'GET ROUND HIM.'
Ferdinand Lopez maintained his anger against his wife for more than a week, after the scene at Richmond, feeding it with reflections on what he called her disobedience.Nor was it a make-believe anger.She had declared her intention to act in opposition to his expressed orders.He felt that his present condition was prejudicial to his interests, and that he must take his wife back into favour, in order the he might make progress with her father, but could hardly bring himself to swallow his wrath.He thought it was her duty to obey him in everything,--and that disobedience on a matter touching her old lover was an abominable offence, to be visited with severest marital displeasure, and with a succession of scowls that should make her miserable for a month at least.Nor on her behalf would he have hesitated, though the misery might have continued three months.
But then the old man was the main hope in his life, and must be made its mainstay.Brilliant prospects were before him.He used to think that Mr Wharton was a hale man, with some terribly vexatious term of his life before him.But now, now that he was seen more closely, he appeared to be very old.He would sit half bent in the arm-chair in Stone Buildings, and look as though he were near a hundred.And from day to day he seemed to lean more upon his son-in-law, whose visits to him were continued, and always well taken.The constant subject of discourse between them was Everett Wharton, who had not yet seen his father since the misfortune of their quarrel.Everett had declared to Lopez a dozen times that he would go to his father if his father wished it, and Lopez as often reported the father that Everett would not go to him unless he expressed such a wish.And so they had been kept apart.Lopez did not suppose that the old man would disinherit his son altogether,--did not, perhaps, wish it.But he thought that the condition of the old man's mind would affect the partition of his property, and that the old man would surely make some new will in the present state of his affairs.The old man always asked after his daughter, begging that she would come to see him, and at last it was necessary that an evening should be fixed.'We shall be delighted to come to-day or to-morrow,'
Lopez said.
'We had better say to-morrow.There would be nothing to eat to-day.The house isn't now what it used to be.' It was therefore expedient that Lopez should drop his anger when he got home, and prepare his wife to dine in Manchester Square in a proper frame of mind.
Her misery had been extreme;--very much more bitter than he had imagined.It was not only that his displeasure made her life for the time wearisome, and robbed the only society she had of all its charms.It was not only that her heart was wounded by his anger.Those evils might have been short-lived.But she had seen,--she could not fail to see,--that his conduct was unworthy of her and of her deep love.Though she struggled hard against the feeling, she could not but despise the meanness of his jealousy.She knew thoroughly well that there had been no grain of offence in that letter from Arthur Fletcher,--and she knew that no man, to true man, would have taken offence at it.
She tried to quench her judgement, and to silence the verdict which her intellect gave against him, but her intellect was too strong even for her heart.She was beginning to learn that the god of idolatry was but a little human creature, and that she should not have worshipped at so poor a shrine.But nevertheless the love should be continued, and, if possible, the worship, though the idol had been already found to have feet of clay.He was her husband, and she would be true to him.As morning after morning he left her still with that harsh, unmanly frown upon his face, she would look up at him with entreating eyes, and when he returned would receive him with her fondest smile.At length he, too, smiled.He came to after that interview with Mr Wharton and told her, speaking with the soft yet incisive voice which she used to love so well, that they were to dine in the Square on the following day.'Let there be an end of all of this,' he said, taking her in his arms and kissing her.Of course she did not tell him that 'all this' had sprung from his ill-humour and not from hers.'I own I have been angry,' he continued.'I will say nothing more about it now; but that man did vex me.'
'I have been so sorry that you should have been vexed.'
'Well;--let it pass away.I don't think your father is looking very well.'
'He is not ill?'
'Oh no.He feels the loss of your society.He is so much alone.
You must be more with him.'
'Has he not seen Everett yet?'
'No.Everett is not behaving altogether well.' Emily was made unhappy by this, and showed it.'He is the best fellow in the world.I may safely say there is no other man whom I regard so warmly as I do your brother.But he takes wrong ideas into his head, and nothing will knock them out.I wonder what your father has done about his will.'
'I have not an idea.Nothing you may be sure will make him unjust to Everett.'
'Ah!--You don't happen to know whether he ever made a will?'
'Not at all.He would be sure to say nothing to me about it,--or to anybody.'
'That is the kind of secrecy which I think is wrong.It leads to so much uncertainty.You wouldn't like to ask him?'
'No;--certainly.'
'It is astonishing to me how afraid you are of your father.He hasn't any land, has he?'
'Land!'
'Real estate.You know what I mean.He couldn't well have landed property without your knowing it.' She shook her head.
'It might make an immense difference to us, you know.'
'Why so?'
'If he were to die without a will, any land,--houses and that kind of property,--would go to Everett.I never knew a man who told his children so little.I want you to understand these things.You and I will be badly off if he doesn't do something for us.'
'You don't think he is really ill?'
'No;--not ill.Men above seventy are apt to die, you know.'
'Oh, Ferdinand,--what a way to talk of it!'