The Palliser Novels Part 240

"Why not? I should lie to you if I pretended that I was angry with him for what he did."

"Perhaps you will tell me that you love him."

"Of course I love him. There are different kinds of love, Ferdinand. There is that which a woman gives to a man when she would fain mate with him. It is the sweetest love of all, if it would only last. And there is another love, - which is not given, but which is won, perhaps through long years, by old friends. I have none older than Arthur Fletcher, and none who are dearer to me."

"And you think it right that he should take you in his arms and kiss you?"

"On such an occasion I could not blame him."

"You were ready enough to receive it, perhaps."

"Well; I was. He has loved me well, and I shall never see him again. He is very dear to me, and I was parting from him for ever. It was the first and the last, and I did not grudge it to him. You must remember, Ferdinand, that you are taking me across the world from all my friends."

"Psha," he said, "that is all over. You are not going anywhere that I know of, - unless it be out into the streets when your father shuts his door on you." And so saying he left the room without another word.

CHAPTER LX.

The Tenway Junction And thus the knowledge was conveyed to Mrs. Lopez that her fate in life was not to carry her to Guatemala. At the very moment in which she had been summoned to meet Arthur Fletcher she had been busy with her needle preparing that almost endless collection of garments necessary for a journey of many days at sea. And now she was informed, by a chance expression, by a word aside, as it were, that the journey was not to be made. "That is all over," he had said, - and then had left her, telling her nothing further. Of course she stayed her needle. Whether the last word had been true or false, she could not work again, at any rate till it had been contradicted. If it were so, what was to be her fate? One thing was certain to her; - that she could not remain under her father's roof. It was impossible that an arrangement so utterly distasteful as the present one, both to her father and to herself, should be continued. But where then should they live, - and of what nature would her life be if she should be separated from her father?

That evening she saw her father, and he corroborated her husband's statement. "It is all over now," he said, - "that scheme of his of going to superintend the mines. The mines don't want him, and won't have him. I can't say that I wonder at it."

"What are we to do, papa?"

"Ah; - that I cannot say. I suppose he will condescend still to honour me with his company. I do not know why he should wish to go to Guatemala or elsewhere. He has everything here that he can want."

"You know, papa, that that is impossible."

"I cannot say what with him is possible or impossible. He is bound by none of the ordinary rules of mankind."

That evening Lopez returned to his dinner in Manchester Square, which was still regularly served for him and his wife, though the servants who attended upon him did so under silent and oft-repeated protest. He said not a word more as to Arthur Fletcher, nor did he seek any ground of quarrel with his wife. But that her continued melancholy and dejection made anything like good-humour impossible, even on his part, he would have been good-humoured. When they were alone she asked him as to their future destiny. "Papa tells me you are not going," she began by saying.

"Did I not tell you so this morning?"

"Yes; - you said so. But I did not know you were earnest. Is it all over?"

"All over, - I suppose."

"I should have thought that you would have told me with more - more seriousness."

"I don't know what you would have. I was serious enough. The fact is, that your father has delayed so long the payment of the promised money that the thing has fallen through of necessity. I do not know that I can blame the Company."

Then there was a pause. "And now," she said, "what do you mean to do?"

"Upon my word I cannot say. I am quite as much in the dark as you can be."

"That is nonsense, Ferdinand."

"Thank you! Let it be nonsense if you will. It seems to me that there is a great deal of nonsense going on in the world; but very little of it as true as what I say now."

"But it is your duty to know. Of course you cannot stay here."

"Nor you, I suppose, - without me."

"I am not speaking of myself. If you choose, I can remain here."

"And - just throw me overboard altogether."

"If you provide another home for me, I will go to it. However poor it may be I will go to it, if you bid me. But for you, - of course you cannot stay here."

"Has your father told you to say so to me?"

"No; - but I can say so without his telling me. You are banis.h.i.+ng him from his own house. He has put up with it while he thought that you were going to this foreign country; but there must be an end of that now. You must have some scheme of life?"

"Upon my soul I have none."

"You must have some intentions for the future?"

"None in the least. I have had intentions, and they have failed; - from want of that support which I had a right to expect. I have struggled and I have failed, and now I have got no intentions. What are yours?"

"It is not my duty to have any purpose, as what I do must depend on your commands." Then again there was a silence, during which he lit a cigar, although he was sitting in the drawing-room. This was a profanation of the room on which even he had never ventured before, but at the present moment she was unable to notice it by any words. "I must tell papa," she said after a while, "what our plans are."

"You can tell him what you please. I have literally nothing to say to him. If he will settle an adequate income on us, payable of course to me, I will go and live elsewhere. If he turns me into the street without provision, he must turn you too. That is all that I have got to say. It will come better from you than from me. I am sorry, of course, that things have gone wrong with me. When I found myself the son-in-law of a very rich man I thought that I might spread my wings a bit. But my rich father-in-law threw me over, and now I am helpless. You are not very cheerful, my dear, and I think I'll go down to the club."

He went out of the house and did go down to the Progress. The committee which was to be held with the view of judging whether he was or was not a proper person to remain a member of that a.s.semblage had not yet been held, and there was nothing to impede his entrance to the club, or the execution of the command which he gave for tea and b.u.t.tered toast. But no one spoke to him; nor, though he affected a look of comfort, did he find himself much at his ease. Among the members of the club there was a much divided opinion whether he should be expelled or not. There was a strong party who declared that his conduct socially, morally, and politically, had been so bad that nothing short of expulsion would meet the case. But there were others who said that no act had been proved against him which the club ought to notice. He had, no doubt, shown himself to be a blackguard, a man without a spark of honour or honesty. But then, - as they said who thought his position in the club to be una.s.sailable, - what had the club to do with that? "If you turn out all the blackguards and all the dishonourable men, where will the club be?" was a question asked with a great deal of vigour by one middle-aged gentleman who was supposed to know the club-world very thoroughly. He had committed no offence which the law could recognise and punish, nor had he sinned against the club rules. "He is not required to be a man of honour by any regulation of which I am aware," said the middle-aged gentleman. The general opinion seemed to be that he should be asked to go, and that, if he declined, no one should speak to him. This penalty was already inflicted on him, for on the evening in question no one did speak to him.

He drank his tea and ate his toast and read a magazine, striving to look as comfortable and as much at his ease as men at their clubs generally are. He was not a bad actor, and those who saw him and made reports as to his conduct on the following day declared that he had apparently been quite indifferent to the disagreeable incidents of his position. But his indifference had been mere acting. His careless manner with his wife had been all a.s.sumed. Selfish as he was, void as he was of all principle, utterly unmanly and even unconscious of the worth of manliness, still he was alive to the opinions of others. He thought that the world was wrong to condemn him, - that the world did not understand the facts of his case, and that the world generally would have done as he had done in similar circ.u.mstances. He did not know that there was such a quality as honesty, nor did he understand what the word meant. But he did know that some men, an unfortunate cla.s.s, became subject to evil report from others who were more successful, and he was aware that he had become one of those unfortunates. Nor could he see any remedy for his position. It was all blank and black before him. It may be doubted whether he got much instruction or amus.e.m.e.nt from the pages of the magazine which he turned.

At about twelve o'clock he left the club and took his way homewards. But he did not go straight home. It was a nasty cold March night, with a catching wind, and occasional short showers of something between snow and rain, - as disagreeable a night for a gentleman to walk in as one could well conceive. But he went round by Trafalgar Square, and along the Strand, and up some dirty streets by the small theatres, and so on to Holborn and by Bloomsbury Square up to Tottenham Court Road, then through some unused street into Portland Place, along the Marylebone Road, and back to Manchester Square by Baker Street. He had more than doubled the distance, - apparently without any object. He had been spoken to frequently by unfortunates of both s.e.xes, but had answered a word to no one. He had trudged on and on with his umbrella over his head, but almost unconscious of the cold and wet. And yet he was a man sedulously attentive to his own personal comfort and health, who had at any rate shown this virtue in his mode of living, that he had never subjected himself to danger by imprudence. But now the working of his mind kept him warm, and, if not dry, at least indifferent to the damp. He had thrown aside with affected nonchalance those questions which his wife had asked him, but still it was necessary that he should answer them. He did not suppose that he could continue to live in Manchester Square in his present condition. Nor, if it was necessary that he should wander forth into the world, could he force his wife to wander with him. If he would consent to leave her, his father-in-law would probably give him something, - some allowance on which he might exist. But then of what sort would be his life?

He did not fail to remind himself over and over again that he had nearly succeeded. He had been the guest of the Prime Minister, and had been the nominee chosen by a d.u.c.h.ess to represent her husband's borough in Parliament. He had been intimate with Mills Happerton who was fast becoming a millionaire. He had married much above himself in every way. He had achieved a certain popularity and was conscious of intellect. But at the present moment two or three sovereigns in his pocket were the extent of his worldly wealth and his character was utterly ruined. He regarded his fate as does a card-player who day after day holds sixes and sevens when other men have the aces and kings. Fate was against him. He saw no reason why he should not have had the aces and kings continually, especially as fate had given him perhaps more than his share of them at first. He had, however, lost rubber after rubber, - not paying his stakes for some of the last rubbers lost, - till the players would play with him no longer. The misfortune might have happened to any man; - but it had happened to him. There was no beginning again. A possible small allowance and some very retired and solitary life, in which there would be no show of honour, no flattery coming to him, was all that was left to him.

He let himself in at the house, and found his wife still awake. "I am wet to the skin," he said. "I made up my mind to walk, and I would do it; - but I am a fool for my pains." She made him some feeble answer, affecting to be half asleep, and merely turned in her bed. "I must be out early in the morning. Mind you make them dry my things. They never do anything for my telling."

"You don't want them dried to-night?"

"Not to-night, of course; - but after I am gone to-morrow. They'll leave them there without putting a hand to them, if you don't speak. I must be off before breakfast to-morrow."

"Where are you going? Do you want anything packed?"

"No; nothing. I shall be back to dinner. But I must go down to Birmingham, to see a friend of Happerton's on business. I will breakfast at the station. As you said to-day, something must be done. If it's to sweep a crossing, I must sweep it."

As she lay awake while he slept, she thought that those last words were the best she had heard him speak since they were married. There seemed to be some indication of a purpose in them. If he would only sweep a crossing as a man should sweep it, she would stand by him, and at any rate do her duty to him, in spite of all that had happened. Alas! she was not old enough to have learned that a dishonest man cannot begin even to sweep a crossing honestly till he have in very truth repented of his former dishonesty. The lazy man may become lazy no longer, but there must have been first a process through his mind whereby laziness has become odious to him. And that process can hardly be the immediate result of misfortune arising from misconduct. Had Lopez found his crossing at Birmingham he would hardly have swept it well.

Early on the following morning he was up, and before he left his room he kissed his wife. "Good-bye, old girl," he said; "don't be down-hearted."

"If you have anything before you to do, I will not be down-hearted," she said.

"I shall have something to do before night, I think. Tell your father, when you see him, that I will not trouble him here much longer. But tell him, also, that I have no thanks to give him for his hospitality."

"I will not tell him that, Ferdinand."

"He shall know it, though. But I do not mean to be cross to you. Good-bye, love." Then he stooped over her and kissed her again; - and so he took his leave of her.

It was raining hard, and when he got into the street he looked about for a cab, but there was none to be found. In Baker Street he got an omnibus which took him down to the underground railway, and by that he went to Gower Street. Through the rain he walked up to the Euston Station, and there he ordered breakfast. Could he have a mutton chop and some tea? And he was very particular that the mutton chop should be well cooked. He was a good-looking man, of fas.h.i.+onable appearance, and the young lady who attended him noticed him and was courteous to him. He condescended even to have a little light conversation with her, and, on the whole, he seemed to enjoy his breakfast. "Upon my word, I should like to breakfast here every day of my life," he said. The young lady a.s.sured him that, as far as she could see, there was no objection to such an arrangement. "Only it's a bore, you know, coming out in the rain when there are no cabs," he said. Then there were various little jokes between them, till the young lady was quite impressed with the gentleman's pleasant affability.

After a while he went back into the hall and took a first-cla.s.s return ticket, not for Birmingham, but for the Tenway Junction. It is quite unnecessary to describe the Tenway Junction, as everybody knows it. From this spot, some six or seven miles distant from London, lines diverge east, west, and north, north-east, and north-west, round the metropolis in every direction, and with direct communication with every other line in and out of London. It is a marvellous place, quite unintelligible to the uninitiated, and yet daily used by thousands who only know that when they get there, they are to do what some one tells them. The s.p.a.ce occupied by the convergent rails seems to be sufficient for a large farm. And these rails always run one into another with sloping points, and cross pa.s.sages, and mysterious meandering sidings, till it seems to the thoughtful stranger to be impossible that the best trained engine should know its own line. Here and there and around there is ever a wilderness of waggons, some loaded, some empty, some smoking with close-packed oxen, and others furlongs in length black with coals, which look as though they had been stranded there by chance, and were never destined to get again into the right path of traffic. Not a minute pa.s.ses without a train going here or there, some rus.h.i.+ng by without noticing Tenway in the least, cras.h.i.+ng through like flashes of substantial lightning, and others stopping, disgorging and taking up pa.s.sengers by the hundreds. Men and women, - especially the men, for the women knowing their ignorance are generally willing to trust to the pundits of the place, - look doubtful, uneasy, and bewildered. But they all do get properly placed and unplaced, so that the spectator at last acknowledges that over all this apparent chaos there is presiding a great genius of order. From dusky morn to dark night, and indeed almost throughout the night, the air is loaded with a succession of shrieks. The theory goes that each separate shriek, - if there can be any separation where the sound is so nearly continuous, - is a separate notice to separate ears of the coming or going of a separate train. The stranger, as he speculates on these pandemoniac noises, is able to realise the idea that were they discontinued the excitement necessary for the minds of the pundits might be lowered, and that activity might be lessened, and evil results might follow. But he cannot bring himself to credit that theory of individual notices.

At Tenway Junction there are half-a-dozen long platforms, on which men and women and luggage are crowded. On one of these for a while Ferdinand Lopez walked backwards and forwards as though waiting for the coming of some especial train. The crowd is ever so great that a man might be supposed to walk there from morning to night without exciting special notice. But the pundits are very clever, and have much experience in men and women. A well-taught pundit, who has exercised authority for a year or two at such a station as that of Tenway, will know within a minute of the appearance of each stranger what is his purpose there, - whether he be going or has just come, whether he is himself on the way or waiting for others, whether he should be treated with civility or with some curt command, - so that if his purport be honest all necessary a.s.sistance may be rendered him. As Lopez was walking up and down, with smiling face and leisurely pace, now reading an advertis.e.m.e.nt and now watching the contortions of some amazed pa.s.senger, a certain pundit asked him his business. He was waiting, he said, for a train from Liverpool, intending, when his friend arrived, to go with him to Dulwich by a train which went round the west of London. It was all feasible, and the pundit told him that the stopping train from Liverpool was due there in six minutes, but that the express from the north would pa.s.s first. Lopez thanked the pundit and gave him sixpence, - which made the pundit suspicious. A pundit hopes to be paid when he handles luggage, but has no such expectation when he merely gives information.

The pundit still had his eye on our friend when the shriek and the whirr of the express from the north was heard. Lopez walked quickly up towards the edge of the platform, when the pundit followed him, telling him that this was not his train. Lopez then ran a few yards along the platform, not noticing the man, reaching a spot that was unoccupied; - and there he stood fixed. And as he stood the express flashed by. "I am fond of seeing them pa.s.s like that," said Lopez to the man who had followed him.

"But you shouldn't do it, sir," said the suspicious pundit. "No one isn't allowed to stand near like that. The very hair of it might take you off your legs when you're not used to it."

"All right, old fellow," said Lopez, retreating. The next train was the Liverpool train; and it seemed that our friend's friend had not come, for when the Liverpool pa.s.sengers had cleared themselves off, he was still walking up and down the platform. "He'll come by the next," said Lopez to the pundit, who now followed him about and kept an eye on him.

"There ain't another from Liverpool stopping here till the 2.20," said the pundit. "You had better come again if you mean to meet him by that."

"He has come on part of the way, and will reach this by some other train," said Lopez.

"There ain't nothing he can come by," said the pundit. "Gentlemen can't wait here all day, sir. The horders is against waiting on the platform."

"All right," said Lopez, moving away as though to make his exit through the station.

Now Tenway Junction is so big a place, and so scattered, that it is impossible that all the pundits should by any combined activity maintain to the letter that order of which our special pundit had spoken. Lopez, departing from the platform which he had hitherto occupied, was soon to be seen on another, walking up and down, and again waiting. But the old pundit had had his eye upon him, and had followed him round. At that moment there came a shriek louder than all the other shrieks, and the morning express down from Euston to Inverness was seen coming round the curve at a thousand miles an hour. Lopez turned round and looked at it, and again walked towards the edge of the platform. But now it was not exactly the edge that he neared, but a descent to a pathway, - an inclined plane leading down to the level of the rails, and made there for certain purposes of traffic. As he did so the pundit called to him, and then made a rush at him, - for our friend's back was turned to the coming train. But Lopez heeded not the call, and the rush was too late. With quick, but still with gentle and apparently unhurried steps, he walked down before the flying engine - and in a moment had been knocked into b.l.o.o.d.y atoms.

CHAPTER LXI.

The Widow and Her Friends The catastrophe described in the last chapter had taken place during the first week in March. By the end of that month old Mr. Wharton had probably reconciled himself to the tragedy, although in fact it had affected him very deeply. In the first days after the news had reached him he seemed to be bowed to the ground. Stone Buildings were neglected, and the Eldon saw nothing of him. Indeed, he barely left the house from which he had been so long banished by the presence of his son-in-law. It seemed to Everett, who now came to live with him and his sister, as though his father were overcome by the horror of the affair. But after awhile he recovered himself, and appeared one morning in court with his wig and gown, and argued a case, - which was now unusual with him, - as though to show the world that a dreadful episode in his life was pa.s.sed, and should be thought of no more. At this period, three or four weeks after the occurrence, - he rarely spoke to his daughter about Lopez; but to Everett the man's name would be often on his tongue. "I do not know that there could have been any other deliverance," he said to his son one day. "I thought it would have killed me when I first heard it, and it nearly killed her. But, at any rate, now there is peace."

But the widow seemed to feel it more as time went on. At first she was stunned, and for a while absolutely senseless. It was not till two days after the occurrence that the fact became known to her, - nor known as a certainty to her father and brother. It seemed as though the man had been careful to carry with him no record of ident.i.ty, the nature of which would permit it to outlive the crash of the train. No card was found, no sc.r.a.p of paper with his name; and it was discovered at last that when he left the house on the fatal morning he had been careful to dress himself in s.h.i.+rt and socks, with handkerchief and collar that had been newly purchased for his proposed journey and which bore no mark. The fragments of his body set ident.i.ty at defiance, and even his watch had been crumpled into ashes. Of course the fact became certain with no great delay. The man himself was missing, and was accurately described both by the young lady from the refreshment room, and by the suspicious pundit who had actually seen the thing done. There was first belief that it was so, which was not communicated to Emily, - and then certainty.

There was an inquest held of course, - well, we will say on the body, - and, singularly enough, great difference of opinion as to the manner, though of course none as to the immediate cause of the death. Had it been accidental, or premeditated? The pundit, who in the performance of his duties on the Tenway platforms was so efficient and valuable, gave half-a-dozen opinions in half-a-dozen minutes when subjected to the questions of the Coroner. In his own mind he had not the least doubt in the world as to what had happened. But he was made to believe that he was not to speak his own mind. The gentleman, he said, certainly might have walked down by accident. The gentleman's back was turned, and it was possible that the gentleman did not hear the train. He was quite certain the gentleman knew of the train; but yet he could not say. The gentleman walked down before the train o' purpose; but perhaps he didn't mean to do himself an injury. There was a deal of this, till the Coroner, putting all his wrath into his brow, told the man that he was a disgrace to the service, and expressed a hope that the Company would no longer employ a man so evidently unfit for his position. But the man was in truth a conscientious and useful railway pundit, with a large family, and evident capabilities for his business. At last a verdict was given, - that the man's name was Ferdinand Lopez, that he had been crushed by an express train on the London and North Western Line, and that there was no evidence to show how his presence on the line had been occasioned. Of course Mr. Wharton had employed counsel, and of course the counsel's object had been to avoid a verdict of felo de se. Appended to the verdict was a recommendation from the jury that the Railway Company should be advised to signalise their express trains more clearly at the Tenway Junction Station.

When these tidings were told to the widow she had already given way to many fears. Lopez had gone, purporting, - as he said, - to be back to dinner. He had not come then, nor on the following morning; nor had he written. Then she remembered all that he had done and said; - how he had kissed her, and left a parting malediction for her father. She did not at first imagine that he had destroyed himself, but that he had gone away, intending to vanish as other men before now have vanished. As she thought of this something almost like love came back upon her heart. Of course he was bad. Even in her sorrow, even when alarmed as to his fate, she could not deny that. But her oath to him had not been to love him only while he was good. She had made herself a part of him, and was she not bound to be true to him, whether good or bad? She implored her father and she implored her brother to be ceaseless in their endeavours to trace him, - sometimes seeming almost to fear that in this respect she could not fully trust them. Then she discerned from their manner a doubt as to her husband's fate. "Oh, papa, if you think anything, tell me what you think," she said late on the evening of the second day. He was then nearly sure that the man who had been killed at Tenway was Ferdinand Lopez; - but he was not quite sure, and he would not tell her. But on the following morning, somewhat before noon, having himself gone out early to Euston Square, he came back to his own house, - and then he told her all. For the first hour she did not shed a tear or lose her consciousness of the horror of the thing; - but sat still and silent, gazing at nothing, casting back her mind over the history of her life, and the misery which she had brought on all who belonged to her. Then at last she gave way, fell into tears, hysteric sobbings, convulsions so violent as for a time to take the appearance of epileptic fits, and was at last exhausted and, happily for herself, unconscious.

After that she was ill for many weeks, - so ill that at times both her father and her brother thought that she would die. When the first month or six weeks had pa.s.sed by she would often speak of her husband, especially to her father, and always speaking of him as though she had brought him to his untimely fate. Nor could she endure at this time that her father should say a word against him, even when she obliged the old man to speak of one whose conduct had been so infamous. It had all been her doing! Had she not married him there would have been no misfortune! She did not say that he had been n.o.ble, true, or honest, - but she a.s.serted that all the evils which had come upon him had been produced by herself. "My dear," her father said to her one evening, "it is a matter which we cannot forget, but on which it is well that we should be silent."

"I shall always know what that silence means," she replied.

"It will never mean condemnation of you by me," said he.

"But I have destroyed your life, - and his. I know I ought not to have married him, because you bade me not. And I know that I should have been gentler with him, and more obedient, when I was his wife. I sometimes wish that I were a Catholic, and that I could go into a convent, and bury it all amidst sackcloths and ashes."

"That would not bury it," said her father.

"But I should at least be buried. If I were out of sight, you might forget it all."

She once stirred Everett up to speak more plainly than her father ever dared to do, and then also she herself used language that was very plain. "My darling," said her brother once, when she had been trying to make out that her husband had been more sinned against than sinning, - "he was a bad man. It is better that the truth should be told."

"And who is a good man?" she said, raising herself in her bed and looking him full in the face with her deep-sunken eyes. "If there be any truth in our religion, are we not all bad? Who is to tell the shades of difference in badness? He was not a drunkard, or a gambler. Through it all he was true to his wife." She, poor creature, was of course ignorant of that little scene in the little street near May Fair, in which Lopez had offered to carry Lizzie Eustace away with him to Guatemala. "He was industrious. His ideas about money were not the same as yours or papa's. How was he worse than others? It happened that his faults were distasteful to you - and so, perhaps, were his virtues."

"His faults, such as they were, brought all these miseries."

"He would have been successful now if he had never seen me. But why should we talk of it? We shall never agree. And you, Everett, can never understand all that has pa.s.sed through my mind during the last two years."

There were two or three persons who attempted to see her at this period, but she avoided them all. First came Mrs. Roby, who, as her nearest neighbour, as her aunt, and as an aunt who had been so nearly allied to her, had almost a right to demand admittance. But she would not see Mrs. Roby. She sent down word to say that she was too ill. And when Mrs. Roby wrote to her, she got her father to answer the notes. "You had better let it drop," the old man said at last to his sister-in-law. "Of course she remembers that it was you who brought them together."

"But I didn't bring them together, Mr. Wharton. How often am I to tell you so? It was Everett who brought Mr. Lopez here."

"The marriage was made up in your house, and it has destroyed me and my child. I will not quarrel with my wife's sister if I can help it, but at present you had better keep apart." Then he had left her abruptly, and Mrs. Roby had not dared either to write or to call again.

At this time Arthur Fletcher saw both Everett and Mr. Wharton frequently, but he did not go to the Square, contenting himself with asking whether he might be allowed to do so. "Not yet, Arthur," said the old man. "I am sure she thinks of you as one of her best friends, but she could not see you yet."

"She would have nothing to fear," said Arthur. "We knew each other when we were children, and I should be now only as I was then."

"Not yet, Arthur; - not yet," said the barrister.

Then there came a letter, or rather two letters, from Mary Wharton; - one to Mr. Wharton and the other to Emily. To tell the truth as to these letters, they contained the combined wisdom and tenderness of Wharton Hall and Longbarns. As soon as the fate of Lopez had been ascertained and thoroughly discussed in Herefords.h.i.+re, there went forth an edict that Emily had suffered punishment sufficient and was to be forgiven. Old Mrs. Fletcher did not come to this at once, - having some deep-seated feeling which she did not dare to express even to her son, though she muttered it to her daughter-in-law, that Arthur would be disgraced for ever were he to marry the widow of such a man as Ferdinand Lopez. But when this question of receiving Emily back into family favour was mooted in the Longbarns Parliament no one alluded to the possibility of such a marriage. There was the fact that she whom they had all loved had been freed by a great tragedy from the husband whom they had all condemned, - and also the knowledge that the poor victim had suffered greatly during the period of her married life. Mrs. Fletcher had frowned, and shaken her head, and made a little speech about the duties of women, and the necessarily fatal consequences when those duties are neglected. There were present there, with the old lady, John Fletcher and his wife, Sir Alured and Lady Wharton, and Mary Wharton. Arthur was not in the county, nor could the discussion have been held in his presence. "I can only say," said John, getting up and looking away from his mother, "that she shall always find a home at Longbarns when she chooses to come here, and I hope Sir Alured will say the same as to Wharton Hall." After all, John Fletcher was king in these parts, and Mrs. Fletcher, with many noddings and some sobbing, had to give way to King John. The end of all this was that Mary Wharton wrote her letters. In that to Mr. Wharton she asked whether it would not be better that her cousin should change the scene and come at once into the country. Let her come and stay a month at Wharton, and then go on to Longbarns. She might be sure that there would be no company in either house. In June the Fletchers would go up to town for a week, and then Emily might return to Wharton Hall. It was a long letter, and Mary gave many reasons why the poor sufferer would be better in the country than in town. The letter to Emily herself was shorter but full of affection. "Do, do, do come. You know how we all love you. Let it be as it used to be. You always liked the country. I will devote myself to try and comfort you." But Emily could not as yet submit to receive devotion even from her cousin Mary. Through it all, and under it all, - though she would ever defend her husband because he was dead, - she knew that she had disgraced the Whartons and brought a load of sorrow upon the Fletchers, and she was too proud to be forgiven so quickly.

Then she received another tender of affection from a quarter whence she certainly did not expect it. The d.u.c.h.ess of Omnium wrote to her. The d.u.c.h.ess, though she had lately been considerably restrained by the condition of the Duke's mind, and by the effects of her own political and social mistakes, still from time to time made renewed efforts to keep together the Coalition by giving dinners, b.a.l.l.s, and garden parties, and by binding to herself the grat.i.tude and wors.h.i.+p of young parliamentary aspirants. In carrying out her plans, she had lately showered her courtesies upon Arthur Fletcher, who had been made welcome even by the Duke as the sitting member for Silverbridge. With Arthur she had of course discussed the conduct of Lopez as to the election bills, and had been very loud in condemning him. And from Arthur also she had heard something of the sorrows of Emily Lopez. Arthur had been very desirous that the d.u.c.h.ess, who had received them both at her house, should distinguish between the husband and the wife. Then had come the tragedy, to which the notoriety of the man's conduct of course gave additional interest. It was believed that Lopez had destroyed himself because of the disgrace which had fallen upon him from the Silverbridge affair. And for much of that Silverbridge affair the d.u.c.h.ess herself was responsible. She waited till a couple of months had gone by, and then, in the beginning of May, sent to the widow what was intended to be, and indeed was, a very kind note. The d.u.c.h.ess had heard the sad story with the greatest grief. She hoped that Mrs. Lopez would permit her to avail herself of a short acquaintance to express her sincere sympathy. She would not venture to call as yet, but hoped that before long she might be allowed to come to Manchester Square.

This note touched the poor woman to whom it was written, not because she herself was solicitous to be acquainted with the d.u.c.h.ess of Omnium, but because the application seemed to her to contain something like an acquittal, or at any rate a pardon, of her husband. His sin in that measure of the Silverbridge election, - a sin which her father had been loud in denouncing before the wretch had destroyed himself, - had been especially against the Duke of Omnium. And now the d.u.c.h.ess came forward to say that it should be forgiven and forgotten. When she showed the letter to her father, and asked him what she should say in answer to it, he only shook his head. "It is meant for kindness, papa."

"Yes; - I think it is. There are people who have no right to be kind to me. If a man stopped me in the street and offered me half-a-crown it might be kindness; - but I don't want the man's half-crown."

"I don't think it is the same, papa. There is a reason here."

"Perhaps so, my dear; but I do not see the reason."

She became very red, but even to him she would not explain her ideas. "I think I shall answer it."

"Certainly answer it. Your compliments to the d.u.c.h.ess and thank her for her kind inquiries."

"But she says she will come here."

"I should not notice that."