long before she had
seen Lopez, and had offered to her ever so many times. He is a fine
fellow, and you know him."
"I had rather not hear any more about it," said the Duke, walking
away.
There was an end to the Duchess's scheme of getting Emily down to
Matching,--a scheme which could hardly have been successful even had
the Duke not objected to it. But yet the Duchess would not abandon
her project of befriending the widow. She had injured Lopez. She had
liked what she had seen of Mrs. Lopez. And she was now endeavouring
to take Arthur Fletcher by the hand. She called therefore at
Manchester Square on the day before she started for Matching, and
left a card and a note. This was on the 15th of August, when London
was as empty as it ever is. The streets at the West End were
deserted. The houses were shut up. The very sweepers of the crossings
seemed to have gone out of town. The public offices were manned by
one or two unfortunates each, who consoled themselves by reading
novels at their desks. Half the cab-drivers had gone apparently to
the seaside,--or to bed. The shops were still open, but all the
respectable shopkeepers were either in Switzerland or at their marine
villas. The travelling world had divided itself into Cookites and
Hookites;--those who escaped trouble under the auspices of Mr. Cook,
and those who boldly combated the extortions of foreign innkeepers
and the anti-Anglican tendencies of foreign railway officials "on
their own hooks." The Duchess of Omnium was nevertheless in town, and
the Duke might still be seen going in at the back entrance of the
Treasury Chambers every day at eleven o'clock. Mr. Warburton thought
it very hard, for he, too, could shoot grouse; but he would have
perished rather than have spoken a word.
The Duchess did not ask to see Mrs. Lopez, but left her card and a
note. She had not liked, she said, to leave town without calling,
though she would not seek to be admitted. She hoped that Mrs. Lopez
was recovering her health, and trusted that on her return to town she
might be allowed to renew her acquaintance. The note was very simple,
and could not be taken as other than friendly. If she had been
simply Mrs. Palliser, and her husband had been a junior clerk in
the Treasury, such a visit would have been a courtesy; and it was
not less so because it was made by the Duchess of Omnium and by
the wife of the Prime Minister. But yet among all the poor widow's
acquaintances she was the only one who had ventured to call since
Lopez had destroyed himself. Mrs. Roby had been told not to come.
Lady Eustace had been sternly rejected. Even old Mrs. Fletcher when
she had been up in town had, after a very solemn meeting with Mr.
Wharton, contented herself with sending her love. It had come to pass
that the idea of being immured was growing to be natural to Emily
herself. The longer that it was continued the more did it seem to be
impossible to her that she should break from her seclusion. But yet
she was gratified by the note from the Duchess.
"She means to be civil, papa."
"Oh yes;--but there are people whose civility I don't want."
"Certainly. I did not want the civility of that horrid Lady Eustace.
But I can understand this. She thinks that she did Ferdinand an
injury."
"When you begin, my dear,--and I hope it will be soon,--to get back
to the world, you will find it more comfortable, I think, to find
yourself among your own people."
"I don't want to go back," she said, sobbing bitterly.
"But I want you to go back. All who know you want you to go back.
Only don't begin at that end."
"You don't suppose, papa, that I wish to go to the Duchess?"
"I wish you to go somewhere. It can't be good for you to remain here.
Indeed I shall think it wicked, or at any rate weak, if you continue
to seclude yourself."
"Where shall I go?" she said, imploringly.
"To Wharton. I certainly think you ought to go there first."
"If you would go, papa, and leave me here,--just this once. Next year
I will go,--if they ask me."
"When I may be dead, for aught that any of us know."
"Do not say that, papa. Of course any one may die."
"I certainly shall not go without you. You may take that as certain.
Is it likely that I should leave you alone in August and September in
this great gloomy house? If you stay, I shall stay." Now this meant
a great deal more than it had meant in former years. Since Lopez
had died Mr. Wharton had not once dined at the Eldon. He came home
regularly at six o'clock, sat with his daughter an hour before
dinner, and then remained with her all the evening. It seemed as
though he were determined to force her out of her solitude by her
natural consideration for him. She would implore him to go to his
club and have his rubber, but he would never give way. No;--he didn't
care for the Eldon, and disliked whist. So he said. Till at last he
spoke more plainly. "You are dull enough here all day, and I will not
leave you in the evenings." There was a pertinacious tenderness in
this which she had not expected from the antecedents of his life.
When, therefore, he told her that he would not go into the country
without her, she felt herself almost constrained to yield.
And she would have yielded at once but for one fear. How could she
insure to herself that Arthur Fletcher should not be there? Of course
he would be at Longbarns, and how could she prevent his coming over
from Longbarns to Wharton? She could hardly bring herself to ask the
question of her father. But she felt an insuperable objection to
finding herself in Arthur's presence. Of course she loved him. Of
course in all the world he was of all the dearest to her. Of course
if she could wipe out the past as with a wet towel, if she could put
the crape off her mind as well as from her limbs, she would become
his wife with the greatest joy. But the very feeling that she loved
him was disgraceful to her in her own thoughts. She had allowed
his caress while Lopez was still her husband,--the husband who had
ill-used her and betrayed her, who had sought to drag her down to his
own depth of baseness. But now she could not endure to think that
that other man should even touch her. It was forbidden to her, she
believed, by all the canons of womanhood even to think of love again.
There ought to be nothing left for her but crape and weepers. She had
done it all by her own obstinacy, and she could make no compensation
either to her family, or to the world, or to her own feelings, but by
drinking the cup of her misery down to the very dregs. Even to think
of joy would in her be a treason. On that occasion she did not yield
to her father, conquering him as she had conquered him before by the
pleading of her looks rather than of her words.
But a day or two afterwards he came to her with arguments of a very
different kind. He at any rate must go to Wharton immediately, in
reference to a letter of vital importance which he had received
from Sir Alured. The reader may perhaps remember that Sir Alured's
heir,--the heir to the title and property,--was a nephew for whom he
entertained no affection whatever. This Wharton had been discarded by
all the Whartons as a profligate drunkard. Some years ago Sir Alured
had endeavoured to reclaim the man, and had spent perhaps more money
than he had been justified in doing in the endeavour, seeing that,
as present occupier of the property, he was bound to provide for
his own daughters, and that at his death every acre must go to this
ne'er-do-well. The money had been allowed to flow like water for a
twelvemonth, and had done no good whatever. There had then been no
hope. The man was strong and likely to live,--and after a while
married a wife, some woman that he took from the very streets. This
had been his last known achievement, and from that moment not even
had his name been mentioned at Wharton. Now there came the tidings of
his death. It was said that he had perished in some attempt to cross
some glaciers in Switzerland;--but by degrees it appeared that the
glacier itself had been less dangerous than the brandy which he had
swallowed whilst on his journey. At any rate he was dead. As to that
Sir Alured's letter was certain. And he was equally certain that he
had left no son.
These tidings were quite as important to Mr. Wharton as to Sir
Alured,--more important to Everett Wharton than to either of them, as
he would inherit all after the death of those two old men. At this
moment he was away yachting with a friend, and even his address was
unknown. Letters for him were to be sent to Oban, and might, or might
not, reach him in the course of a month. But in a man of Sir Alured's
feelings, this catastrophe produced a great change. The heir to his
title and property was one whom he was bound to regard with affection
and almost with reverence,--if it were only possible for him to do
so. With his late heir it had been impossible. But Everett Wharton he
had always liked. Everett had not been quite all that his father and
uncle had wished. But his faults had been exactly those which would
be cured,--or would almost be made virtues,--by the possession of
a title and property. Distaste for a profession and aptitude for
Parliament would become a young man who was heir not only to the
Wharton estates, but to half his father's money.
Sir Alured in his letter expressed a hope that Everett might be
informed instantly. He would have written himself had he known
Everett's address. But he did know that his elder cousin was in town,
and he besought his elder cousin to come at once,--quite at once,--to
Wharton. Emily, he said, would of course accompany her father on such
an occasion. Then there were long letters from Mary Wharton, and even
from Lady Wharton, to Emily. The Whartons must have been very much
moved when Lady Wharton could be induced to write a long letter. The
Whartons were very much moved. They were in a state of enthusiasm
at these news, amounting almost to fury. It seemed as though they
thought that every tenant and labourer on the estate, and every
tenant and labourer's wife, would be in an abnormal condition and
unfit for the duties of life, till they should have seen Everett as
heir of the property. Lady Wharton went so far as to tell Emily which
bedroom was being prepared for Everett,--a bedroom very different in
honour from any by the occupation of which he had as yet been graced.
And there were twenty points as to new wills and new deeds as to
which the present baronet wanted the immediate advice of his cousin.
There were a score of things which could now be done which were
before impossible. Trees could be cut down, and buildings put up;
and a little bit of land sold, and a little bit of land bought;--the
doing of all which would give new life to Sir Alured. A life interest
in an estate is a much pleasanter thing when the heir is a friend
who can be walked about the property, than when he is an enemy who
must be kept at arm's length. All these delights could now be Sir
Alured's,--if the old heir would give him his counsel and the young
one his assistance.
This change in affairs occasioned some flutter also in Manchester
Square. It could not make much difference personally to old Mr.
Wharton. He was, in fact, as old as the baronet, and did not pay much
regard to his own chance of succession. But the position was one
which would suit his son admirably, and he was now on good terms with
his son. He had convinced himself that Lopez had done all that he
could to separate them, and therefore found himself to be more bound
to his son than ever. "We must go at once," he said to his daughter,
speaking almost as though he had forgotten her misery for the moment.
"I suppose you and Everett ought to be there."
"Heaven knows where Everett is. I ought to be there, and I suppose
that on such an occasion as this you will condescend to go with me."
"Condescend, papa;--what does that mean?"
"You know I cannot go alone. It is out of the question that I should
leave you here."
"Why, papa?"
"And at such a time the family ought to come together. Of course they
will take it very much amiss if you refuse. What will Lady Wharton
think if you refuse after her writing such a letter as that? It is my
duty to tell you that you ought to go. You cannot think that it is
right to throw over every friend that you have in the world."
There was a great deal more said in which it almost seemed that the
father's tenderness had been worn out. His words were much rougher
and more imperious than any that he had yet spoken since his daughter
had become a widow, but they were also more efficacious, and
therefore probably more salutary. After twenty-four hours of this
she found that she was obliged to yield, and a telegram was sent to
Wharton,--by no means the first telegram that had been sent since the
news had arrived,--saying that Emily would accompany her father. They
were to occupy themselves for two days further in preparations for
their journey.
These preparations to Emily were so sad as almost to break her heart.
She had never as yet packed up her widow's weeds. She had never as
yet even contemplated the necessity of coming down to dinner in them
before other eyes than those of her father and brother. She had as
yet made none of those struggles with which widows seek to lessen
the deformity of their costume. It was incumbent on her now to get a
ribbon or two less ghastly than those weepers which had, for the last
five months, hung about her face and shoulders. And then how should
she look if he were to be there? It was not to be expected that the
Whartons should seclude themselves because of her grief. This very
change in the circumstances of the property would be sure, of itself,
to bring the Fletchers to Wharton,--and then how should she look at
him, how answer him, if he spoke to her tenderly? It is very hard for
a woman to tell a lie to a man when she loves him. She may speak the
words. She may be able to assure him that he is indifferent to her.
But when a woman really loves a man, as she loved this man, there is
a desire to touch him which quivers at her fingers' ends, a longing
to look at him which she cannot keep out of her eyes, an inclination
to be near him which affects every motion of her body. She cannot
refrain herself from excessive attention to his words. She has a god
to worship, and she cannot control her admiration. Of all this Emily
herself felt much,--but felt at the same time that she would never
pardon herself if she betrayed her love by a gleam of her eye, by
the tone of a word, or the movement of a finger. What,--should she
be known to love again after such a mistake as hers, after such a
catastrophe?
The evening before they started who should bustle into the house but
Everett himself. It was then about six o'clock, and he was going to
leave London by the night mail. That he should be a little given
to bustle on such an occasion may perhaps be forgiven him. He
had heard the news down on the Scotch coast, and had flown up to
London, telegraphing as he did so backwards and forwards to Wharton.
Of course he felt that the destruction of his cousin among the
glaciers,--whether by brandy or ice he did not much care,--had made
him for the nonce one of the important people of the world. The young
man who would not so feel might be the better philosopher, but one
might doubt whether he would be the better young man. He quite agreed
with his father that it was his sister's duty to go to Wharton, and
he was now in a position to speak with authority as to the duties of
members of his family. He could not wait, even for one night, in
order that he might travel with them. Sir Alured was impatient. Sir
Alured wanted him in Herefordshire. Sir Alured had said that on
such an occasion he, the heir, ought to be on the property with the
shortest possible delay. His father smiled;--but with an approving
smile. Everett therefore started by the night mail, leaving his
father and sister to follow him on the morrow.