“Never,” said Mrs. Lopez.
“Perhaps it don’t affect him as it do Sexty. He ain’t a drinker;—certainly not. And he’s one that works hard every day of his life. But he’s getting fond of it these last twelve months, and though he don’t take very much it hurries him and flurries him. If I speaks at night he gets cross;—and in the morning when he gets up, which he always do regular, though it’s ever so bad with him, then I haven’t the heart to scold him. It’s very hard sometimes for a wife to know what to do, Mrs. Lopez.”
“Yes, indeed.” Emily could not but think how soon she herself had learned that lesson.
“Of course I’d do anything for Sexty—the father of my bairns, and has always been a good husband to me. You don’t know him, of course, but I do. A right good man at bottom;—but so weak!”
“If he—if he—injures his health, shouldn’t you talk to him quietly about it?”
“It isn’t the drink as is the evil, Mrs. Lopez, but that which makes him drink. He’s not one as goes a mucker merely for the pleasure. When things are going right he’ll sit out in our arbour at home, and smoke pipe after pipe, playing with the children, and one glass of gin and water cold will see him to bed. Tobacco, dry, do agree with him, I think. But when he comes to three or four goes of hot toddy, I know it’s not as it should be.”
“You should restrain him, Mrs. Parker.”
“Of course I should;—but how? Am I to walk off with the bottle and disgrace him before the servant girl? Or am I to let the children know as their father takes too much? If I was as much as to make one fight of it, it’d be all over Ponder’s End that he’s a drunkard;—which he ain’t. Restrain him;—oh, yes! If I could restrain that gambling instead of regular business! That’s what I’d like to restrain.”
“Does he gamble?”
“What is it but gambling that he and Mr. Lopez is a-doing together? Of course, ma’am, I don’t know you, and you are different from me. I ain’t foolish enough not to know all that. My father stood in Smithfield and sold hay, and your father is a gentleman as has been high up in the Courts all his life. But it’s your husband is a-doing this.”
“Oh, Mrs. Parker!”
“He is then. And if he brings Sexty and my little ones to the workhouse, what’ll be the good then of his guano and his gum?”
“Is it not all in the fair way of commerce?”
“I’m sure I don’t know about commerce, Mrs. Lopez, because I’m only a woman; but it can’t be fair. They goes and buys things that they haven’t got the money to pay for, and then waits to see if they’ll turn up trumps. Isn’t that gambling?”
“I cannot say. I do not know.” She felt now that her husband had been accused, and that part of the accusation had been levelled at herself. There was something in her manner of saying these few words which the poor complaining woman perceived, feeling immediately that she had been inhospitable and perhaps unjust. She put out her hand softly, touching the other woman’s arm, and looking up into her guest’s face. “If this is so, it is terrible,” said Emily.
“Perhaps I oughtn’t to speak so free.”
“Oh, yes;—for your children, and yourself, and your husband.”
“It’s them—and him. Of course it’s not your doing, and Mr. Lopez, I’m sure, is a very fine gentleman. And if he gets wrong one way, he’ll get himself right in another.” Upon hearing this Emily shook her head. “Your papa is a rich man, and won’t see you and yours come to want. There’s nothing more to come to me or Sexty let it be ever so.”
“Why does he do it?”
“Why does who do it?”
“Your husband. Why don’t you speak to him as you do to me, and tell him to mind only his proper business?”
“Now you are angry with me.”
“Angry! No;—indeed I am not angry. Every word that you say is good, and true, and just what you ought to say. I am not angry, but I am terrified. I know nothing of my husband’s business. I cannot tell you that you should trust to it. He is very clever, but—”
“But—what, ma’am?”
“Perhaps I should say that he is ambitious.”
“You mean he wants to get rich too quick, ma’am.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Then it’s just the same with Sexty. He’s ambitious too. But what’s the good of being ambitious, Mrs. Lopez, if you never know whether you’re on your head or your heels? And what’s the good of being ambitious if you’re to get into the workhouse? I know what that means. There’s one or two of them sort of men gets into Parliament, and has houses as big as the Queen’s palace, while hundreds of them has their wives and children in the gutter. Who ever hears of them? Nobody. It don’t become any man to be ambitious who has got a wife and family. If he’s a bachelor, why, of course, he can go to the Colonies. There’s Mary Jane and the two little ones right down on the sea, with their feet in the salt water. Shall we put on our hats, Mrs. Lopez, and go and look after them?” To this proposition Emily assented, and the two ladies went out after the children.
“Mix yourself another glass,” said Sexty to his partner.
“I’d rather not. Don’t ask me again. You know I never drink, and I don’t like being pressed.”
“By George!—You are particular.”
“What’s the use of teasing a fellow to do a thing he doesn’t like?”
“You won’t mind me having another?”
“Fifty if you please, so that I’m not
