The Bertrams (25 page)

"I cannot say that I think she showed either good feeling or good taste," said Wilkinson, stiffly.

"Ah! my dear fellow, you do not know her. There was no bad taste in it, as she said it. I would defy her to say anything in bad taste. But, Arthur, that does not matter. I have told her that I should go to the bar; and, as a man of honour, I must keep my word to her."

His cousin had not much inclination to lecture him. Wilkinson himself was now a clergyman; but he had become so mainly because he had failed in obtaining the power of following any other profession. He would have gone to the bar had he been able; and felt himself by no means called to rebuke Bertram for doing what he would fain have done himself.

"But she has not accepted you, you say. Why should she be so unwilling that you should take orders? Her anxiety on your behalf tells a strong tale in your own favour."

"Ah! you say that because you do not understand her. She was able to give me advice without giving the least shadow of encouragement. Indeed, when she did advise me, I had not even told her that I loved her. But the fact is, I cannot bear this state any longer. I will know the worst at any rate. I wish you could see her, Arthur; you would not wonder that I should be uneasy."

And so he went on with a lover's customary eloquence till a late hour in the night. Wilkinson was all patience; but about one o'clock he began to yawn, and then they went to bed. Early on the following morning, Bertram started for Littlebath.

The Littlebath world lives mostly in lodgings, and Miss Baker and Caroline lived there as the world mostly does. There are three sets of persons who resort to Littlebath: there is the heavy fast, and the lighter fast set; there is also the pious set. Of the two fast sets neither is scandalously fast. The pace is never very awful. Of the heavies, it may be said that the gentlemen generally wear their coats padded, are frequently seen standing idle about the parades and terraces, that they always keep a horse, and trot about the roads a good deal when the hounds go out The ladies are addicted to whist and false hair, but pursue their pleasures with a discreet economy. Of the lighter fast set, assembly balls are the ruling passion; but even in these there is no wild extravagance. The gentlemen of this division keep usually two horses, on the sale of one of which their mind is much bent. They drink
plentifully of cherry-brandy on hunting days; but, as a rule, they do not often misbehave themselves. They are very careful not to be caught in marriage, and talk about women much as a crafty knowing salmon might be presumed to talk about anglers. The ladies are given to dancing, of course, and are none of them nearly so old as you might perhaps be led to imagine. They greatly eschew card-playing; but, nevertheless, now and again one of them may be seen to lapse from her sphere and fall into that below, if we may justly say that the votaries of whist are below the worshippers of Terpsichore. Of the pious set much needs not be said, as their light has never been hid under a bushel. In spite of hunt-clubs and assembly-rooms, they are the predominant power. They live on the fat of the land. They are a strong, unctuous, moral, uncharitable people. The men never cease making money for themselves, nor the women making slippers for their clergyman.

But though the residents at Littlebath are thus separated as a rule into three classes, the classes do not always keep themselves accurately to their divisions. There will be some who own a double allegiance. One set will tread upon another. There will be those who can hardly be placed in either. Miss Baker was among this latter number: on principle she was an admirer of the great divine on the domestic comfort of whose toes so many fair fingers had employed themselves; but nevertheless, she was not averse to a rubber in its mildest forms. Caroline did not play whist,
but she occasionally gave way to the allurement prevalent among the younger female world of Littlebath.

Miss Baker lived in lodgings, and Bertram therefore went to an hotel. Had she been mistress of the largest house in Littlebath, he would hardly have ventured to propose himself as a guest. The "Plough," however, is a good inn, and he deposited himself there. The hunting season at Littlebath had commenced, and Bertram soon found that had he so wished he could with but little trouble have provided himself with a stud in the coffee-room of his hotel.

He had intended to call on Miss Baker on the evening of his arrival; but he had not actually told her that he would do so: and though he walked down to the terrace in which she lived, his courage failed him when he got there, and he would not go in. "It may be that evening calls are not the thing at Littlebath," he said to himself; and so he walked back to his hotel.

And on the following day he did not go before two o'clock. The consequence was, that poor Miss Baker and her niece were kept at home in a state of miserable suspense. To them his visit was quite as important as to himself; and by one of them, the elder namely, it was regarded with an anxiety quite as nervous.

When he did call, he was received with all the hospitality due to an old friend. "Why had he not come to tea the night before? Tea had been kept for him till eleven o'clock. Why, at any rate, had he not come to breakfast?
He had been much nicer in Jerusalem," Miss Baker said.

Bertram answered hardly with the spirit which had marked all that he had said in that far-away land. "He had been afraid to disturb them so late; and had been unwilling to intrude so early." Miss Waddington looked up at him from the collar she was working, and began to ask herself whether she really did like him so much.

"Of course you will dine with us," said Miss Baker. George said he would, but assured her that he had not intended to give so much trouble. Could this be the same man, thought Caroline, who had snubbed Mr. M'Gabbery, and had stood by laughing when she slipped into the water?

All manner of questions were then asked and answered respecting their different journeys. Constantinople was described on one side, and the Tyrol; and on the other the perils of the ride to Jaffa, the discomforts of the Austrian boat to Alexandria, and the manners of the ladies from India with whom Miss Baker and her niece had travelled in their passage from Egypt to Marseilles. Then they said something about uncle George—not that Miss Baker so called him—and Bertram said that he had learnt that Miss Baker had been staying at Hadley.

"Yes," said she; "when I am in town, I have always money matters to arrange with Mr. Bertram, or rather to have arranged by Mr. Pritchett; and I usually stay a day or two at Hadley. On this occasion I was there a week."

George could not but think that up to the
period of their meeting at Jerusalem, Miss Baker had been instructed to be silent about Hadley, but that she was now permitted to speak out openly.

And so they sat and talked for an hour. Caroline had given her aunt strict injunctions not to go out of the room, so as to leave them together during Bertram's first visit. "Of course it would be palpable that you did so for a purpose," said Caroline.

"And why not?" said Miss Baker, innocently.

"Never mind, aunt; but pray do not. I don't wish it." Miss Baker of course obeyed, as she always did. And so George sat there, talking about anything or nothing, rather lack-a-daisically, till he got up to take his leave.

"You have not a horse here, I suppose?" said Miss Baker.

"No; but why do you ask? I can get one in ten minutes, no doubt."

"Because Caroline will be so glad to have some one to ride with her."

"Nothing will induce aunt Mary to mount a steed since the day she was lifted out of her saddle at Jaffa," said Caroline.

"Oh, that journey, Mr. Bertram! but I am a stronger woman than I ever thought I was to have lived through it."

It was soon arranged that George should go back to his inn and hire a horse, and that he and Caroline should then ride together. In another hour or so they were cantering up the face of Ridgebury Hill.

But the ride produced very little. Caroline
here required her attention, and George did not find it practicable to remain close enough to his love, or long enough close to her, to say what he had to say with that emphasis which he felt that the subject demanded. There were some little tender allusions to feats of horsemanship done in Syria, some mention of the Mount of Olives, of Miss Todd's picnic, and the pool of Siloam, which might, if properly handled, have led to much; but they did lead to nothing: and when George helped Miss Waddington to dismount at Miss Baker's door, that young lady had almost come to the conclusion that he had thought better of his love, and that it would be well that she should think better of hers.

In accordance with our professed attempt at plain speaking, it may be as well explained here that Miss Baker, with the view of sounding her uncle's views and wishes, had observed to him that George had appeared to her to admire Caroline very much. Had the old man remarked, as he might so probably have done, that they were two fools, and would probably become two beggars, Miss Baker would have known that the match would be displeasing to him. But he had not done so. "Ah!" he said; "did he? It is singular they should have met." Now Miss Baker in her wisdom had taken this as a strong hint that the match would not be displeasing to him.

Miss Baker had clearly been on George's side from the beginning. Perhaps, had she shown a little opposition, Caroline's ardour might have been heightened. As it was, she had professed
to doubt. She had nothing to say against George; much might doubtless be said in his favour, but——. In fact, Miss Waddington would have been glad to know what were the intentions of Mr. George Bertram senior.

"I really wish he had stayed away," she said to her aunt as they were getting ready for dinner.

"Nonsense, Caroline; why should he have stayed away? Why should you expect him to stay away? Had he stayed away, you would have been the first to grumble. Don't be missish, my dear."

"Missish! Upon my word, aunt Mary, you are becoming severe. What I mean is, that I don't think he cares so very much for me; and on the whole, I am not—not
quite
sure, whether—well, I won't say anything more; only it does seem to me that you are much more in love with him than I am."

Bertram came to dinner; and so also did one of the Littlebath curates, a very energetic young man, but who had not yet achieved above one or two pairs of worked slippers and a kettle-holder. Greater things, however, were no doubt in store for him if he would remain true to his mission. Aunt Mary had intended to ask no one; but Caroline had declared that it was out of the question to expect that Mr. Bertram should drink his wine by himself.

The whole evening was dull enough, and the work of disenchantment on Caroline's part was nearly accomplished; but Bertram, a few minutes before he went away, as the curate was expatiating to Miss Baker on the excellence of
his rector's last sermon, found an occasion to say one word.

"Miss Waddington, if I call tomorrow, early after breakfast, will you see me?" Miss Waddington looked as though there were nothing in the proposition to ruffle her serenity, and said that she would. George's words had been tame enough, but there had been something in the fire of his eye that at last reminded her of Jerusalem.

On the next morning, punctually at ten, his knock was heard at the door. Caroline had at first persisted that her aunt should not absent herself; but even Miss Baker would not obey such an injunction as this.

"How do you expect that the poor young man is to behave?" she had said. "I do not much care how he behaves," Caroline had replied. But, nevertheless, she did care.

She was therefore sitting alone when Bertram entered the room. He walked up to her and took her hand, and as he did so he seemed to be altogether a different man from that of yesterday. There was purpose enough in his countenance now, and a purpose, apparently, which he had an intention of pursuing with some energy.

"Miss Waddington," he said, still holding her hand; "Caroline! Or am I to apologize for calling you so? or is the privilege to be my own?" and then, still holding her hand, he stood as though expectant of an answer that should settle the affair at once.

"Our connection through your uncle entitles you to the privilege," said Caroline, smiling,
and using a woman's wiles to get out of the difficulty.

"I will take no privilege from you on such a basis. What I have to ask of you must be given on my own account, or on my own refused. Caroline, since we parted in that room in Jerusalem, I have thought seriously of little else than of you. You could not answer me then; you gave me no answer; you did not know your own heart, you said. You must know it now. Absence has taught me much, and it must have taught you something."

"And what has it taught you?" said she, with her eyes fixed on the ground.

"That the world has but one thing desirable for me, and that I should not take a man's part unless I endeavoured to obtain it. I am here to ask for it. And now, what has absence taught you?"

"Oh, so many things! I cannot repeat my lesson in one word, as you do."

"Come, Caroline, I look at least for sincerity from you. You are too good, too gracious to indulge a girlish vanity at the cost of a man's suspense."

Missish and girlish! Miss Waddington felt that it behoved her to look to her character. These were words which had not usually been applied to her.

"Indeed, Mr. Bertram, I should think myself unpardonable to keep you in suspense."

"Then answer me," said he. He had by this time let go her hand, and was standing at a little distance from her, on the hearth-rug. Never had lady been wooed in a sterner manner;
but Caroline almost felt that she liked him the better for it. He had simpered and said his little nothings so like an ordinary gentleman during their ride, that his present brusqueness was quite a relief to her.

But still she did not answer him at once. She essayed to stick her needle into her work, and pricked her finger in lieu of it.

"Come, Caroline; am I wrong in supposing that now at least you must know your own feelings? Or shall I tell you again how dearly, how truly I love you?"