He demanded from her the writing of the letter almost immediately after the conversation which has been given above, and of course the letter was written,—written and recopied, for the paragraph about the money was, of course, at last of his wording. And she could not make the remainder of the letter pleasant. The feeling that she was making a demand for money on her father ran through it all. But the reader need only see the passage in which Ferdinand Lopez made his demand,—through her hand.
"Ferdinand has been speaking to me about my fortune." It had gone much against the grain with her to write these words, "my fortune." "But I have no fortune," she said. He insisted however, explaining to her that she was entitled to use these words by her father's undoubted wealth. And so, with an aching heart, she wrote them. "Ferdinand has been speaking to me about my fortune. Of course, I told him that I knew nothing, and that as he had never spoken to me about money before our marriage, I had never asked about it. He says that it would be of great service to him to know what are your intentions; and also that he hopes you may find it convenient to allow him to draw upon you for some portion of it at present. He says that £3000 would be of great use to him in his business." That was the paragraph, and the work of writing it was so distasteful to her that she could hardly bring herself to form the letters. It seemed as though she were seizing the advantage of the first moment of her freedom to take a violent liberty with her father.
"It is altogether his own fault, my pet," he said to her. "I have the greatest respect in the world for your father, but he has allowed himself to fall into the habit of keeping all his affairs secret from his children; and, of course, as they go out into the world, this secrecy must in some degree be invaded. There is precisely the same thing going on between him and Everett; only Everett is a great deal rougher to him than you are likely to be. He never will let Everett know whether he is to regard himself as a rich man or a poor man."
"He gives him an allowance."
"Because he cannot help himself. To you he does not do even as much as that, because he can help himself. I have chosen to leave it to him and he has done nothing. But this is not quite fair, and he must be told so. I don't think he could be told in more dutiful language."
Emily did not like the idea of telling her father anything which he might not like to hear; but her husband's behests were to her in these, her early married days, quite imperative.
CHAPTER XXVI
The End of the Honeymoon
Mrs. Lopez had begged her father to address his reply to her at Florence, where,—as she explained to him,—they expected to find themselves within a fortnight from the date of her writing. They had reached the lake about the end of November, when the weather had still been fine, but they intended to pass the winter months of December and January within the warmth of the cities. That intervening fortnight was to her a period of painful anticipation. She feared to see her father's handwriting, feeling almost sure that he would be bitterly angry with her. During this time her husband frequently spoke to her about the letter,—about her own letter and her father's expected reply. It was necessary that she should learn her lesson, and she could only do so by having the subject of money made familiar to her ears. It was not a part of his plan to tell her anything of the means by which he hoped to make himself a wealthy man. The less she knew of that the better. But the fact that her father absolutely owed to him a large amount of money as her fortune could not be made too clear to her. He was very desirous to do this in such a manner as not to make her think that he was accusing her,—or that he would accuse her if the money were not forthcoming. But she must learn the fact, and must be imbued with the conviction that her husband would be the most ill-treated of men unless the money were forthcoming. "I am a little nervous about it too," said he, alluding to the expected letter;—"not so much as to the money itself, though that is important; but as to his conduct. If he chooses simply to ignore us after our marriage he will be behaving very badly." She had no answer to make to this. She could not defend her father, because by doing so she would offend her husband. And yet her whole life-long trust in her father could not allow her to think it possible that he should behave ill to them.