The Palliser Novels (437 page)

She was of course much interested about the election. Nothing could as yet be done, because as yet there was no vacancy; but still the subject was discussed daily between them. “Who do you think is going to stand against me?” he said one day with a smile. “A very old friend of yours.” She knew at once who the man was, and the blood came to her face. “I think he might as well have left it alone, you know,” he said.

“Did he know?” she asked in a whisper.

“Know; — of course he knew. He is doing it on purpose. But I beat him once, old girl, didn’t I? And I’ll beat him again.” She liked him to call her old girl. She loved the perfect intimacy with which he treated her. But there was something which grated against her feelings in this allusion by him to the other man who had loved her. Of course she had told him the whole story. She had conceived it to be her duty to do so. But then the thing should have been over. It was necessary, perhaps, that he should tell her who was his opponent. It was impossible that she should not know when the fight came. But she did not like to hear him boast that he had beaten Arthur Fletcher once, and that he would beat him again. By doing so he likened the sweet fragrance of her love to the dirty turmoil of an electioneering contest.

He did not understand, — how should he? — that though she had never loved Arthur Fletcher, had never been able to bring herself to love him when all her friends had wished it, her feelings to him were nevertheless those of affectionate friendship; — that she regarded him as being perfect in his way, a thorough gentleman, a man who would not for worlds tell a lie, as most generous among the generous, most noble among the noble. When the other Whartons had thrown her off, he had not been cold to her. That very day, as soon as her husband had left her, she looked again at that little note. “I am as I always have been!” And she remembered that farewell down by the banks of the Wye. “You will always have one, — one besides him, — who will love you best in the world.” They were dangerous words for her to remember; but in recalling them to her memory she had often assured herself that they should not be dangerous to her. She was too sure of her own heart to be afraid of danger. She had loved the one man and had not loved the other; — but yet, now, when her husband talked of beating this man again, she could not but remember the words.

She did not think, — or rather had not thought, — that Arthur Fletcher would willingly stand against her husband. It had occurred to her at once that he must first have become a candidate without knowing who would be his opponent. But Ferdinand had assured her as a matter of fact that Fletcher had known all about it. “I suppose in politics men are different,” she said to herself. Her husband had evidently supposed that Arthur Fletcher had proposed himself as a candidate for Silverbridge, with the express object of doing an injury to the man who had carried off his love. And she repeated to herself her husband’s words, “He is doing it on purpose.” She did not like to differ from her husband, but she could hardly bring herself to believe that revenge of this kind should have recommended itself to Arthur Fletcher.

Some little time after this, when she had been settled in London about a month, a letter was brought her, and she at once recognised Arthur Fletcher’s writing. She was alone at the time, and it occurred to her at first that perhaps she ought not to open any communication from him without showing it to her husband. But then it seemed that such a hesitation would imply a doubt of the man, and almost a doubt of herself. Why should she fear what any man might write to her? So she opened the letter, and read it, — with infinite pleasure. It was as
follows: —
 

My dear Mrs. Lopez
,

I think it best to make an explanation to you as to a certain coincidence which might possibly be misunderstood unless explained. I find that your husband and I are to be opponents at Silverbridge. I wish to say that I had pledged myself to the borough before I had heard his name as connected with it. I have very old associations with the neighbourhood, and was invited to stand by friends who had known me all my life as soon as it was understood that there would be an open contest. I cannot retire now without breaking faith with my party, nor do I know that there is any reason why I should do so. I should not, however, have come forward had I known that Mr. Lopez was to stand. I think you had better tell him so, and tell him also, with my compliments, that I hope we may fight our political battle with mutual good-fellowship and good-feeling.

Yours very sincerely,

Arthur Fletcher
.
 

Emily was very much pleased by this letter, and yet she wept over it. She felt that she understood accurately all the motives that were at work within the man’s breast when he was writing it. As to its truth, — of course the letter was gospel to her. Oh, — if the man could become her husband’s friend how sweet it would be! Of course she wished, thoroughly wished, that her husband should succeed at Silverbridge. But she could understand that such a contest as this might be carried on without personal animosity. The letter was so like Arthur Fletcher, — so good, so noble, so generous, so true! The moment her husband came in she showed it to him with delight. “I was sure,” she said as he was reading the letter, “that he had not known that you were to stand.”

“He knew it as well as I did,” he replied, and as he spoke there came a dark scowl across his brow. “His writing to you is a piece of infernal impudence.”

“Oh, Ferdinand!”

“You don’t understand, but I do. He deserves to be horsewhipped for daring to write to you, and if I can come across him he shall have it.”

“Oh, — for heaven’s sake!”

“A man who was your rejected lover, — who has been trying to marry you for the last two years, presuming to commence a correspondence with you without your husband’s sanction!”

“He meant you to see it. He says I am to tell you.”

“Psha! That is simple cowardice. He meant you not to tell me; and then when you had answered him without telling me, he would have had the whip-hand of you.”

“Oh, Ferdinand, what evil thoughts you have!”

“You are a child, my dear, and must allow me to dictate to you what you ought to think in such a matter as this. I tell you he knew all about my candidature, and that what he has said here to the contrary is a mere lie; — yes, a lie.” He repeated the word because he saw that she shrank at hearing it; but he did not understand why she shrank, — that the idea of such an accusation against Arthur Fletcher was intolerable to her. “I have never heard of such a thing,” he continued. “Do you suppose it is common for men who have been thrown over to write to the ladies who have rejected them immediately after their marriage?”

“Do not the circumstances justify it?”

“No; — they make it infinitely worse. He should have felt himself to be debarred from writing to you, both as being my wife and as being the wife of the man whom he intends to oppose at Silverbridge.”

This he said with so much anger that he frightened her. “It is not my fault,” she said.

“No; it is not your fault. But you should regard it as a great fault committed by him.”

“What am I to do?”

“Give me the letter. You, of course, can do nothing.”

“You will not quarrel with him?”

“Certainly I will. I have quarrelled with him already. Do you think I will allow any man to insult my wife without quarrelling with him? What I shall do I cannot yet say, and whatever I may do, you had better not know. I never thought much of these Herefordshire swells who believe themselves to be the very cream of the earth, and now I think less of them than ever.”

He was then silent, and slowly she took herself out of the room, and went away to dress. All this was very terrible. He had never been rough to her before, and she could not at all understand why he had been so rough to her now. Surely it was impossible that he should be jealous because her old lover had written to her such a letter as that which she had shown him! And then she was almost stunned by the opinions he had expressed about Fletcher, opinions which she knew, — was sure that she knew, — to be absolutely erroneous. A liar! Oh, heavens! And then the letter itself was so ingenuous and so honest! Anxious as she was to do all that her husband bade her, she could not be guided by him in this matter. And then she remembered his words: “You must allow me to dictate to you what you ought to think.” Could it be that marriage meant as much as that, — that a husband was to claim to dictate to his wife what opinions she was to form about this and that person, — about a person she had known so well, whom he had never known? Surely she could only think in accordance with her own experience and her own intelligence! She was certain that Arthur Fletcher was no liar. Not even her own husband could make her think that.

Emily Lopez, when she crept out of her own room and joined her husband just before dinner, was hardly able to speak to him, so thoroughly was she dismayed, and troubled, and horrified, by the manner in which he had taken Arthur Fletcher’s letter. While she had been alone she had thought it all over, anxious if possible to bring herself into sympathy with her husband; but the more she thought of it the more evident did it become to her that he was altogether wrong. He was so wrong that it seemed to her that she would be a hypocrite if she pretended to agree with him. There were half-a-dozen accusations conveyed against Mr. Fletcher by her husband’s view of the matter. He was a liar, giving a false account of his candidature; — and he was a coward; and an enemy to her, who had laid a plot by which he had hoped to make her act fraudulently towards her own husband, who had endeavoured to creep into a correspondence with her, and so to compromise her! All this, which her husband’s mind had so easily conceived, was not only impossible to her, but so horrible that she could not refrain from disgust at her husband’s conception. The letter had been left with him, but she remembered every word of it. She was sure that it was an honest letter, meaning no more than had been said, — simply intending to explain to her that he would not willingly have stood in the way of a friend whom he had loved, by interfering with her husband’s prospects. And yet she was told that she was to think as her husband bade her think! She could not think so. She could not say that she thought so. If her husband would not credit her judgment, let the matter be referred to her father. Ferdinand would at any rate acknowledge that her father could understand such a matter even if she could not.

During dinner he said nothing on the subject, nor did she. They were attended by a page in buttons whom he had hired to wait upon her, and the meal passed off almost in silence. She looked up at him frequently and saw that his brow was still black. As soon as they were alone she spoke to him, having studied during dinner what words she would first say: “Are you going down to the club to-night?” He had told her that the matter of this election had been taken up at the Progress, and that possibly he might have to meet two or three persons there on this evening. There had been a proposition that the club should bear a part of the expenditure, and he was very solicitous that such an arrangement should be made.

“No,” said he, “I shall not go out to-night. I am not sufficiently light-hearted.”

“What makes you heavy-hearted, Ferdinand?”

“I should have thought you would have known.”

“I suppose I do know, — but I don’t know why it should. I don’t know why you should be displeased. At any rate, I have done nothing wrong.”

“No; — not as to the letter. But it astonishes me that you should be so — so bound to this man
that — “

“Bound to him, Ferdinand!”

“No; — you are bound to me. But that you have so much regard for him as not to see that he has grossly insulted you.”

“I have a regard for him.”

“And you dare to tell me so?”

“Dare! What should I be if I had any feeling which I did not dare to tell you? There is no harm in regarding a man with friendly feelings whom I have known since I was a child, and whom all my family have loved.”

“Your family wanted you to marry him!”

“They did. But I have married you, because I loved you. But I need not think badly of an old friend, because I did not love him. Why should you be angry with him? What can you have to be afraid of?” Then she came and sat on his knee and caressed him.

“It is he that shall be afraid of me,” said Lopez. “Let him give the borough up if he means what he says.”

“Who could ask him to do that?”

“Not you, — certainly.”

“Oh, no.”

“I can ask him.”

“Could you, Ferdinand?”

“Yes; — with a horsewhip in my hand.”

“Indeed, indeed you do not know him. Will you do this; — will you tell my father everything, and leave it to him to say whether Mr. Fletcher has behaved badly to you?”

“Certainly not. I will not have any interference from your father between you and me. If I had listened to your father, you would not have been here now. Your father is not as yet a friend of mine. When he comes to know what I can do for myself, and that I can rise higher than these Herefordshire people, then perhaps he may become my friend. But I will consult him in nothing so peculiar to myself as my own wife. And you must understand that in coming to me all obligation from you to him became extinct. Of course he is your father; but in such a matter as this he has no more to say to you than any stranger.” After that he hardly spoke to her; but sat for an hour with a book in his hand, and then rose and said that he would go down to the club. “There is so much villainy about,” he said, “that a man if he means to do anything must keep himself on the watch.”

When she was alone she at once burst into tears; but she soon dried her eyes, and putting down her work, settled herself to think of it all. What did it mean? Why was he thus changed to her? Could it be that he was the same Ferdinand to whom she had given herself without a doubt as to his personal merit? Every word that he had spoken since she had shown him the letter from Arthur Fletcher had been injurious to her, and offensive. It almost seemed as though he had determined to show himself to be a tyrant to her, and had only put off playing the part till the first convenient opportunity after their honeymoon. But through all this, her ideas were loyal to him. She would obey him in all things where obedience was possible, and would love him better than all the world. Oh yes; — for was he not her husband? Were he to prove himself the worst of men she would still love him. It had been for better or for worse; and as she had repeated the words to herself, she had sworn that if the worst should come, she would still be true.