THE PRIME MINISTER (55 page)

‘I’d come oftener if I thought you’d like it’

‘It isn’t liking, my dear. Of course you have to live with your husband. Isn’t this sad about Everett?’

‘Very sad. But Everett hasn’t lived here for ever so long.’

‘I don’t
know why he shouldn’t He was a fool to go away when he did. Does he go to you?’

‘Yes; – sometimes.’

‘And what does he say?’

‘I’m sure he would be with you at once if you would ask him.’

‘I have asked him. I’ve sent word by Lopez over and over again. If he means that I am to write to him and say that I’m sorry for offending him, I won’t. Don’t talk of him any more. It makes me so angry that
I sometimes feel inclined to do things which I know I should repent when dying.’

‘Not anything to injure Everett, papa!’

‘I wonder whether he ever thinks that I am an old man and all alone, and that his brother-in-law is daily with me. But he’s a fool, and thinks of nothing. I know it is very sad being here night after night by myself.’ Mr Wharton forgot, no doubt, at the moment, that he passed
the majority of his evenings at the Eldon, – though, had he been reminded of it, he might have declared with perfect truth that the delights of his club were not satisfactory.

‘Papa,’ said Emily, ‘would you like us to come and live here?’

‘What, – you and Lopez; – here, in the Square?’

‘Yes; – for a time. He is thinking of giving up the place in Belgrave Mansions.’

‘I thought he had them for
– for ever so many months.’

‘He does not like them, and they are expensive, and he can give
them up. If you would wish it, we would come here, – for a time.’ He turned round and looked at her almost suspiciously; and she, –she blushed as she remembered how accurately she was obeying her husband’s orders. ‘It would be such a joy to me to be near you again.’

There was something in her voice which
instantly reassured him. ‘Well -;’ he said; ‘come and try it if it will suit him. The house is big enough. It will ease his pocket and be a comfort to me. Come and try it’

It astonished her that the thing should be done so easily. Here was all that her husband had proposed to arrange by deep diplomacy settled in three words. And yet she felt ashamed of herself, – as though she had taken her father
in. That terrible behest to ‘get round him’ still grated on her ears. Had she got round him? Had she cheated him into this?

‘Papa,’ she said, ‘do not do this unless you feel sure that you will like it.’

‘How is anybody to feel sure of anything, my dear?’

‘But if you doubt, do not do it’

‘I feel sure of one thing, that it will be a great saving to your husband, and I am nearly sure that that
ought not to be a matter of indifference to him. There is plenty of room here, and it will at any rate be a comfort to me to see you sometimes.’ Just at this moment Mrs Roby came in, and the old man began to tell his news aloud. ‘Emily has not gone away for long. She’s coming back like a bad shilling.’

‘Not to live in the Square?’ said Mrs Roby, looking round at Lopez.

‘Why not? There’s room
here for them, and it will be just as well to save expense. When will you come, my dear?’

‘Whenever the house may be ready, papa.’

‘It’s ready now. You ought to know that. I am not going to refurnish the rooms for you, or anything of that kind. Lopez can come in and hang up his hat whenever it pleases him.’

During this time Lopez had hardly known how to speak or what to say. He had been very
anxious that his wife should pave the way as he would have called it He had been urgent with her to break the ice to her father. But it had not occurred to him that the matter would be settled without any reference to himself. Of course he had
heard every word that had been spoken, and was aware that his own poverty had been suggested as the cause for such a proceeding. It was a great thing for
him in every way. He would live for nothing, and would also have almost unlimited power of being with Mr Wharton as old age grew on him. This ready compliance with his wishes was a benefit far too precious to be lost But yet he felt that his own dignity required some reference to himself. It was distasteful to him that his father-in-law should regard him, – or, at any rate, that he should speak
of him, – as a pauper, unable to provide a home for his own wife. ‘Emily’s notion in suggesting it, sir,’ he said, ‘has been her care for your comfort’ The barrister turned round and looked at him, and Lopez did not quite like the look. ‘It was she thought of it first, and she certainly had no other idea than that. When she mentioned it to me I was delighted to agree.’

Emily heard it all and
blushed. It was not absolutely untrue in words, – this assertion of her husband’s, – but altogether false in spirit. And yet she could not contradict him. ‘I don’t see why it should not do very well, indeed,’ said Mrs Roby.

‘I hope it may,’ said the barrister. ‘Come, Emily, I must take you down to dinner to-day. You are not at home yet, you know. As you are to come, the sooner the better.’

During dinner not a word was said on the subject. Lopez exerted himself to be pleasant, and told all that he had heard as to the difficulties of the Cabinet. Sir Orlando had resigned, and the general opinion was that the Coalition was going to pieces. Had Mr Wharton seen the last article in the
Peoples Banner
about the Duke? Lopez was strongly of opinion that Mr Wharton ought to see that article.
‘I never had the
Peoples Banner
within my fingers in my life,’ said the barrister angrily, ‘and I certainly never will.’

‘Ah, sir; this is an exception. You should see this. When Slide really means to cut a fellow up, he can do it. There’s no one like him. And the Duke has deserved it He’s a poor, vacillating creature, led by the Duchess; and she, – according to all that one hears, – she isn’t
much better than she should be.’

‘I thought the Duchess was a great friend of yours,’ said Mr Wharton.

‘I don’t care much for such friendship. She threw me over most shamefully.’

‘And therefore, of course, you are justified in taking away her character. I never saw the Duchess of Omnium in my life, and should probably be very uncomfortable if I found myself in her society; but I believe her
to be a good sort of woman in her way.’ Emily sat perfectly silent, knowing that her husband had been rebuked, but feeling that he had deserved it He, however, was not abashed; but changed the conversation, dashing into city rumours, and legal reforms. The old man from time to time said sharp little things, showing that his intellect was not senile, all of which his son-in-law bore imperturbably.
It was not that he liked it, or was indifferent, but that he knew that he could not get the good things which Mr Wharton could do for him without making some kind of payment. He must take the sharp words of the old man, – and take all that he could get besides.

When the two men were alone together after dinner, Mr Wharton used a different tone. ‘If you are to come,’ he said, ‘you might as well
do it as soon as possible.’

‘A day or two will be enough for us.’

‘There are one or two things you should understand. I shall be very happy to see your friends at any time, but I shall like to know when they are coming before they come.’

‘Of course, sir.’

‘I dine out a good deal.’

‘At the club,’ suggested Lopez.

‘Well; – at the club or elsewhere. It doesn’t matter. There will always be dinner
here for you and Emily, just as though I were at home. I say this, so that there need be no questionings or doubts about it hereafter. And don’t let there ever be any question of money between us.’

‘Certainly not.’

‘Everett has an allowance, and this will be tantamount to an allowance to Emily. You have also had £3,500. I hope it has been well expended; – except the £500 at that election, which
has, of course, been thrown away.’

‘The other was brought into the business.’

‘I don’t know what the business is. But you and Emily must understand that the money has been given as her fortune.’

‘Oh, quite so; – part of it, you mean.’

‘I mean just what I say.’

‘I call it part of it, because, as you observed just now, our living here will be the same as though you made Emily an allowance.’

‘Ah; – well; you can look at it in that light if you please. John has the key of the cellar. He’s a man I can trust. As a rule I have port and sherry at table every day. If you like claret I will get some a little cheaper than what I use when friends are here.’

‘What wine I have is quite indifferent to me.’

‘I like it good, and I have it good. I always breakfast at 9.30. You can have yours earlier
if you please. I don’t know that there’s anything else to be said. I hope we shall get into the way of understanding each other, and being mutually comfortable. Shall we go upstairs to Emily and Mrs Roby?’ And so it was determined that Emily was to come back to her old house about eight months after her marriage.

Mr Wharton himself sat late into the night, all alone, thinking about it. What he
had done, he had done in a morose way, and he was aware that it was so. He had not beamed with smiles, and opened his arms lovingly, and, bidding God bless his dearest children, told them that if they would only come and sit round his hearth he should be the happiest old man in London. He had said little or nothing of his own affection even for his daughter, but had spoken of the matter as one of
which the pecuniary aspect alone was important. He had found out that the saving so effected would be material to Lopez, and had resolved that there should be no shirking of the truth in what he was prepared to do. He had been almost asked to take the young married couple in, and feed them, – so that they might live free of expense. He was willing to do it, – but was not willing that there should
be any soft-worded, high-toned false pretension. He almost read Lopez to the bottom, – not, however giving the man credit for dishonesty so deep or cleverness so great as he possessed. But as regarded Emily, he was also actuated by a personal desire to have her back again as an element of happiness to himself. He had pined for her since he had been left alone, hardly knowing what it was that he
had wanted. And now as he thought of it all, he was angry with himself that he had not been more loving and softer in his manner to her. She at any rate was honest. No doubt of that crossed his mind. And now he had been bitter to her, – bitter in his
manner, – simply because he had not wished to appear to have been taken in by her husband. Thinking of all this, he got up, and went to his desk,
and wrote her a note, which she would receive on the following morning after her husband had left her. It was very short.

DEAREST E
.

I am so overjoyed that you are coming back to me.

A.W.

He had judged her quite rightly. The manner in which the thing had been arranged had made her very wretched. There had been no love in it; – nothing apparently but assertions on one side that much was being
given, and on the other acknowledgements that much was to be received. She was aware that in this her father had condemned her husband. She also had condemned him; – and felt, alas, that she also had been condemned. But this little letter took away that sting. She could read in her father’s note all the action of his mind. He had known that he was bound to acquit her, and he had done so with one
of the old long-valued expressions of his love.

Sir Orlando Drought must have felt bitterly the quiescence with which he sank into obscurity on the second bench on the opposite side of the House. One great occasion he had on which it was his privilege to explain to four or five hundred gentlemen the insuperable reasons which caused him to break away from those right honourable friends to
act with whom had been his comfort and his duty, his great joy and his unalloyed satisfaction. Then he occupied the best part of an hour in abusing those friends and all their measures. This no doubt had been a pleasure, as practice had made the manipulation of words easy to him, – and he was able to revel in that absence of responsibility which must be as a fresh perfumed bath to a minister just
freed from the trammels of office. But the pleasure was surely followed by much suffering when Mr Monk, – Mr Monk who was to assume his place as Leader of the House, – only took five minutes to answer him, saying that he and his colleagues regretted much the loss of the Right Honourable Baronet’s services, but that it would hardly be necessary for him to defend the Ministry on all those points on
which it had been attacked, as, were he to do so, he would have to repeat the arguments by which every measure brought forward by the present Ministry had been supported. Then Mr Monk sat down, and the business of the House went on just as if Sir Orlando Drought had not moved his seat at all.

‘What makes everybody and everything so dead?’ said Sir Orlando to his old friend Mr Boffin as they walked
home together from the House that night. They had in former days been staunch friends, sitting night after night close together, united in opposition, and sometimes, for a few halcyon months in the happier bonds of office. But when Sir Orlando had joined the Coalition, and when the sterner spirit of Mr Boffin had preferred principles to place, – to use the language in which he was wont to speak
to himself and to his wife and family of his own abnegation, – there had come a coolness between them. Mr Boffin, who was not a rich man, nor by any means
indifferent to the comforts of office, had felt keenly the injury done to him when he was left hopelessly in the cold by the desertion of his old friends. It had come to pass that there had been no salt left in the opposition. Mr Boffin in all
his parliamentary experience had known nothing like it Mr Boffin had been sure that British honour was going to the dogs and that British greatness was at an end. But the secession of Sir Orlando gave a little fillip to his life. At any rate he could walk home with his old friend and talk of the horrors of the present day.