“Of my husband?” said Mrs. Lopez. “I hope not. Why should you ask?”
“Believe me, a woman should never be afraid of ’em. I never would give in to be bullied and made little of by Sexty. I’d do a’most anything to make him comfortable, I’m that softhearted. And why not, when he’s the father of my children? But I’m not going not to say a thing if I thinks it right, because I’m afeard.”
“I think I could say anything if I thought it right.”
“Then tell him of me and my babes—as how I can never have a quiet night while this is going on. It isn’t that they two men are fond of one another. Nothing of the sort! Now you;—I’ve got to be downright fond of you, though, of course, you think me common.” Mrs. Lopez would not contradict her, but stooped forward and kissed her cheek. “I’m downright fond of you, I am,” continued Mrs. Parker, snuffling and sobbing, “but they two men are only together because Mr. Lopez wants to gamble, and Parker has got a little money to gamble with.” This aspect of the thing was so terrible to Mrs. Lopez that she could only weep and hide her face. “Now, if you would tell him just the truth! Tell him what I say, and that I’ve been a-saying it! Tell him it’s for my children I’m a-speaking, who won’t have bread in their very mouths if their father’s squeezed dry like a sponge! Sure, if you’d tell him this, he wouldn’t go on!” Then she paused a moment, looking up into the other woman’s face. “He’d have some bowels of compassion;—wouldn’t he now?”
“I’ll try,” said Mrs. Lopez.
“I know you’re good and kindhearted, my dear. I saw it in your eyes from the very first. But them men, when they get on at moneymaking—or money-losing, which makes ’em worse—are like tigers clawing one another. They don’t care how many they kills, so that they has the least bit for themselves. There ain’t no fear of God in it, nor yet no mercy, nor ere a morsel of heart. It ain’t what I call manly—not that longing after other folks’ money. When it’s come by hard work, as I tell Sexty—by the very sweat of his brow—oh—it’s sweet as sweet. When he’d tell me that he’d made his three pound, or his five pound, or, perhaps, his ten pound in a day, and’d calculate it up, how much it’d come to if he did that every day, and where we could go to, and what we could do for the children, I loved to hear him talk about his money. But now—! why, it’s altered the looks of the man altogether. It’s just as though he was a-thirsting for blood.”
Thirsting for blood! Yes, indeed. It was the very idea that had occurred to Mrs. Lopez herself when her husband had bade her to “get round her father.” No;—it certainly was not manly. There certainly was neither fear of God in it, nor mercy. Yes;—she would try. But as for bowels of compassion in Ferdinand Lopez—; she, the young wife, had already seen enough of her husband to think that he was not to be moved by any prayers on that side. Then the two women bade each other farewell. “Parker has been talking of my going to Manchester Square,” said Mrs. Parker, “but I shan’t. What’d I be in Manchester Square? And, besides, there’d better be an end of it. Mr. Lopez’d turn Sexty and me out of the house at a moment’s notice if it wasn’t for the money.”
“It’s papa’s house,” said Mrs. Lopez, not, however, meaning to make an attack on her husband.
“I suppose so, but I shan’t come to trouble no one; and we live ever so far away, at Ponder’s End—out of your line altogether, Mrs. Lopez. But I’ve taken to you, and will never think ill of you anyway;—only do as you said you would.”
“I will try,” said Mrs. Lopez.
In the meantime Lopez had received from Mr. Wharton an answer to his letter about the missing caravels, which did not please him. Here is the letter:—
My dear Lopez,
I cannot say that your statement is satisfactory, nor can I reconcile it to your assurance to me that you have made a trade income for some years past of £2,000 a year. I do not know much of business, but I cannot imagine such a result from such a condition of things as you describe. Have you any books; and, if so, will you allow them to be inspected by any accountant I may name?
You say that a sum of £20,000 would suit your business better now than when I’m dead. Very likely. But with such an account of the business as that you have given me, I do not know that I feel disposed to confide the savings of my life to assist so very doubtful an enterprise. Of course whatever I may do to your advantage will be done for the sake of Emily and her children, should she have any. As far as I can see at present, I shall best do my duty to her, by leaving what I may have to leave to her, to trustees, for her benefit and that of her children.
This, of course, did not tend to mollify the spirit of the man to whom it was written, or to make him gracious towards his wife. He received the letter three weeks before the
