The Bertrams (28 page)

So was he thinking, much distressed in mind—for, to do him justice, he was as anxious on behalf of Bertram as it was in his nature to be anxious for any one—when a Juno entered the
room. She did not swim in, or fly in, or glide in, but walked in, as women should walk if they properly understood their parts. She walked in as though she were mistress of her own soul, and afraid to meet no pair of eyes which any human being could bend upon her. He had intended in his good-nature to patronise her; but that other question instantly occurred to him—would she patronise him? Bertram he had known long and intimately, and held him therefore somewhat cheap in many respects, as we are all accustomed to hold our dearest friends. But now, at once he rose in his estimation a hundred percent. What might not be expected of a man whom such a woman would acknowledge that she loved?

A Juno had entered the room; for her beauty, as we have said before, was that rather of the queen of the gods. George immediately acknowledged to himself that he had never before seen her look so grandly beautiful. Her charms have been related, and that relation shall not be repeated; but when first seen by Harcourt, their power was more thoroughly acknowledged by him, much more thoroughly than they had been by her lover when he had first met her. Then, however, she had been sitting at dinner between her aunt and Mr. M'Gabbery, quite unconscious that any one was arriving whose existence could be of importance to her.

There was no time for conversation then. The surprise arising from her entrance had, on Harcourt's part, hardly subsided, when the
servant announced dinner, and he was called on to give his arm to Miss Baker.

"I hope you approve your friend's choice," said that lady, smiling.

"Miss Waddington is certainly the most lovely girl I ever beheld," replied he, with enthusiasm.

The Rev. Mr. Meek handed down Miss Penelope Gauntlet, and Bertram followed with the two girls, happy and high-spirited. He first tendered his arm to Adela, who positively refused it; then to Caroline, who was equally determined. Then, putting a hand behind the waist of each of them, he pushed them through the door before him. There are certainly some privileges which an accepted lover may take in a house, and no one but an accepted lover.

George took his seat at the bottom of the table, as though he were quite at home; and Harcourt, happy sinner! found himself seated between Adela and Caroline. He was not good enough for such bliss. But had his virtues been ever so shining, how could they have availed him? Neither of his neighbours had a portion of a heart left to call her own.

But he was able to perceive that Caroline was not only beautiful. She talked to him almost exclusively, for she had capriciously seated herself away from her lover, and next to her aunt "Adela," she had whispered, going downstairs, "I shall look to you to talk to George all the evening, for I mean to make a new conquest."

Bertram was delighted. It was hardly in him to be jealous, even had there been a
shadow of cause. As it was, his love was doing exactly that which he wished her to do. She was vindicating his choice to the man whose judgment on the matter was most vitally essential to him.

When the ladies left the dining-room, both Bertram and Harcourt heartily wished that Miss Baker had not been so scrupulously hospitable. They hardly knew what to do with Mr. Meek. Mr. Meek remarked that Miss Baker was a very nice person, that Miss Waddington was a charming person, that Miss Penelope Gauntlet was a very nice person indeed, and that Miss Adela was a very sweet person; and then it seemed that all conversation was at an end. "Eh! what! none especially; that is to say, the Middle Temple." Such had been Harcourt's reply to Mr. Meek's inquiry as to what London congregation he frequented; and then the three gentlemen seemed to be much occupied with their wine and biscuits. This invitation to Mr. Meek had certainly been a mistake on Miss Baker's part.

But the misery did not last long. Of the first occasion on which Mr. Meek's glass was seen to be well empty, George took advantage. "If you don't take any more wine, Mr. Meek, we may as well go upstairs; eh, Harcourt?" and he looked suppliantly at his friend.

"Oh, I never take any more wine, you know. I'm an anchorite on such occasions as these." And so they went into the drawing-room, long before Miss Baker had her coffee ready for them.

"You see a good deal of Arthur now, I suppose?" said Bertram, addressing Adela.

"Yes; that is, not a very great deal. He has been busy since he took up the parish. But I see Mary frequently."

"Do you think Arthur likes it? He seemed to me to be hardly so much gratified as I should have thought he would have been. The living is a good one, and the marquis was certainly good-natured about it."

"Oh, yes, he was," said Adela.

"It will be a long time, I know, before I earn five hundred pounds a year. Do you know, he never wrote about it as though he thought he'd been lucky in getting it."

"Didn't he?"

"Never; and I thought he was melancholy and out of spirits when I saw him the other day. He ought to marry; that's the fact. A young clergyman with a living should always get a wife."

"You are like the fox that lost its tail," said Adela, trying hard to show that she joined in the conversation without any effort.

"Ah! but the case is very different. There can be no doubt that Arthur ought to lose his tail. His position in the world is one which especially requires him to lose it."

"He has his mother and sisters, you know."

"Oh, mother and sisters! Mother and sisters are all very well, or not very well, as the case may be; but the vicar of a parish should be a married man. If you can't get a wife for him down there in Hampshire, I shall have him up to London, and look one out for him there.
Pray take the matter in hand when you go home, Miss Gauntlet."

Adela smiled, and did not blush nor did she say that she quite agreed with him that the vicar of a parish should be a married man.

"Well, I shan't ask any questions," said Bertram, as soon as he and Harcourt were in the street, "or allow you to offer any opinion; because, as we have both agreed, you have not pluck enough to give it impartially." Bertram as he said this could hardly preserve himself from a slight tone of triumph.

"She is simply the most lovely woman that my eyes ever beheld," said Harcourt.

"Tush! can't you make it a little more out of the common way than that? But, Harcourt, without joke, you need not trouble yourself. I did want you to see her; but I don't care twopence as to your liking her. I shall think much more of your wife liking her—if you ever have a wife."

"Bertram, upon my word, I never was less in a mood to joke."

"That is saying very little, for you are always in a mood to joke." Bertram understood it all; saw clearly what impression Miss Waddington had made, and for the moment was supremely happy.

"However you had the courage to propose yourself and your two hundred pounds a year to such a woman as that!"

"Ha! ha! ha! Why, Harcourt, you are not at all like yourself. If you admire her so much, I shall beg you not to come to Littlebath any more."

"Perhaps I had better not. But, Bertram, I beg to congratulate you most heartily. There is this against your future happiness——"

"What?"

"Why, you will never be known as Mr. George Bertram; but always as Mrs. George Bertram's husband. With such a bride-elect as that, you cannot expect to stand on your own bottom. If you can count on being lord-chancellor, of secretary of state, you may do so; otherwise, you'll always be known as an appendage."

"Oh, I'll put up with that misery."

This visit of inspection had been very successful, and George went to bed in the highest spirits. In the highest spirits also he walked to church with Harcourt, and there met the two ladies. There was something especially rapturous in the touch of his fingers as he shook hands with Caroline when the service was over; and Miss Baker declared that he looked almost handsome when he went home with them to lunch.

But that afternoon his bliss was destined to receive something of a check. It was imperative that Harcourt should be in town early on the Monday morning, and therefore it had been settled that they should return by the latest train that Sunday evening. They would just be able to dine with Miss Baker, and do this afterwards. Harcourt had, of course, been anxious to be allowed to return alone; but Bertram had declined to appear to be too much in love to leave his mistress, and had persisted that he would accompany him.

This having been so decided, he had been invited to a little conference at Miss Baker's, to be holden upstairs in her private little sitting-room before dinner. He had had one or two chats with Miss Baker in that same room before now, and therefore did not think so much of the invitation; but on this occasion he also found Caroline there. He felt at once that he was to be encountered with opposition.

Miss Baker opened the battle. "George," said she, "Caroline has made me promise to-speak to you before you go up to town. Won't you sit down?"

"Upon my word," said he, seating himself on a sofa next to Caroline; "I hardly know what to say to it. You look so formal both of you. If I am to be condemned, my lord, I hope you'll give me a long day."

"That's just it," said Miss Baker; "it must be a long day, I'm afraid, George."

"What do you mean?"

"Why this; we think the marriage must be put off till after you have been called. You are both young, you know."

"Nonsense!" said George, rather too imperiously for a lover.

"Nay, but, George, it is not nonsense," said Caroline, in her sweetest voice, almost imploringly. "Don't be impetuous; don't be angry with us. It is for your sake we say so."

"For my sake!"

"Yes, for your sake; for your sake;" and she put his hand inside her arm, and almost pressed it to her bosom. "For your sake,
certainly, George; you of whom we are so much bound to think."

"Then for my own sake I disdain any such solicitude. I know the world, at any rate, as well as either of you——"

"Ah! I am not sure of that," said Caroline.

"And I know well, that our joint income should be ample for the next four or five years. You will have to give up your horse——"

"I should think nothing of that, George; nothing."

"And that is all. How many thousand married couples are there, do you suppose, in London, who are now living on less than what our income will be?"

"Many thousands, doubtless. But very few, probably not one, so living happily, when the husband has been brought up in such a manner as has been Master George Bertram."

"Caroline, my belief is, that you know nothing about it. Some of your would-be-grand friends here in Littlebath have been frightening you on the score of income."

"I have no friend in Littlebath to whom I would condescend to speak on such a matter, except aunt Mary." Caroline's tone as she said this showed some slight offence; but not more than she had a right to show.

"And what do you say, aunt Mary?"

"Well, I really agree with Caroline; I really do."

"Ah, she has talked you over." This was true.

"And what is the date, Miss Waddington, that you are now kind enough to name for our
wedding-day?" asked George, in a tone half of anger and half of banter. To Caroline's ear, the anger seemed to predominate.

"The day after you shall have been called to the bar, Mr. Bertram. That is, if the press of two such great events together will not be too much for you."

"Of course you know that that is putting it off for nearly three years?"

"For more than two, I believe, certainly."

"And you can talk quite coolly about such a delay as that?"

"Not quite coolly, George; but, at any rate, with a fixed purpose."

"And am not I then to have a fixed purpose also?"

"Certainly, dearest, you can. You can say, if you are cruel enough, that it shall be postponed for two years again after that. Or you can say, if you will do so, that under such circumstances you will not marry me at all. We have each got what you lawyers call a veto. Now, George, I put my veto upon poverty for you, and discomfort, and an untidy house, and the perils of a complaining, fretful wife. If I can ever assist you to be happy, and prosperous, and elate before the world, I will try my best to do so; but I will not come to you like a clog round your neck, to impede all your efforts in your first struggle at rising. If I can wait, George, surely you can? An unfulfilled engagement can be no impediment to a man, whatever it may be to a girl."

It may have been perceived by this time that Miss Waddington was not a person easy to be
talked over. On this occasion, Bertram failed altogether in moving her. Even though at one moment aunt Mary had almost yielded to him, Caroline remained steady as a rock. None of his eloquence—and he was very eloquent on the occasion—changed her at all. She became soft in her tone, and affectionate, almost caressing in her manner; but nothing would induce her to go from her point Bertram got on a very high horse, and spoke of the engagement as being thus practically broken off. She did not become angry, or declare that she took him at his word; but with a low voice she said that she was aware that her determination gave him an option in the matter. He would certainly be justified in so resolving; nay, might do so without the slightest stain upon his faith. She herself would not violate the truth by saying that such a decision would give her pleasure; that it would—would——Here for the first time she became rather agitated, and before she could finish, George was at her feet, swearing that he could not, would not live without her; that she knew that he could not, and would not do so.

And so the little conference ended. George had certainly gained nothing. Caroline had gained this, that she had made known her resolution, and had, nevertheless, not lost her lover. To all the expressions of her determination not to marry till George should be a barrister, aunt Mary had added a little clause—that such decision might at any moment be changed by some new act of liberality on the part of uncle Bertram. In aunt Mary's mind, the rich uncle, the rich grandfather, was still the god that was to come down upon the stage and relieve them from their great difficult.