The Bertrams Part 18

"I will go, of course," said M'Gabbery, emerging slowly from the pool. "Of course it is for me to go; I shall be glad of an opportunity of getting dry boots myself."

"I am so sorry you have got wet," said the beauty.

"Oh! it's nothing; I like it. I was not going to see you in the water without coming to you. Pray tell me what I shall fetch. I know all your boxes so well, you know, so I can have no difficulty. Will they be in the one with C. W. on it in bra.s.s nails? That was the one which fell off the camel near the Temple of Dagon." Poor Mr. M'Gabbery!

that ride through the desert was an oasis in his otherwise somewhat barren life, never to be forgotten.

"I am the sinner, Miss Waddington," said George, at last, "and on me let the punishment fall. I will go back to Jerusalem; and in order that you may suffer no inconvenience, I will bring hither all your boxes and all your trunks on the backs of a score of Arab porters."

"You know you intend to do no such thing," said she. "You have already told me your ideas as to waiting upon young ladies."

There was, however, at last some whispering between Miss Baker and her niece, in which Mr. M'Gabbery vainly attempted to join, and the matter ended in one of the grooms being sent into the town, laden with a bunch of keys and a written message for Miss Baker's servant.

Before dinner-time, Miss Waddington had comfortably changed her stockings in the upper story of the tomb of St. James, and Mr.

M'Gabbery--but Mr. M'Gabbery's wet feet did not receive the attention which they deserved.

Pa.s.sing on from the pool of Siloam, they came to a water-course at which there was being conducted a considerable was.h.i.+ng of clothes.

The washerwomen--the term is used as being generic to the trade and not to the s.e.x, for some of the performers were men--were divided into two cla.s.ses, who worked separately; not so separately but what they talked together, and were on friendly terms; but still there was a division. The upper washerwomen, among whom the men were at work, were Mahomedans; the lower set were Jewesses. As to the men, but little observation was made, except that they seemed expert enough, dabbing their clothes, rubbing in the soap, and then rinsing, very much in the manner of Christians. But it was impossible not to look at the women. The female followers of the Prophet had, as they always have, some pretence of a veil for their face. In the present instance, they held in their teeth a dirty blue calico rag, which pa.s.sed over their heads, acting also as a shawl. By this contrivance, intended only to last while the Christians were there, they concealed one side of the face and the chin. No one could behold them without wis.h.i.+ng that the eclipse had been total. No epithet commonly applied to women in this country could adequately describe their want of comeliness. They kept their faces to their work, and except that they held their rags between their teeth, they gave no sign of knowing that strangers were standing by them.

It was different with the Jewesses. When they were stared at, they stood up boldly and stared again;--and well worth looking at they were. There were three or four of them, young women all, though already mothers, for their children were playing on the gra.s.s behind them. Each bore on her head that moon-shaped head-dress which is there the symbol of a Jewess; and no more graceful tiara can a woman wear. It was wonderful that the same land should produce women so different as were these close neighbours. The Mahomedans were ape-like; but the Jewesses were glorious specimens of feminine creation. They were somewhat too bold, perhaps; there was too much daring in their eyes, as, with their naked shoulders and bosoms nearly bare, they met the eyes of the men that were looking at them.

But there was nothing immodest in their audacity; it was defiant rather, and scornful.

There was one among them, a girl, perhaps of eighteen, who might have been a sculptor's model, not only for form and figure, but for the expression of her countenance and the beautiful turn of her head and shoulders. She was very unlike the Jewess that is ordinarily pictured to us. She had no beaky nose, no thin face, no sharp, small, black, bright eyes; she was fair, as Esther was fair; her forehead and face were broad, her eyes large and open; yet she was a Jewess, plainly a Jewess; such a Jewess as are many still to be seen--in Palestine, at least, if not elsewhere.

When they came upon her, she was pressing the dripping water from some large piece of linen, a sheet probably. In doing this she had cunningly placed one end firmly under her foot upon a stone, and then, with her hands raised high above her head, she twisted and retwisted it till the water oozing out fell in heavy drops round her feet. Her arms and neck were bare, as were also her feet; and it was clear that she put forth to her work as much strength as usually falls to the lot of a woman in any country.

She was very fair to look at, but there was about her no feminine softness. Do not laugh, reader, unless you have already stopped to think, and, thinking, have decided that a girl of eighteen, being a washerwoman, must therefore be without feminine softness. I would not myself say that it is so. But here at least there was no feminine softness, no tenderness in the eye, no young shame at being gazed at.

She paused for a moment in her work, and gave back to them all the look they gave her; and then, as though they were beneath her notice, she strained once more at her task, and so dropped the linen to the ground.

"If I knew how to set about the bargain, I would take that woman home with me, and mould her to be my wife." Such was George Bertram's outspoken enthusiasm.

"Moulded wives never answer well," said Sir Lionel.

"I think he would prefer one that had been dipped," whispered Miss Todd to the colonel; but her allusion to Miss Waddington's little accident on the water, and to the chandler's wares, was not thoroughly appreciated.

It has been said that the hampers were to be sent to the tomb of Zachariah; but they agreed to dine immediately opposite to that of St. James the Less. This is situated in the middle of the valley of Jehoshaphat, in the centre of myriads of Jewish tombs, directly opposite to the wall built with those huge temple stones, not many feet over the then dry water-course of the brook Cedron. Such was the spot chosen by Miss Todd for her cold chickens and champagne.

Of course they wandered about a little in pairs and trios while these dainties were being prepared for them. This St. James's tomb is a little temple built on the side of the rock, singularly graceful. The front towards the city is adorned with two or three Roman pillars, bearing, if I remember rightly, plain capitals. There is, I think, no pediment above them, or any other adjunct of architectural pretension; but the pillars themselves, so unlike anything else there, so unlike any other sepulchral monument that I, at least, have seen, make the tomb very remarkable. That it was built for a tomb is, I suppose, not to be doubted; though for whose ashes it was in fact erected may perhaps be questioned. I am not aware that any claimant has been named as a rival to St. James.

The most conspicuous of these monuments is that which tradition allots to Absalom, close to this other which we have just described.

It consists of a solid square erection, bearing what, for want of a better name, I must call a spire, with curved sides, the sides curving inwards as they fall from the apex to the base. This spiral roof, too low and dumpy to be properly called a spire, is very strong, built with stones laid in circles flat on each other, the circles becoming smaller as they rise towards the top. Why Absalom should have had such a tomb, who can say? That his bones were buried there, the Jews at least believe; for Jewish fathers, as they walk by with their children, bid their boys each cast a stone there to mark their displeasure at the child who rebelled against his parent. It is now nearly full of such stones.

While Miss Waddington was arranging her toilet within the tomb of St.

James, her admirers below were not making themselves agreeable to each other. "It was the awkwardest thing I ever saw," said Mr. Cruse to Mr. M'Gabbery, in a low tone, but not so low but what Bertram was intended to hear it.

"Very," said Mr. M'Gabbery. "Some men are awkward by nature;--seem, indeed, as though they were never intended for ladies' society."

"And then to do nothing but laugh at the mischief he had caused. That may be the way at Oxford; but we used to flatter ourselves at Cambridge that we had more politeness."

"Cambridge!" said Bertram, turning round and speaking with the most courteous tone he could command. "Were you at Cambridge? I thought I had understood that you were educated at St. Bees." Mr. Cruse had been at St. Bees, but had afterwards gone to the University.

"I was a scholar at St. John's, sir," replied Mr. Cruse, with much dignity. "M'Gabbery, shall we take a stroll across the valley till the ladies are ready?" And so, having sufficiently shown their contempt for the awkward Oxonian, they moved away.

"Two very nice fellows, are they not?" said Bertram to Mr. Hunter.

"It's a stroke of good fortune to fall in with such men as that at such a place as this."

"They're very well in their own way," said Mr. Hunter, who was lying on the gra.s.s, and flattering himself that he looked more Turkish than any Turk he had yet seen. "But they don't seem to me to be quite at home here in the East. Few Englishman in fact are. Cruse is always wanting boiled vegetables, and M'Gabbery can't eat without a regular knife and fork. Give me a pilau and a bit of bread, and I can make a capital dinner without anything to help me but my own fingers."

"Cruse isn't a bad kind of coach," said young Pott. "He never interferes with a fellow. His only fault is that he's so spoony about women."

"They're gentlemanlike men," said Sir Lionel; "very. One can't expect, you know, that every one should set the Thames on fire."

"Cruse won't do that, at any rate," put in Mr. Pott.

"But Mr. M'Gabbery perhaps may," suggested George. "At any rate, he made a little blaze just now at the brook above." And then the ladies came down, and the business of the day commenced; seeing which, the two injured ones returned to their posts.

"I am very fond of a picnic," said Sir Lionel, as, seated on a corner of a tombstone, he stretched out his gla.s.s towards Miss Todd, who had insisted on being his cupbearer for the occasion; "excessively fond.

I mean the eating and drinking part, of course. There is only one thing I like better; and that is having my dinner under a roof, upon a table, and with a chair to sit on."

"Oh, you ungrateful man; after all that I am doing for you!"

"I spoke of picnics generally, Miss Todd. Could I always have my nectar filled to me by a G.o.ddess, I would be content with no room, but expect to recline on a cloud, and have thunderbolts ready at my right hand."

"What a beautiful Jupiter your father would make, Mr. Bertram!"

"Yes; and what a happy king of G.o.ds with such a Juno as you, Miss Todd!"

"Ha! ha! ha! oh dear, no. I pretend to no _role_ higher than that of Hebe. Mr. M'Gabbery, may I thank you for a slice of ham? I declare, these tombs are very nice tables, are they not? Only, I suppose it's very improper. Mr. Cruse, I'm so sorry that we have no potatoes; but there is salad, I know."

"Talking of chairs," said Mr. Hunter, "after all there has been no seat yet invented by man equal to a divan, either for ease, dignity, or grace." Mr. Hunter had long been practising to sit cross-legged, and was now attempting it on on the gra.s.s for the first time in public. It had at any rate this inconvenient effect, that he was perfectly useless; for, when once seated, he could neither help himself nor any one else.

"The cigar divan is a very nice lounge when one has nothing better to do," suggested Mr. Pott. "They have capital coffee there."

"A divan and a sofa are much the same, I suppose," said George.

But to this Mr. Hunter demurred, and explained at some length what were the true essential qualities of a real Turkish divan: long before he had finished, however, George had got up to get a clean plate for Miss Waddington, and in sitting down had turned his back upon the Turk. The unfortunate Turk could not revenge himself, as in his present position any motion was very difficult to him.

Picnic dinners are much the same in all parts of the world, and chickens and salad are devoured at Jerusalem very much in the same way as they are at other places--except, indeed, by a few such proficients in Turkish manners as Mr. Hunter. The little Arab children stood around them, expectant of sc.r.a.ps, as I have seen children do also in England; and the conversation, which was dull enough at the commencement of the feast, became more animated when a few corks had flown. As the afternoon wore on, Mr. M'Gabbery became almost bellicose under the continual indifference of his lady-love; and had it not been for the better sense of our hero--such better sense may be expected from gentlemen who are successful--something very like a quarrel would have taken place absolutely in the presence of Miss Todd.

Perhaps Miss Waddington was not free from all blame in the matter.

It would be unjust to accuse her of flirting--of flirting, at least, in the objectionable sense of the word. It was not in her nature to flirt. But it was in her nature to please herself without thinking much of the manner in which she did it, and it was in her nature also to be indifferent as to what others thought of her. Though she had never before known George Bertram, there was between them that sort of family knowledge of each other which justified a greater intimacy than between actual strangers. Then, too, he pleased her, while Mr. M'Gabbery only bored. She had not yet thought enough about the world's inhabitants to have recognized and adjudicated on the difference between those who talk pleasantly and those who do not; but she felt that she was amused by this young double-first Oxonian, and she had no idea of giving up amus.e.m.e.nt when it came in her way.

Of such amus.e.m.e.nt, she had hitherto known but little. Miss Baker herself was, perhaps, rather dull. Miss Baker's friends at Littlebath were not very bright; but Caroline had never in her heart accused them of being other than amusing. It is only by knowing his contrast that we recognize a bore when we meet him. It was in this manner that she now began to ascertain that Mr. M'Gabbery certainly had bored her. Ascertaining it, she threw him off at once--perhaps without sufficient compunction.

"I'll cut that c.o.c.k'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 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 c.o.c.k's comb yet before I have done with him,"

repeated Mr. M'Gabbery.