The Bertrams (18 page)

"I'll cut that cock's comb before I have done with him," said M'Gabbery to his friend Mr. Cruse, as they rode up towards St. Stephen's gate together, the rest of the cavalcade following, them. Sir Lionel had suggested to Miss Todd that they might as well return, somewhat early though it was, seeing that there was no cause why that feast of reason and that flow of soul should no longer be continued by them round the yet only half-emptied hampers. So the ladies had climbed up into the tomb and there adjusted their hats, and the gentlemen had seen to the steeds; and the forks had been packed up; and when Mr. M'Gabbery made the state of his mind known to Mr. Cruse, they were on their way back to Jerusalem, close to the garden of Gethsemane.

"I'll cut that young cock's comb yet before I have done with him," repeated Mr. M'Gabbery.

Now Mr. Cruse, as being a clergyman, was of course not a fighting man. "I shouldn't take any notice of him," said he; "nor, indeed, of her either; I do not think she is worth it."

"Oh, it isn't about that," said M'Gabbery. "They were two women together, and I therefore was inclined to show them some attention. You know how those things go on. From one thing to another it has come to this, that they have depended on me for everything for the last three or four weeks."

"You haven't paid any money for them, have you?"

"Well, no; I can't exactly say that I have paid money for them. That is to say, they have paid their own bills, and I have not lent them anything. But I dare say you know that a man never travels with ladies in that free and easy way without feeling it in his pocket. One is apt to do twenty things for them which one wouldn't do for oneself; nor they for themselves if they had to pay the piper."

Now here a Very useful moral may be deduced. Ladies, take care how you permit yourselves to fall into intimacies with unknown gentlemen on your travels. It is not pleasant to be spoken of as this man was speaking of Miss Baker and her niece. The truth was, that a more punctilious person in her money dealings than Miss Baker never carried a purse. She had not allowed Mr. M'Gabbery so much as to lay out on her behalf a single piastre for oranges on the road. Nor had he been their sole companion on their journey through the desert. They had come to Jerusalem with a gentleman and his wife: Mr. M'Gabbery had been kindly allowed to join them.

"Well, if I were you, I should show them a cold shoulder," said Mr. Cruse; "and as to that intolerable puppy, I should take no further notice of him, except by cutting him dead."

Mr. M'Gabbery at last promised to follow his friend's advice, and so Miss Todd's picnic came to an end without, bloodshed.

CHAPTER X

THE EFFECTS OF MISS TODD
'
S PICNIC

S
IR
L
IONEL
did not participate violently either in his son's disgust at the falsehood of that Holy Sepulchre church, nor in his enthusiasm as to the Mount of Olives. In the former, he walked about as he had done in many other foreign churches, looked a little to the right and a little to the left, observed that the roof seemed to be rather out of order, declined entering the sanctum sanctorum, and then asked whether there was anything more to be seen. He did not care, he said, about going upstairs into the gallery; and when George suggested that he should descend into the Armenian chapel, he observed that it appeared to be very dark and very crowded. He looked at the Turkish janitors without dismay, and could not at all understand why George should not approve of them.

He was equally cold and equally complaisant on the Mount of Olives. He would willingly have avoided the ascent could he have done so without displeasing his son; but George made
a point of it. A donkey was therefore got for him, and he rode up.

"Ah! yes," said he, "a very clear view of the city; oh, that was Solomon's temple, was it? And now they have a mosque there, have they? Ah! perhaps the Brahmins will have a turn at it before the world is done. It's a barren sort of hill after all, is it not?"

And then George tried very much in vain to make his father understand why he wished to go into the church.

"By-the-by," said Sir Lionel—they were then sitting exactly on the spot where George had placed himself before, when he made that grand resolve to give up everything belonging to this world for the sake of being one of Christ's shepherds—"by-the-by, George, for heaven's sake don't throw your uncle over in choosing a profession. I certainly should be sorry to see you become an attorney."

"I have never thought of it for a moment," said George.

"Because, with your abilities, and at any rate with your chance of money, I think you would be very much thrown away; but, considering his circumstances and yours, were I you, I would really submit almost to anything."

"I will not at any rate submit to that," said George, not very well able to reconcile his father's tone to the spot on which they were sitting.

"Well, it's your own affair, my boy. I have no right to interfere, and shall not attempt to do so; but of course I must be anxious. If you did go into the church, I suppose he'd buy a living for you?"

"Certainly not; I should take a college living."

"At your age any that you could get would be very small. Ah, George! if I could only put an old head upon young shoulders, what a hand of cards you would have to play! That old man could leave you half a million of money!"

This was certainly not the object with which the son had ascended the mount, and he did not use much eloquence to induce his father to remain long in the place. Sir Lionel got again on his donkey, and they returned to Jerusalem; nor did George ever again talk to him about the Mount of Olives.

And he was not very much more successful with another friend into whose mind he endeavoured to inculcate his own high feelings. He got Miss Baker up to his favourite seat, and with her Miss Waddington; and then, before he had left Jerusalem, he succeeded in inducing the younger lady to ramble thither with him alone.

"I do not know that I think so highly of the church as you do," said Caroline. "As far as I have seen them, I cannot find that clergymen are more holy than other men; and yet surely they ought to be so."

"At any rate, there is more scope for holiness if a man have it in him to be holy. The heart of a clergyman is more likely to be softened than that of a barrister or an attorney."

"I don't exactly know what you mean by heart-softening, Mr. Bertram."

"I mean——" said Bertram, and then he paused; he was not quite able, with the words
at his command, to explain to this girl what it, was that he did mean, nor was he sure that she would appreciate him if he did do so; and, fond as he still was of his idea of a holy life, perhaps at this moment he was fonder still of her.

"I think that a man should do the best he can for himself in a profession. You have a noble position within your grasp, and if I were you, I certainly would not bury myself in a country parsonage."

What this girl of twenty said to him had much more weight than the time-honoured precepts of his father; and yet both, doubtless, had their weight. Each blow told somewhat; and the seed too had been sown upon very stony ground.

They sat there some three or four minutes in silence. Bertram was looking over to Mount Moriah, imaging to himself the spot where the tables of the money-changers had been overturned, while Miss Waddington was gazing at the setting sun. She had an eye to see material beauty, and a taste to love it; but it was not given to her to look back and feel those things as to which her lover would fain have spoken to her. The temple in which Jesus had taught was nothing to her.

Yes, he was her lover now, though he had never spoken to her of love, had never acknowledged to himself that he did love her—as so few men ever do acknowledge till the words that they have said make it necessary that they should ask themselves whether those words are true. They sat there for some minutes in
silence, but not as lovers sit. The distance between them was safe and respectful. Bertram was stretched upon the ground, with his eyes fixed, not upon her, but on the city opposite; and she sat demurely on a rock, shading herself with her parasol.

"I suppose nothing would induce you to marry a clergyman?" said he at last.

"Why should you suppose that, Mr. Bertram?"

"At any rate, not the parson of a country parish. I am led to suppose it by what you said to me yourself just now."

"I was speaking of you, and not of myself. I say that you have a noble career open to you, and I do not look on the ordinary life of a country parson as a noble career. For myself, I do not see any nobility in store. I do not know that there is any fate more probable for myself than that of becoming a respectable vicaress."

"And why may not a vicar's career be noble? Is it not as noble to have to deal with the soul as with the body?"

"I judge by what I see. They are generally fond of eating, very cautious about their money, untidy in their own houses, and apt to go to sleep after dinner."

George turned upon the grass, and for a moment or two ceased to look across into the city. He had not strength of character to laugh at her description and yet to be unmoved by it. He must either resent what she said, or laugh and be ruled by it. He must either tell her that she knew nothing of a clergyman's dearest
hopes, or else he must yield to the contempt which her words implied.

"And could you love, honour, and obey such a man as that, yourself, Miss Waddington?" he said at last.

"I suppose such men do have wives who love, honour, and obey them; either who do or do not. I dare say I should do much the same as others."

"You speak of my future, Miss Waddington, as though it were a subject of interest; but you seem to think nothing of your own."

"It is useless for a woman to think of her future; she can do so little towards planning it, or bringing about her plans. Besides, I have no right to count on myself as anything out of the ordinary run of women; I have taken no double-first degree in anything."

"A double-first is no sign of a true heart or true spirit. Many a man born to grovel has taken a double-first."

"I don't perhaps know what you mean by grovelling, Mr. Bertram. I don't like grovellers myself. I like men who can keep their heads up—who, once having them above the water, will never allow them to sink. Some men in every age do win distinction and wealth and high place. These are not grovellers. If I were you I would be one of them."

"You would not become a clergyman?"

"Certainly not; no more than I would be a shoemaker."

"Miss Waddington!"

"Well; and what of Miss Waddington? Look at the clergymen that you know; do they
never grovel? You know Mr. Wilkinson; he is an excellent man, I am sure, but is he conspicuous for highmindedness, for truth and spirit?" It must be remembered that the elder Mr. Wilkinson was at this time still living. "Are they generally men of wide views and enlightened principles? I do not mean to liken them to shoemakers; but were I you, I should think of the one business as soon as the other."

"And in my place, what profession would you choose?"

"Ah, that I cannot say. I do not know your circumstances."

"I must earn my bread, like other sons of Adam."

"Well, earn it then in such a manner that the eyes of the world shall be upon you; that men and women shall talk of you, and newspapers have your name in their columns. Whatever your profession, let it be a wakeful one; not one that you can follow half asleep."

Again he paused for awhile, and again sat looking at the rock of the temple. Still he thought of the tables of the money-changers, and the insufficiency of him who had given as much as half to the poor. But even while so thinking, he was tempted to give less than half himself, to set up on his own account a money-changing table in his own temple. He would fain have worshipped at the two shrines together had he been able. But he was not able; so he fell down before that of Mammon.

"You can talk to me in this way, urge me to be ambitious, and yet confess that you could
give yourself to one of those drones of whom you speak with such scorn."

"I speak of no one with scorn; and I am not urging you; and at present am not talking of giving myself to any one. You ask as to the possibility of my ever marrying a clergyman; I say that it is very possible that I may do so some day."

"Miss Waddington," said George; and now he had turned his face absolutely from the city, and was looking upwards to the hill; upwards, full into the beauty of her countenance. "Miss Waddington!"

"Well, Mr. Bertram?"

"You speak of me as though I were a being high in the scale of humanity——"

"And so I think of you."

"Listen for a moment—and of yourself as one comparatively low."

"No, no, not low; I have too much pride for that; much lower than you, certainly, for I have given no proofs of genius."

"Well—lower than me. That is what you have said, and I do not believe that you would say so falsely. You would not descend to flatter me?"

"Certainly not; but——"

"Believe equally of me that I would not flatter you. I have told you no falsehood as yet, and I have a right to claim your belief. As you look on me, so do I on you. I look up to you as one whose destiny must be high. To me there is that about you which forbids me to think that your path in the world can ever be other than conspicuous. Your
husband, at least, will have to live before the world."

"I shall not have the slightest objection to his doing so; but that, I think, will depend a great deal more on him than on me."

Bertram was very anxious to say something which might tend towards the commingling of his destiny with hers. He was hardly yet prepared to swear that he loved her, and to ask her in good set terms to be his wife. But he did not like to leave her without learning whether he had at all touched her heart. He was fully sure now that his own was not whole.

"Come, Mr. Bertram," said she; "look at the sun, how nearly it is gone. And you know we have no twilight here. Let us go down; my aunt will think that we are lost."