The Bertrams Part 59

"Then what I said belied my thoughts. It seems to me, Mr. Wilkinson, since you drive me to speak out, that the matter is very much in your own hands. You are certainly a free agent. You know better than I can tell you what your duty to your mother and sisters requires.

Circ.u.mstances have made them dependent on you, and you certainly are not the man to disacknowledge the burden."

"Certainly not."

"No, certainly not. But, having made up my mind to that, I would not, were I you, allow myself to be a slave."

"But what can I do?"

"You mean that you would be a poor man, were you--were you to give up your fellows.h.i.+p and at the same time take upon yourself other cares as well. Do as other poor men do."

"I know no other man situated as I am."

"But you know men who are much worse situated as regards their worldly means. Were you to give your mother the half of your income, you would still, I presume, be richer than Mr. Young." Mr. Young was the curate of a neighbouring parish, who had lately married on his curacy.

It will be said by my critics, especially by my female critics, that in saying this, Adela went a long way towards teaching Mr. Wilkinson the way to woo. Indeed, she brought that accusation against herself, and not lightly. But she was, as she herself had expressed it, driven in the cause of truth to say what she had said. Nor did she, in her heart of hearts, believe that Mr. Wilkinson had any thought of her in saying what she did say. Her mind on that matter had been long made up. She knew herself to be "the poor sequestered stag, left and abandoned by his velvet friend." She had no feeling in the matter which amounted to the slightest hope. He had asked her for her counsel, and she had given him the only counsel which she honestly could give.

Therefore, bear lightly on her, oh my critics! Bear lightly on her especially, my critics feminine. To the worst of your wrath and scorn I willingly subject the other lovers with whom my tale is burthened.

"Yes, I should be better off than Young," said Wilkinson, as though he were speaking to himself. "But that is not the point. I do not know that I have ever looked at it exactly in that light. There is the house, the parsonage I mean. It is full of women"--'twas thus irreverently that he spoke of his mother and sisters--"what other woman would come among them?"

"Oh, that is the treasure for which you have to search"--this she said laughingly. The bitterness of the day was over with her; or at least it then seemed so. She was not even thinking of herself when she said this.

"Would you come to such a house, Adela? You, you yourself?"

"You mean to ask whether, if, as regards other circ.u.mstances, I was minded to marry, I would then be deterred by a mother-in-law and sister-in-law?"

"Yes, just so," said Wilkinson, timidly.

"Well, that would depend much upon how well I might like the gentleman; something also upon how much I might like the ladies."

"A man's wife should always be mistress in his own house."

"Oh yes, of course."

"And my mother is determined to be mistress in that house."

"Well, I will not recommend you to rebel against your mother. Is that the station, Mr. Wilkinson?"

"Yes--that's the station. Dear me, we have forty minutes to wait yet!"

"Don't mind me, Mr. Wilkinson. I shall not in the least dislike waiting by myself."

"Of course, I shall see you off. Dumpling won't run away; you may be sure of that. There is very little of the runaway cla.s.s to be found at Hurst Staple Parsonage; except you, Adela."

"You don't call me a runaway, I hope?"

"You run away from us just when we are beginning to feel the comfort of your being with us. There, he won't catch cold now;" and so having thrown a rug over Dumpling's back, he followed Adela into the station.

I don't know anything so tedious as waiting at a second-cla.s.s station for a train. There is the ladies' waiting-room, into which gentlemen may not go, and the gentlemen's waiting-room, in which the porters generally smoke, and the refreshment room, with its dirty counter covered with dirtier cakes. And there is the platform, which you walk up and down till you are tired. You go to the ticket-window half a dozen times for your ticket, having been warned by the company's bills that you must be prepared to start at least ten minutes before the train is due. But the man inside knows better, and does not open the little hole to which you have to stoop your head till two minutes before the time named for your departure. Then there are five fat farmers, three old women, and a butcher at the aperture, and not finding yourself equal to struggling among them for a place, you make up your mind to be left behind. At last, however, you do get your ticket just as the train comes up; but hearing that exciting sound, you nervously cram your change into your pocket without counting it, and afterwards feel quite convinced that you have lost a s.h.i.+lling in the transaction.

'Twas somewhat in this way that the forty minutes were pa.s.sed by Wilkinson and Adela. Nothing of any moment was spoken between them till he took her hand for the last time. "Adela," he then whispered to her, "I shall think much of what you have said to me, very much.

I do so wish you were not leaving us. I wonder whether you would be surprised if I were to write to you?" But the train was gone before she had time to answer.

Two days afterwards, Bertram also left them. "Arthur," he said, as he took leave of the vicar, "if I, who have made such a mess of it myself, may give advice on such a subject, I would not leave Adela Gauntlet long at Littlebath if I were you."

CHAPTER XIII.

THE SOLICITOR-GENERAL IN LOVE.

Caroline Waddington was at Hadley when she received and accepted the proposal made to her by Sir Henry Harcourt. It may be conceived that the affair was arranged without any very great amount of romance. Sir Henry indeed was willing, in a hurried manner, to throw himself at the lady's feet, to swear by her fair hand that he loved her as man never yet had loved, and to go to work in the fas.h.i.+on usually most approved by young ladies. In a hurried manner, I say; for just at this moment he was being made solicitor-general, and had almost too many irons in the fire to permit of a prolonged dallying. But Caroline would have none of it, either hurried or not hurried.

Whatever might be the case with Sir Henry, she had gone through that phase of life, and now declared to herself that she did not want any more of it.

Sir Henry did not find the task of gaining his bride very difficult.

He had succeeded in establis.h.i.+ng a sort of intimacy with old Mr.

Bertram, and it appeared that permission to run down to Hadley and run back again had already been accorded to him before Miss Baker and Caroline arrived there. He never slept, though he sometimes dined in the house; but he had always something to talk about when an excuse for going to Hadley was required. Mr. Bertram had asked him something about some investment, and he had found out this something; or he wanted to ask Mr. Bertram's advice on some question as to his political career. At this period he was, or professed to be, very much guided in his public life by Mr. Bertram's opinion.

And thus he fell in with Caroline. On the first occasion of his doing so, he contrived to whisper to her his deep sympathy with her sorrow; on his second visit, he spoke more of himself and less of Bertram; on his third, he alluded only to her own virtues; on his fourth, he asked her to be Lady Harcourt. She told him that she would be Lady Harcourt; and, as far as she was concerned, there was an end of it for the present.

Then Sir Henry proposed that the day should be named. On this subject also he found her ready to accommodate him. She had no coy scruples as to the time. He suggested that it should be before Christmas.

Very well; let it be before Christmas. Christmas is a cold time for marrying; but this was to be a cold marriage. Christmas, however, for the fortunate is made warm with pudding, ale, and spiced beef.

They intended to be among the fortunate, the fortunate in place, and money, and rank; and they would, as best they might, make themselves warm with the best pudding, ale, and spiced beef which the world could afford them.

Sir Henry was alive to the delight of being the possessor of so many charms, and was somewhat chagrined that for the present he was so cruelly debarred from any part of his legitimate enjoyment. Though he was a solicitor-general, he could have been content to sit for ten minutes with his arm round Caroline's waist; and--in spite of the energy with which he was preparing a bill for the regulation of County Courts, as to which he knew that he should have that terrible demi-G.o.d, Lord Boanerges, down upon his shoulders--still he would fain have stolen a kiss or two. But Caroline's waist and Caroline's kisses were to be his only after Christmas; and to be his only as payment accorded for her new rank, and for her fine new house in Eaton Square.

How is it that girls are so potent to refuse such favours at one time, and so impotent in preventing their exaction at another? Sir Henry, we may say, had every right to demand some trifling payment in advance; but he could not get a doit. Should we be violating secrecy too much if we suggested that George Bertram had had some slight partial success even when he had no such positive claim--some success which had of course been in direct opposition to the lady's will?

Miss Baker had now gone back to Littlebath, either to receive Adela Gauntlet, or because she knew that she should be more comfortable in her own rooms than in her uncle's dismal house--or perhaps because Sir Lionel was there. She had, however, gone back, and Caroline remained mistress for the time of her grandfather's household.

The old man now seemed to have dropped all mystery in the matter. He generally, indeed, spoke of Caroline as Miss Waddington; but he heard her talked of as his granddaughter without expressing anger, and with Sir Henry he himself so spoke of her. He appeared to be quite reconciled to the marriage. In spite of all his entreaties to George, all his attempted bribery, his broken-hearted sorrow when he failed, he seemed to be now content. Indeed, he had made no opposition to the match. When Caroline had freely spoken to him about it, he made some little snappish remark as to the fickleness of women; but he at the same time signified that he would not object.

Why should he? Sir Henry Harcourt was in every respect a good match for his granddaughter. He had often been angry with George Bertram because George had not prospered in the world. Sir Henry had prospered signally--would probably prosper much more signally. Might it not be safely predicated of a man who was solicitor-general before he was thirty, that he would be lord-chancellor or lord chief-justice, or at any rate some very bigwig indeed before he was fifty? So of course Mr. Bertram did not object.

But he had not signified his acquiescence in any very cordial way.

Rich old men, when they wish to be cordial on such occasions, have but one way of evincing cordiality. It is not by a pressure of the hand, by a kind word, by an approving glance. Their embrace conveys no satisfaction; their warmest words, if unsupported, are very cold.

An old man, if he intends to be cordial on such an occasion, must speak of _thousands of pounds_. "My dear young fellow, I approve altogether. She shall have _twenty thousand pounds_ the day she becomes yours." Then is the hand shaken with true fervour; then is real cordiality expressed and felt. "What a dear old man grandpapa is! Is there any one like him? Dear old duck! He is going to be so generous to Harry."

But Mr. Bertram said nothing about twenty thousand pounds, nothing about ten, nothing about money at all till he was spoken to on the subject. It was Sir Henry's special object not to be pressing on this point, to show that he was marrying Caroline without any sordid views, and that his admiration for Mr. Bertram had no bearing at all on that gentleman's cash-box. He did certainly make little feints at Mr. Pritchett; but Mr. Pritchett merely wheezed and said nothing.

Mr. Pritchett was not fond of the Harcourt interest; and seemed to care but little for Miss Caroline, now that she had transferred her affections.

But it was essentially necessary that Sir Henry Harcourt should know what was to be done. If he were to have nothing, it was necessary that he should know that. He had certainly counted on having something, and on having something immediately. He was a thoroughly hard-working man of business, but yet he was not an economical man. A man who lives before the world in London, and lives chiefly among men of fortune, can hardly be economical. He had not therefore any large sum of money in hand. He was certainly in receipt of a large income, but then his expenses were large. He had taken and now had to furnish an expensive house in Eaton Square, and a few thousand pounds in ready money were almost indispensable to him.

One Friday--this was after his return to town from the ten days'

grouse-shooting, and occurred at the time when he was most busy with the County Courts--he wrote to Caroline to say that he would go down to Hadley on Sat.u.r.day afternoon, stay there over the Sunday, and return to town on the Monday morning; that is to say, he would do so if perfectly agreeable to Mr. Bertram.

He went down, and found everything prepared for him that was suitable for a solicitor-general. They did not put before him merely roast mutton or boiled beef. He was not put to sleep in the back bedroom without a carpet. Such treatment had been good enough for George Bertram; but for the solicitor-general all the glories of Hadley were put forth. He slept in the best bedroom, which was damp enough no doubt, seeing that it was not used above twice in the year; and went through at dinner a whole course of _entrees_, such as _entrees_ usually are in the suburban districts. This was naturally gratifying to him as a solicitor-general, and fortified him for the struggle he was to make.