THE PRIME MINISTER (35 page)

It was not, therefore,
surprising that Ferdinand Lopez should volunteer no statements to the old lawyer about money, and that he should make no inquiries. He was quite confident that Mr Wharton
had the wealth which was supposed to belong to him, and was willing to trust to his power of obtaining a fair portion of it as soon as he should in truth be Mr Wharton’s son-in-law. Situated as he was, of course he must run some
risk. And then, too, he had spoken of himself with a grain of truth when he had told the Duchess that he was not marrying for money. Ferdinand Lopez was not an honest man or a good man. He was a self-seeking, intriguing adventurer, who did not know honesty from dishonesty when he saw them together. But he had at any rate this good about him, that he did love the girl whom he was about to marry.
He was willing to cheat all the world, – so that he might succeed, and make a fortune, and become a big and a rich man; but he did not wish to cheat her. It was his ambition now to carry her up with him, and he thought how he might best teach her to assist him in doing so, – how he might win her to help him in his cheating, especially in regard to her own father. For to himself, to his own thinking,
that which we call cheating was not dishonesty. To his thinking there was something bold, grand, picturesque, and almost beautiful in the battle which such a one as himself must wage with the world before he could make his way up in it. He would not pick a pocket, or turn a false card, or, as he thought, forge a name. That which he did, and desired to do, took with him the name of speculation.
When he persuaded poor Sexty Parker to hazard his all, knowing well that he induced the unfortunate man to believe what was false, and to trust what was utterly untrustworthy, he did not himself think that he was going beyond the lines of fair enterprise. Now, in his marriage, he had in truth joined himself to real wealth. Could he only command at once that which he thought ought to be his wife’s
share of the lawyer’s money, he did not doubt but that he could make a rapid fortune. It would not do for him to seem to be desirous of the money a day before the time; – but, when the time should come, would not his wife help him in his great career? But before she could do so she must be made to understand something of the nature of that career, and of the need of such aid.

Of course there
arose the question where they should live. But he was ready with an immediate answer to this question. He had been to look at a flat, – a set of rooms, – in the Belgrave Mansions, in Pimlico, or Belgravia you ought more probably to call it. He
proposed to take them furnished till they could look about at their leisure and get a house that should suit them. Would she like a flat’ She would have
liked a cellar with him, and so she told him. Then they went to look at the flat, and old Mr Wharton condescended to go with them. Though his heart was not in the business, still he thought that he was bound to look after his daughter’s comfort. ‘They are very handsome rooms,’ said Mr Wharton, looking round upon the rather gorgeous furniture.

‘Oh, Ferdinand, are they not too grand?’ said Emily.

‘Perhaps they are a little more than we quite want just at present,’ he said. ‘But I’ll tell you, sir, just how it has happened. A man I know wanted to let them for one year, just as they are, and offered them to me for £450, – if I could pay the money in advance, at the moment And so I paid it.’

‘You have taken them, then?’ said Mr Wharton.

‘Is it all settled?’ said Emily, almost with disappointment.

‘I have paid the money, and I have so far taken them. But it is by no means settled. You have only to say you don’t like them, and you shall never be asked to put your foot in them again.’

‘But I do like them,’ she whispered to him.

‘The truth is, sir, that there is not the slightest difficulty in parting with them. So that when the chance came in my way I thought it best to secure the thing.
It had all to be done, so to say, in an hour. My friend, – as far as he was a friend, for I don’t know much about him, – wanted the money and wanted to be off. So here they are, and Emily can do as she likes.’ Of course the rooms were regarded from that moment as the home for the next twelve months of Mr and Mrs Ferdinand Lopez.

And then they were married. The marriage was by no means a gay affair,
the chief management of it falling into the hands of Mrs Dick Roby. Mrs Dick indeed provided not only the breakfast, – or saw rather that it was provided, for of course Mr Wharton paid the bill, – but the four bridesmaids also, and all the company. They were married in the church in Vere Street, then went back to the house in Manchester Square, and within a couple of hours were on their road
to Dover. Through it all not a word was said about money. At the last moment, – when he was free from fear as to any questions about his own affairs, – Lopez had hoped that the old man would say
something. ‘You will find so many thousand pounds at your bankers’; – or, ‘You may look to me for so many hundreds a year.’ But there was not a word. The girl had come to him without the assurance of a
single shilling. In his great endeavour to get her he had been successful. As he thought of this in the carriage, he pressed his arm close round her waist. If the worst were to come to the worst, he would fight the world for her. But if this old man should be stubborn, close-fisted, and absolutely resolved to bestow all his money upon his son because of this marriage, – ah! – how should he be able
to bear such a wrong as that?

Half-a-dozen times during that journey to Dover he resolved to think nothing further about it, at any rate for a fortnight; and yet, before he reached Dover, he had said a word to her. ‘I wonder what your father means to do about money? He never told you?’

‘Not a word.’

‘It is very odd that he should never have said anything.’

‘Does it matter, dear?’

‘Not in
the least. But of course I have to talk about everything to you; – and it is odd.’

On the morning of his marriage, before he went to the altar, Lopez made one or two resolutions as to his future conduct. The first was that he would give himself a fortnight from his marriage day in which he would not even think of money. He had made certain arrangements, in the course of which he had caused Sextus Parker to stare with surprise and to
sweat with dismay, but which nevertheless were successfully concluded. Bills were drawn to run over to February, and ready money to a moderate extent was forthcoming, and fiscal tranquillity was insured for a certain short period. The confidence which Sextus Parker had once felt in his friend’s own resources was somewhat on the decline, but he still believed in his friend’s skill
and genius, and,
after due inquiry, he believed entirely in his friend’s father-in-law. Sextus Parker still thought that things would come round. Ferdinand, – he always now called his friend by his Christian name, – Ferdinand was beautifully, seraphically confident. And Sexty, who had been in a manner magnetized by Ferdinand, was confident too – at certain periods of the day. He was very confident when he had
had his two or three glasses of sherry at luncheon, and he was often delightfully confident with his cigar and brandy-and-water at night. But there were periods in the morning in which he would shake with fear and sweat with dismay.

But Lopez himself, having with his friend’s assistance arranged his affairs comfortably for a month or two, had, as a first resolution, promised himself a fortnight’s
freedom from all carking cares. His second resolution had been that at the end of the fortnight he would commence his operations on Mr Wharton. Up to the last moment he had hoped, – had almost expected, – that a sum of money would have been paid to him. Even a couple of thousand pounds for the time would have been of great use to him; – but no tender of any kind had been made. Not a word had
been said. Things could not of course go on in that way. He was not going to play the coward with his father-in-law. Then he bethought himself how he would act if his father-in-law were sternly to refuse to do anything for him, and he assured himself that in such circumstances he would make himself very disagreeable to his father-in-law. And then his third resolution had reference to his wife. She
must be instructed in his ways. She must learn to look at the world with his eyes. She must be taught the great importance of money, – not in a griping, hard-fisted, prosaic spirit; but that she might participate in that feeling of his own which had in it so much that was grand, so much that was delightful, so much that was picturesque. He would never ask her to be parsimonious, – never even to be
economical. He would take a glory in seeing her well dressed and well attended, with her own carriage and her own jewels. But she must learn that the enjoyment of these things must be built upon a conviction that the most important pursuit in the world was the acquiring of money. And she must be made to understand, first of all, that she had a right to at any rate a half of her father’s fortune.
He had perceived that she had much influence with her father, and she must be taught to use this influence unscrupulously on her husband’s behalf.

We have already seen that under the pressure of his thoughts he did break his first resolution within an hour or two of his marriage. It is easy for a man to say that he will banish care, so that he may enjoy to the full the delights of the moment.
But this is a power which none but a savage possesses, – or perhaps an Irishman. We have learned the lesson from the divines, the philosophers, and the poets.
Post equitem sedet atra cura.
⁵
Thus was Ferdinand Lopez mounted high on his horse, – for he had triumphed greatly in his marriage, and really felt that the world could give him no delight so great as to have her beside him, and her as his
own. But the inky devil sat close upon his shoulders. Where would he be at the end of three months if Mr Wharton would do nothing for him, – and if a certain venture in guano,
⁶
to which he had tempted Sexty Parker, should not turn out the right way? He believed in the guano and he believed in Mr Wharton, but it is a terrible thing to have one’s whole position in the world hanging upon either an
unwilling father-in-law or a probable rise in the value of manure. And then how would he reconcile himself to her if both father-in-law and guano should go against him, and how should he endure her misery?

The inky devil had forced him to ask the question even before they had reached Dover. ‘Does it matter?’ she had asked. Then for the time he had repudiated his solicitude, and had declared that
no question of money was of much consequence to him, – thereby making his future task with her so much the more difficult. After that he said nothing to her on the subject on that their wedding day, – but he could not prevent himself from thinking of it. Had he gone to the depth of ruin without a wife, what would it have mattered? For years past he had been at the same kind of work, – but while
he was unmarried there had been a charm in the very danger. And as a single man he had succeeded, being sometimes utterly impecunious, but still with a capacity of living. Now he had laden himself with a burden of which the very intensity of his love immensely increased the weight. As for not thinking of it, that was impossible. Of course she must help him. Of course she must be taught how imperative
it was that she should help him at once. ‘Is there anything troubles you?’ she said, as she sat leaning against him after their dinner in the hotel at Dover.

‘What should trouble me on such a day as this?’

‘If there is anything, tell it me. I do not mean to say now, at this moment, – unless you wish it. Whatever may be your troubles, it shall be my greatest happiness, as it is my first duty,
to lessen them if I can.’

The promise was very well. It all went in the right direction. It showed him that she was at any rate prepared to take a part in the joint work of their life. But, nevertheless, she should be spared for the moment. ‘When there is trouble, you shall be told everything,’ he said, pressing his lips to her brow, ‘but there is nothing that need trouble you yet’ He smiled
as he said this, but there was something in the tone of his voice which told her that there would be trouble.

When he was in Paris he received a letter from Parker, to whom he had been obliged to entrust a running address, but from whom he had enforced a promise that there should be no letter-writing unless under very pressing circumstances. The circumstances had not been pressing. The letter
contained only one paragraph of any importance, and that was due to what Lopez tried to regard as fidgety cowardice on the part of his ally. ‘Please to bear in mind that I can’t and won’t arrange for the bills for £1,500 due 3rd February.’ That was the paragraph. Who had asked him to arrange for these bills? And yet Lopez was well aware that he intended that poor Sexty should ‘arrange’ for them in
the event of his failure to make arrangements with Mr Wharton.

At last he was quite unable to let the fortnight pass by without beginning the lessons which his wife had to learn. As for that first intention as to driving his cares out of his own mind for that time, he had long since abandoned even the attempt. It was necessary to him that a considerable sum of money should be extracted from the
father-in-law, at any rate before the end of January, and a week or even a day might be of importance. They had hurried on southwards from Paris, and before the end of the first week had passed over the Simplon, and were at a pleasant inn on the shores of Como. Everything in their travels had been as yet delightful to Emily. This man, of whom she knew in truth so little, had certain good gifts,
– gifts of intellect, gifts of temper, gifts of voice and manner and outward appearance, – which had hitherto satisfied her. A husband who is also an eager lover must be delightful to a young bride. And hitherto no lover could have been more tender than Lopez. Every
word and every act, every look and every touch, had been loving. Had she known the world better she might have felt, perhaps, that
something was expected where so much was given. Perhaps a rougher manner, with some little touch of marital self-assertion, might be a safer commencement of married life, – safer to the wife as coming from her husband. Arthur Fletcher by this time would have asked her to bring him his slippers, taking infinite pride in having his little behests obeyed by so sweet a servitor. That also would have
been pleasant to her had her heart in the first instance followed his image; but now also the idolatry of Ferdinand Lopez had been very pleasant.