MRS PARKER'S FATE.
Lopez had now been dead more than five months, and not a word had been heard by his widow of Mrs Parker and her children.Her own sorrows had been so great that she had hardly thought of those of the poor woman who had come to her but a few days before her husband's death, telling her of the ruin caused by her husband's treachery.But late on the evening before her departure for Hertfordshire,--very shortly after Everett left the house,--there was a ring at the door, and a poorly-clad female asked to see Mrs Lopez.The poorly-clad female was Sexty Parker's wife.
The servant, who did not remember her, would not leave her alone in the hall, having an eye to the coats and umbrellas, but called up one of the maids to carry the message.The poor woman understood the insult and resented it in her heart.But Mrs Lopez recognized the name in a moment, and went down to her in the parlour, leaving Mr Wharton upstairs.Mrs Parker, smarting from her present grievance, had bent her mind on complaining at once of the treatment she had received from the servant, but the sight of the widow's weeds quelled her.Emily had never been much given to fine clothes, either as a girl or as a married woman; but it had always been her husband's pleasure that she should be well dressed,--though he had never carried his trouble so far as to pay the bills; and Mrs Parker's remembrance of her friend at Dovercourt had been that of a fine lady in bright apparel.Now a black shade,--something almost like a dark ghost,--glided into the room and Mrs Parker forgot her recent injury.Emily came forward and offered her hand, and was the first to speak.'I have had a great sorrow since we met,' she said.
'Yes, indeed, Mrs Lopez.I don't think there is anything left in the world now except sorrow.'
'I hope Mr Parker is well.Will you not sit down, Mrs Parker?'
'Thank you, ma'am.Indeed, then, he is not well at all.How should he be well? Everything,--everything has been taken away from him.' Poor Emily groaned as she heard this.'I wouldn't say a word against them as is gone, Mrs Lopez, if I could help it.I know it is bad to bear when him who once loved you isn't no more.And perhaps it is all the worse when things didn't go well with him, and it was, maybe, his own fault.I wouldn't do it, Mrs Lopez, if I could help it.'
'Let me hear what you have to say,' said Emily, determined to suffer everything patiently.
'Well;--it is just this.He has left us that bare that there is nothing left.And that, they say, isn't the worst of all,--though what can be worse than doing that, how is a woman to think? Parker was that soft, and he had that way with him of talking, that he has talked me and mine out of the very linen on our backs.'
'What do you mean by saying that that is not the worst?'
'They've come upon Sexty for a bill for four thousand and fifty, --something to do with that stuff they call Bios,--and Sexty says it isn't his name at all.But he's been in that state he don't hardly know how to swear to anything.But he's sure he didn't sign it.The bill was brought to him by Lopez and there was words between them, and he wouldn't have nothing to do with it.How is he to go to law? And it don't make much difference neither, for they can't take much more from him than they have already taken.' Emily as she heard all this sat shivering, trying to repress her groans.'Only,' continued Mrs Parker, 'they hadn't sold the furniture, and I was thinking they might let me stay in the house, and try to do with letting lodgings,--and now they're seizing everything along of this bill.Sexty is like a mad man, swearing this and swearing that;--but what can he do, Mrs Lopez? It's as like his hand as two peas; but he was clever at everything was,--was--you know who I mean, ma'am.'
Then Emily covered her face with her hands and burst into violent tears.She had not determined whether she did or did not believe this last accusation made against her husband.She had had hardly time to realize the criminality of the offence imputed.
But she did believe that the woman before her had been ruined by her husband's speculations.'It's very bad, ma'am; isn't it?'
said Mrs Parker, crying for company.'It's bad all round.If you had five children as hadn't bread you'd know how I feel.
I've got to go back by the 10.15 to-night, and when I've paid for a third-class ticket I shan't have but twopence left in this world.'
This utter depth of immediate poverty, this want of bread for the morrow and the next day, Emily could relieve out of her own pocket.And, thinking of this and remembering that her purse was not with her at the moment, she started up with the idea of getting it.But it occurred to her that that would not suffice;that her duty required more of her than that.And yet, by her own power, she could do no more.From month to month, almost from week to week, since her husband's death, her father had been called upon to satisfy claims for money which he would not resist, lest by doing so he should add to her misery.She had felt that she ought to bind herself to the strictest personal economy because of the miserable losses to which she had subjected him by her ill-starred marriage.'What would you wish me to do?' she said, resuming her seat.
'You are rich,' said Mrs Parker.Emily shook her head.'They say your papa is rich.I thought you would not like to see me in want like this.'
'Indeed, indeed, it makes me very unhappy.'