The Palliser Novels (436 page)

“I only repeated what you told me yourself.”

“I am quite sure of my own intentions, and know that I need not be ashamed of them.”

“Not if you have plenty of money. It all depends on that. If you have plenty of money, and your fancy goes that way, it is all very well. Come, we’ll go upstairs.”

The next day he saw Everett Wharton, who welcomed him back with warm affection. “He’ll do nothing for me; — nothing at all. I am almost beginning to doubt whether he’ll ever speak to me again.”

“Nonsense!”

“I tell you everything, you know,” said Everett. “In January I lost a little money at whist. They got plunging at the club, and I was in it. I had to tell him, of course. He keeps me so short that I can’t stand any blow without going to him like a school-boy.”

“Was it much?”

“No; — to him no more than half-a-crown to you. I had to ask him for a hundred and fifty.”

“He refused it!”

“No; — he didn’t do that. Had it been ten times as much, if I owed the money, he would pay it. But he blew me up, and talked about gambling, — and —
and — “

“I should have taken that as a matter of course.”

“But I’m not a gambler. A man now and then may fall into a thing of that kind, and if he’s decently well off and don’t do it often, he can bear it.”

“I thought your quarrel had been altogether about Parliament.”

“Oh no! He has been always the same about that. He told me that I was going head foremost to the dogs, and I couldn’t stand that. I shouldn’t be surprised if he hasn’t lost more at cards than I have during the last two years.” Lopez made an offer to act as go-between, to effect a reconciliation; but Everett declined the offer. “It would be making too much of an absurdity,” he said. “When he wants to see me, I suppose he’ll send for me.”

Lopez did dispatch an agent down to Mr. Sprugeon at Silverbridge, and the agent found that Mr. Sprugeon was a very discreet man. Mr. Sprugeon at first knew little or nothing, — seemed hardly to be aware that there was a member of Parliament for Silverbridge, and declared himself to be indifferent as to the parliamentary character of the borough. But at last he melted a little, and by degrees, over a glass of hot brandy-and-water with the agent at the Palliser Arms, confessed to a shade of an opinion that the return of Mr. Lopez for the borough would not be disagreeable to some person or persons who did not live quite a hundred miles away. The instructions given by Lopez to his agent were of the most cautious kind. The agent was merely to feel the ground, make a few inquiries, and do nothing. His client did not intend to stand unless he could see the way to almost certain success with very little outlay. But the agent, perhaps liking the job, did a little outstep his employer’s orders. Mr. Sprugeon, when the frost of his first modesty had been thawed, introduced the agent to Mr. Sprout, the maker of cork soles, and Mr. Sprugeon and Mr. Sprout between them had soon decided that Mr. Ferdinand Lopez should be run for the borough as the “Castle” candidate. “The Duke won’t interfere,” said Sprugeon; “and, of course, the Duke’s man of business can’t do anything openly; — but the Duke’s people will know.” Then Mr. Sprout told the agent that there was already another candidate in the field, and in a whisper communicated the gentleman’s name. When the agent got back to London, he gave Lopez to understand that he must certainly put himself forward. The borough expected him. Sprugeon and Sprout considered themselves pledged to bring him forward and support him, — on behalf of the Castle. Sprugeon was quite sure that the Castle influence was predominant. The Duke’s name had never been mentioned at Silverbridge, — hardly even that of the Duchess. Since the Duke’s declaration “The Castle” had taken the part which the old Duke used to play. The agent was quite sure that no one could get in for Silverbridge without having the Castle on his side. No doubt the Duke’s declaration had had the ill effect of bringing up a competitor, and thus of causing expense. That could not now be helped. The agent was of opinion that the Duke had had no alternative. The agent hinted that times were changing, and that though dukes were still dukes, and could still exercise ducal influences, they were driven by these changes to act in an altered form. The proclamation had been especially necessary because the Duke was Prime Minister. The agent did not think that Mr. Lopez should be in the least angry with the Duke. Everything would be done that the Castle could do, and Lopez would be no doubt returned, — though, unfortunately, not without some expense. How much would it cost? Any accurate answer to such a question would be impossible, but probably about £600. It might be £800; — could not possibly be above £1000. Lopez winced as he heard these sums named, but he did not decline the contest.

Then the name of the opposition candidate was whispered to Lopez. It was Arthur Fletcher! Lopez started, and asked some questions as to Mr. Fletcher’s interest in the neighbourhood. The Fletchers were connected with the De Courcys, and as soon as the declaration of the Duke had been made known, the De Courcy interest had aroused itself, and had invited that rising young barrister, Arthur Fletcher, to stand for the borough on strictly conservative views. Arthur Fletcher had acceded, and a printed declaration of his purpose and political principles had been just published. “I have beaten him once,” said Lopez to himself, “and I think I can beat him again.”

“So you went to Happerton after all,” said Lopez to his ally, Mr. Sextus Parker. “You couldn’t believe me when I told you the money was all right! What a cur you are!”

“That’s right; — abuse me.”

“Well, it was horrid. Didn’t I tell you that it must necessarily injure me with the house? How are two fellows to get on together unless they can put some trust in each other? Even if I did run you into a difficulty, do you really think I’m ruffian enough to tell you that the money was there if it were untrue?”

Sexty looked like a cur and felt like a cur, as he was being thus abused. He was not angry with his friend for calling him bad names, but only anxious to excuse himself. “I was out of sorts,” he said, “and so
d––––d
hippish I didn’t know what I was about.”

“Brandy-and-soda!” suggested Lopez.

“Perhaps a little of that; — though, by Jove, it isn’t often I do that kind of thing. I don’t know a fellow who works harder for his wife and children than I do. But when one sees such things all round one, — a fellow utterly smashed here who had a string of hunters yesterday, and another fellow buying a house in Piccadilly and pulling it down because it isn’t big enough, who was contented with a little box at Hornsey last summer, one doesn’t quite know how to keep one’s legs.”

“If you want to learn a lesson look at the two men, and see where the difference lies. The one has had some heart about him, and the other has been a coward.”

Parker scratched his head, balanced himself on the hind legs of his stool, and tacitly acknowledged the truth of all that his enterprising friend said to him. “Has old Wharton come down well?” at last he asked.

“I have never said a word to old Wharton about money,” Lopez replied, — “except as to the cost of this election I was telling you of.”

“And he wouldn’t do anything in that?”

“He doesn’t approve of the thing itself. I don’t doubt but that the old gentleman and I shall understand each other before long.”

“You’ve got the length of his foot.”

“But I don’t mean to drive him. I can get along without that. He’s an old man, and he can’t take his money along with him when he goes the great journey.”

“There’s a brother, Lopez, — isn’t there?”

“Yes, — there’s a brother; but Wharton has enough for two; and if he were to put either out of his will it wouldn’t be my wife. Old men don’t like parting with their money, and he’s like other old men. If it were not so I shouldn’t bother myself coming into the city at all.”

“Has he enough for that, Lopez?”

“I suppose he’s worth a quarter of a million.”

“By Jove! And where did he get it?”

“Perseverance, sir. Put by a shilling a day, and let it have its natural increase, and see what it will come to at the end of fifty years. I suppose old Wharton has been putting by two or three thousand out of his professional income, at any rate for the last thirty years, and never for a moment forgetting its natural increase. That’s one way to make a fortune.”

“It ain’t rapid enough for you and me, Lopez.”

“No. That was the old-fashioned way, and the most sure. But, as you say, it is not rapid enough; and it robs a man of the power of enjoying his money when he has made it. But it’s a very good thing to be closely connected with a man who has already done that kind of thing. There’s no doubt about the money when it is there. It does not take to itself wings and fly away.”

“But the man who has it sticks to it uncommon hard.”

“Of course he does; — but he can’t take it away with him.”

“He can leave it to hospitals, Lopez. That’s the devil!”

“Sexty, my boy, I see you have taken an outlook into human life which does you credit. Yes, he can leave it to hospitals. But why does he leave it to hospitals?”

“Something of being afraid about his soul, I suppose.”

“No; I don’t believe in that. Such a man as this, who has been hard-fisted all his life, and who has had his eyes thoroughly open, who has made his own money in the sharp intercourse of man to man, and who keeps it to the last gasp, — he doesn’t believe that he’ll do his soul any good by giving it to hospitals when he can’t keep it himself any longer. His mind has freed itself from those cobwebs long since. He gives his money to hospitals because the last pleasure of which he is capable is that of spiting his relations. And it is a great pleasure to an old man, when his relations have been disgusted with him for being old and loving his money. I rather think I should do it myself.”

“I’d give myself a chance of going to heaven, I think,” said Parker.

“Don’t you know that men will rob and cheat on their death-beds, and say their prayers all the time? Old Wharton won’t leave his money to hospitals if he’s well handled by those about him.”

“And you’ll handle him well; — eh, Lopez?”

“I won’t quarrel with him, or tell him that he’s a curmudgeon because he doesn’t do all that I want him. He’s over seventy, and he can’t carry his money with him.”

All this left so vivid an impression of the wisdom of his friend on the mind of Sextus Parker, that in spite of the harrowing fears by which he had been tormented on more than one occasion already, he allowed himself to be persuaded into certain fiscal arrangements, by which Lopez would find himself put at ease with reference to money at any rate for the next four months. He had at once told himself that this election would cost him £1000. When various sums were mentioned in reference to such an affair, safety could alone be found in taking the outside sum; — perhaps might generally be more surely found by adding fifty per cent. to that. He knew that he was wrong about the election, but he assured himself that he had had no alternative. The misfortune had been that the Duke should have made his proclamation about the borough immediately after the offer made by the Duchess. He had been almost forced to send the agent down to inquire; — and the agent, when making his inquiries, had compromised him. He must go on with it now. Perhaps some idea of the pleasantness of increased intimacy with the Duchess of Omnium encouraged him in this way of thinking. The Duchess was up in town in February, and Lopez left a card in Carlton Terrace. On the very next day the card of the Duchess was left for Mrs. Lopez at the Belgrave Mansions.

Lopez went into the city every day, leaving home at about eleven o’clock, and not returning much before dinner. The young wife at first found that she hardly knew what to do with her time. Her aunt, Mrs. Roby, was distasteful to her. She had already learned from her husband that he had but little respect for Mrs. Roby. “You remember the sapphire brooch,” he had said once. “That was part of the price I had to pay for being allowed to approach you.” He was sitting at the time with his arm round her waist, looking out on beautiful scenery and talking of his old difficulties. She could not find it in her heart to be angry with him, but the idea brought to her mind was disagreeable to her. And she was thoroughly angry with Mrs. Roby. Of course in these days Mrs. Roby came to see her, and of course when she was up in Manchester Square, she went to the house round the corner, — but there was no close intimacy between the aunt and the niece. And many of her father’s friends, — whom she regarded as the Herefordshire set, — were very cold to her. She had not made herself a glory to Herefordshire, and, — as all these people said, — had broken the heart of the best Herefordshire young man of the day. This made a great falling-off in her acquaintance, which was the more felt as she had never been, as a girl, devoted to a large circle of dearest female friends. She whom she had loved best had been Mary Wharton, and Mary Wharton had refused to be her bridesmaid almost without an expression of regret. She saw her father occasionally. Once he came and dined with them at their rooms, on which occasion Lopez struggled hard to make up a well-sounding party. There were Roby from the Admiralty, and the Happertons, and Sir Timothy Beeswax, with whom Lopez had become acquainted at Gatherum, and old Lord Mongrober. But the barrister, who had dined out a good deal in his time, perceived the effort. Who, that ever with difficulty scraped his dinner guests together, was able afterwards to obliterate the signs of the struggle? It was, however, a first attempt, and Lopez, whose courage was good, thought that he might do better before long. If he could get into the House and make his mark there people then would dine with him fast enough. But while this was going on Emily’s life was rather dull. He had provided her with a brougham, and everything around her was even luxurious, but there came upon her gradually a feeling that by her marriage she had divided herself from her own people. She did not for a moment allow this feeling to interfere with her loyalty to him. Had she not known that this division would surely take place? Had she not married him because she loved him better than her own people? So she sat herself down to read Dante, — for they had studied Italian together during their honeymoon, and she had found that he knew the language well. And she was busy with her needle. And she already began to anticipate the happiness which would come to her when a child of his should be lying in her arms.