Mrs. Parker's Fate
Lopez had now been dead more than five months, and not a word had
been heard by his widow of Mrs. Parker and her children. Her own
sorrows had been so great that she had hardly thought of those of the
poor woman who had come to her but a few days before her husband's
death, telling her of ruin caused by her husband's treachery. But
late on the evening before her departure for Herefordshire,--very
shortly after Everett had left the house,--there was a ring at
the door, and a poorly-clad female asked to see Mrs. Lopez. The
poorly-clad female was Sexty Parker's wife. The servant, who did not
remember her, would not leave her alone in the hall, having an eye to
the coats and umbrellas, but called up one of the maids to carry the
message. The poor woman understood the insult and resented it in her
heart. But Mrs. Lopez recognised the name in a moment, and went down
to her in the parlour, leaving Mr. Wharton upstairs. Mrs. Parker,
smarting from her present grievance, had bent her mind on complaining
at once of the treatment she had received from the servant, but the
sight of the widow's weeds quelled her. Emily had never been much
given to fine clothes, either as a girl or as a married woman; but
it had always been her husband's pleasure that she should be well
dressed,--though he had never carried his trouble so far as to pay
the bills; and Mrs. Parker's remembrance of her friend at Dovercourt
had been that of a fine lady in bright apparel. Now a black
shade,--something almost like a dark ghost,--glided into the room,
and Mrs. Parker forgot her recent injury. Emily came forward and
offered her hand, and was the first to speak. "I have had a great
sorrow since we met," she said.
"Yes, indeed, Mrs. Lopez. I don't think there is anything left in the
world now except sorrow."
"I hope Mr. Parker is well. Will you not sit down, Mrs. Parker?"
"Thank you, ma'am. Indeed, then, he is not well at all. How should he
be well? Everything,--everything has been taken away from him." Poor
Emily groaned as she heard this. "I wouldn't say a word against them
as is gone, Mrs. Lopez, if I could help it. I know it is bad to bear
when him who once loved you isn't no more. And perhaps it is all the
worse when things didn't go well with him, and it was, maybe, his own
fault. I wouldn't do it, Mrs. Lopez, if I could help it."
"Let me hear what you have to say," said Emily, determined to suffer
everything patiently.
"Well;--it is just this. He has left us that bare that there is
nothing left. And that, they say, isn't the worst of all,--though
what can be worse than doing that, how is a woman to think? Parker
was that soft, and he had that way with him of talking, that he has
talked me and mine out of the very linen on our backs."
"What do you mean by saying that that is not the worst?"
"They've come upon Sexty for a bill for four hundred and
fifty,--something to do with that stuff they call Bios,--and Sexty
says it isn't his name at all. But he's been in that state he don't
hardly know how to swear to anything. But he's sure he didn't sign
it. The bill was brought to him by Lopez, and there was words between
them, and he wouldn't have nothing to do with it. How is he to go to
law? And it don't make much difference neither, for they can't take
much more from him than they have taken." Emily as she heard all
this sat shivering, trying to repress her groans. "Only," continued
Mrs. Parker, "they hadn't sold the furniture, and I was thinking
they might let me stay in the house, and try to do with letting
lodgings,--and now they're seizing everything along of this bill.
Sexty is like a madman, swearing this and swearing that;--but what
can he do, Mrs. Lopez? It's as like his hand as two peas; but he was
clever at everything was--was--you know who I mean, ma'am." Then
Emily covered her face with her hands and burst into violent tears.
She had not determined whether she did or did not believe this
last accusation made against her husband. She had had hardly time
to realise the criminality of the offence imputed. But she did
believe that the woman before her had been ruined by her husband's
speculations. "It's very bad, ma'am; isn't it?" said Mrs. Parker,
crying for company. "It's bad all round. If you had five children as
hadn't bread you'd know how it is that I feel. I've got to go back
by the 10.15 to-night, and when I've paid for a third-class ticket I
shan't have but twopence left in the world."
This utter depth of immediate poverty, this want of bread for the
morrow and the next day, Emily could relieve out of her own pocket.
And, thinking of this and remembering that her purse was not with her
at the moment, she started up with the idea of getting it. But it
occurred to her that that would not suffice; that her duty required
more of her than that. And yet, by her own power, she could do no
more. From month to month, almost from week to week, since her
husband's death, her father had been called upon to satisfy claims
for money which he would not resist, lest by doing so he should add
to her misery. She had felt that she ought to bind herself to the
strictest personal economy because of the miserable losses to which
she had subjected him by her ill-starred marriage. "What would you
wish me to do?" she said, resuming her seat.
"You are rich," said Mrs. Parker. Emily shook her head. "They say
your papa is rich. I thought you would not like to see me in want
like this."
"Indeed, indeed, it makes me very unhappy."
"Wouldn't your papa do something? It wasn't Sexty's fault nigh
so much as it was his. I wouldn't say it to you if it wasn't for
starving. I wouldn't say it to you if it wasn't for the children.
I'd lie in the ditch and die if it was only myself, because--because
I know what your feelings is. But what wouldn't you do, and what
wouldn't you say, if you had five children at home as hadn't a loaf
of bread among 'em?" Hereupon Emily got up and left the room, bidding
her visitor wait for a few minutes. Presently the offensive butler
came in, who had wronged Mrs. Parker by watching his master's coats,
and brought a tray with meat and wine. Mr. Wharton, said the altered
man, hoped that Mrs. Parker would take a little refreshment, and he
would be down himself very soon. Mrs. Parker, knowing that strength
for her journey home would be necessary to her, remembering that she
would have to walk all through the city to the Bishopsgate Street
station, did take some refreshment, and permitted herself to drink
the glass of sherry that her late enemy had benignantly poured out
for her.
Emily had been nearly half-an-hour with her father before Mr.
Wharton's heavy step was heard upon the stairs. And when he reached
the dining-room door he paused a moment before he ventured to turn
the lock. He had not told Emily what he would do, and had hardly as
yet made up his own mind. As every fresh call was made upon him, his
hatred for the memory of the man who had stepped in and disturbed his
whole life, and turned all the mellow satisfaction of his evening
into storm and gloom, was of course increased. The scoundrel's
name was so odious to him that he could hardly keep himself from
shuddering visibly before his daughter even when the servants called
her by it. But yet he had determined that he would devote himself to
save her from further suffering. It had been her fault, no doubt. But
she was expiating it in very sackcloth and ashes, and he would add
nothing to the burden on her back. He would pay, and pay, and pay,
merely remembering that what he paid must be deducted from her share
of his property. He had never intended to make what is called an
elder son of Everett, and now there was less necessity than ever
that he should do so, as Everett had become an elder son in another
direction. He could satisfy almost any demand that might be made
without material injury to himself. But these demands, one after
another, scalded him by their frequency, and by the baseness of the
man who had occasioned them. His daughter had now repeated to him
with sobbings and wailings the whole story as it had been told to her
by the woman downstairs. "Papa," she had said, "I don't know how to
tell you or how not." Then he had encouraged her, and had listened
without saying a word. He had endeavoured not even to shrink as the
charge of forgery was repeated to him by his own child,--the widow
of the guilty man. He endeavoured not to remember at the moment that
she had claimed this wretch as the chosen one of her maiden heart, in
opposition to all his wishes. It hardly occurred to him to disbelieve
the accusation. It was so probable! What was there to hinder the
man from forgery, if he could only make it believed that his victim
had signed the bill when intoxicated? He heard it all;--kissed his
daughter, and then went down to the dining-room.
Mrs. Parker, when she saw him, got up, and curtsied low, and then sat
down again. Old Wharton looked at her from under his bushy eyebrows
before he spoke, and then sat opposite to her. "Madam," he said,
"this is a very sad story that I have heard." Mrs. Parker again rose,
again curtsied, and put her handkerchief to her face. "It is of no
use talking any more about it here."
"No, sir," said Mrs. Parker.
"I and my daughter leave town early to-morrow morning."
"Indeed, sir. Mrs. Lopez didn't tell me."
"My clerk will be in London, at No. 12, Stone Buildings, Lincoln's
Inn, till I come back. Do you think you can find the place? I have
written it there."
"Yes, sir, I can find it," said Mrs. Parker, just raising herself
from her chair at every word she spoke.
"I have written his name, you see. Mr. Crumpy."
"Yes, sir."
"If you will permit me, I will give you two sovereigns now."
"Thank you, sir."
"And if you can make it convenient to call on Mr. Crumpy every
Thursday morning about twelve, he will pay you two sovereigns a week
till I come back to town. Then I will see about it."
"God Almighty bless you, sir!"
"And as to the furniture, I will write to my attorney, Mr. Walker.
You need not trouble yourself by going to him."
"No, sir."
"If necessary, he will send to you, and he will see what can be done.
Good night, Mrs. Parker." Then he walked across the room with two
sovereigns which he dropped in her hand. Mrs. Parker, with many sobs,
bade him farewell, and Mr. Wharton stood in the hall immovable till
the front door had been closed behind her. "I have settled it," he
said to Emily. "I'll tell you to-morrow, or some day. Don't worry
yourself now, but go to bed." She looked wistfully,--so sadly, up
into his face, and then did as he bade her.
But Mr. Wharton could not go to bed without further trouble. It was
incumbent on him to write full particulars that very night both to
Mr. Walker and to Mr. Crumpy. And the odious letters in the writing
became very long;--odious because he had to confess in them over and
over again that his daughter, the very apple of his eye, had been the
wife of a scoundrel. To Mr. Walker he had to tell the whole story of
the alleged forgery, and in doing so could not abstain from the use
of hard words. "I don't suppose that it can be proved, but there is
every reason to believe that it's true." And again--"I believe the
man to have been as vile a scoundrel as ever was made by the love
of money." Even to Mr. Crumpy he could not be reticent. "She is an
object of pity," he said. "Her husband was ruined by the infamous
speculations of Mr. Lopez." Then he betook himself to bed. Oh, how
happy would he be to pay the two pounds weekly,--even to add to that
the amount of the forged bill, if by doing so he might be saved from
ever again hearing the name of Lopez.
The amount of the bill was ultimately lost by the bankers who had
advanced money on it. As for Mrs. Sexty Parker, from week to week,
and from month to month, and at last from year to year, she and
her children,--and probably her husband also,--were supported by
the weekly pension of two sovereigns which she always received on
Thursday morning from the hands of Mr. Crumpy himself. In a little
time the one excitement of her life was the weekly journey to Mr.
Crumpy, whom she came to regard as a man appointed by Providence
to supply her with 40s. on Thursday morning. As to poor Sexty
Parker,--it is to be feared that he never again became a prosperous
man.
"You will tell me what you did for that poor woman, papa," said
Emily, leaning over her father in the train.
"I have settled it, my dear."
"You said you'd tell me."
"Crumpy will pay her two pounds a week till we know more about it."
Emily pressed her father's hand and that was an end. No one ever did
know any more about it, and Crumpy continued to pay the money.