The Bertrams Part 7

"Not exactly to distress me, perhaps; but I will tell you. When the marquis offered me the living, he did it on the stipulation that I should pay over to my mother three hundred and fifty pounds a year during her life. I doubt whether it was right to accept it on these conditions; but I did so. The living, therefore, is rather hers than mine."

"Oh, Arthur, how good of you!" In spite of all Aunt Penelope's lessons, old habits would sometimes get the better of her.

"I don't know; I am afraid that it was not good."

"Why? I can't understand? Surely it must be good to give up your time, your labour, your hopes"--Adela did not say his heart--"for your mother and sisters' good! Why, how can it be else than good? I think it good, and shall think so."

"At any rate, Adela, I could not withstand the offer when it was made to me."

"I am sure you could not."

"So I am little more than a curate in the parish as far as the income is concerned; with this difference, that I can't change my curacy for a living should a chance offer."

Adela had never before known him to be solicitous about money for himself, and now she felt that she did not understand him. "But you have got your fellows.h.i.+p," said she.

"Yes, I have got my fellows.h.i.+p: oh, as far as that is concerned, I am better off than I could ever have expected to be. But, nevertheless, one feels--feels crippled by such an arrangement. It is quite impossible, you know, for instance, that--that--that I should do a great many things." His courage failed him as he was about to make the fatal announcement.

"What things?" said Adela, with all the boldness of innocence.

It was necessary that he should say it. "Why, for instance," he continued, "it is quite impossible, though perhaps that does not make much matter; but it is quite impossible--that I should ever marry."

And still looking down upon the ground, he poked sedulously among the patterns with his stick.

"Oh!" said Adela, with a tremour in her voice, and her eye was no longer able to rest upon his face.

There was a pause during which neither of them said a word, or saw each other. As far as Adela was concerned, immediate speech was impossible. She neither cried, nor sighed, nor sobbed, nor became hysterical. She was simply dumb. She could not answer this little announcement of her neighbour's. Heretofore, when he had come to her with his sorrows, she had sympathized with him, and poured balm into his wounds. But she had no balm for him now--and no sympathy. There they sat, mute; he poking the while at the carpet, while she did not even move a limb.

And then it gradually came home to both of them that this utter silence, this prostration of all power of self-management, told to each the secret of the other. Each felt that every moment of prolonged silence committed both of them the deeper. Why should not Adela be able to speak when thus informed of her neighbour's intended celibacy? Why should he sit like a fool before her merely because he had told her that on which he had long decided?

But it was clearly Wilkinson's duty to have disembarra.s.sed the lady as soon as possible. It was almost unmanly in him to be put thus beyond the power of speech or action. But still he poked the carpet and said nothing. It was Adela who first broke that tell-tale silence; and grievous was the effort which it cost her to do so.

"But you will have your mother and sisters with you, Mr. Wilkinson; and so, perhaps, you won't mind that."

"Yes, I shall have them," said he; and then there was another silence, which seemed about to be equally dangerous and equally difficult. But Adela, who was fully aware of the error which she had already committed, strove hard to save herself from repeating it.

"You will have a family round you; and if, as you say"--but the ground that she approached was so hot that she could not walk on it.

She could not get further in that direction, and therefore merely added: "I am sure I hope you will always be happy."

At length Arthur shook himself, positively shook himself, as though that were the only mode by which he could collect his faculties; and then getting up from his chair, and standing with his back against the wall, he spoke out as follows:--

"Perhaps, Adela, there was no necessity for me to have mentioned this subject. At least, I am sure there was no necessity. But you have ever been such a friend to me, have so understood my feelings when no one else seemed to do so, that I could not but tell you this as I have told you everything else. I hope I have not annoyed you by doing so."

"Oh, no; not at all."

"It does make me a little sad to think that I shall never be my own master."

"Never, Mr. Wilkinson!" Had Arthur but known it, there was balm, there was sympathy in this word. Had his intellect been as sharp as his feelings, he would have known it. But it pa.s.sed him unperceived, as it had fallen from her unawares: and she said no other word that could encourage him. If he was cold, she at least would be equally so.

"Certainly not during my mother's life; and you know how good ground we have for hoping that her life will be long. And then there are my sisters. My duty to them will be the same as to my mother, even though, as regards them, I may not be tied down as I am with regard to her."

"We cannot have everything here," said Adela, trying to smile. "But I am sure I need not teach you that."

"No, we cannot have everything." And Arthur thought that, in spite of the clerical austerity which he was about to a.s.sume, he should very much like to have Adela Gauntlet.

"It will make you happy to know that you are making your mother happy, and the dear girls--and--and I have no doubt you will very soon get used to it. Many clergymen, you know, think that they ought not to marry."

"Yes; but I never made up my mind to that."

"No, perhaps not; but now perhaps you will think of it more seriously."

"Indeed, I used to have an idea that a parish clergyman should be a married man. There are so many things which he can do better when he has a woman to a.s.sist him who thinks exactly as he thinks."

"You will have your sisters, you know. Both Mary and Sophia were always active in the parish, and Jane and f.a.n.n.y have their school."

"Yes;" and he uttered a gentle sigh as he paused before he answered her. "But it is not quite the same thing, Adela. I love my sisters dearly; but one always longs to have one heart that shall be entirely one's own."

And had he come over to tell her this in the same breath with which he informed her that marriage was a privilege quite beyond his reach?

What did he think of her, or of what did he imagine that she was made? There was cruelty in it, of which Adela became immediately conscious, and which she could hardly help wis.h.i.+ng to resent. He had performed the object of his visit; why did he not leave her? He had made himself thoroughly understood; why did he not go? His former many sweet visits had created hopes which were all but certain.

He had said nothing of love; but coming there as he had come, and gazing at her as he had gazed, Adela could not doubt but that she was loved. That was all now set at rest; but why should he remain there, breaking her heart with allusions to his own past tenderness?

"You must put up with the world as you find it, Mr. Wilkinson."

"Oh, yes; of course. But when one has had such happy dreams, the waking reality, you know, does make one sad."

"You are too happy in your friends and your position to be an object of pity. How many clergymen are there of your age who would look upon your lot as almost beyond their ambition! How many men are there with mothers and sisters for whom they cannot provide! How many who have made rash marriages which have led to no happiness! Surely, Mr. Wilkinson, with you there is more cause for thankfulness than for complaint!" And thus, as it was necessary that she should say something, she moralized to him--very wisely.

"It is all true," said he; "and perhaps it is for the best. I might probably have been made more wretched in another way."

"Yes; very likely." Oh, Adela, Adela!

"I begin to know that a man should not be sanguine. I have always hoped for more than I have had a right to expect, and, therefore, I have always been disappointed. It was so at school, and at Oxford, and it is so now: it shows how true it is that a man should not look for his happiness here. Well; good-bye, Adela. I see that you think I am wrong to have any regrets."

"Useless regrets are always foolish: we laugh at children who cry for what is quite out of their reach."

"Yes; and you laugh at me. I dare say you are right."

"No; do not say that, Mr. Wilkinson. I have never laughed at you.

But--" She did not wish to be actually unkind to him, though he had been so cruel to her.

At last he went. They shook hands with each other in their accustomed manner, but Wilkinson felt that he missed something from her touch, some warmth from the soft pressure, some scintillation of sympathy which such last moments of his visits had usually communicated to him. Yes; there was much to miss.

As he went back along the river his heart was sad within him. He had made up his mind to give up Adela Gauntlet, but he had not made up his mind to discover that she did not care for him--that she was indifferent to his happiness, and unable to sympathize with his feelings. The fact was, that though he had resolved that duty and his circ.u.mstances required him to remain single, nevertheless, he had at the bottom of his heart a sort of wish that Adela should be in love with him. He had his wish; but he was not sharp enough to discover that he had it. "I never thought her unfeeling before," said he to himself. "But all the world is alike. Well; as it is, it does not signify; but it might have been that I should have half broken my heart to find her so unfeeling.--More cause for thankfulness than complaint! Yes; that is true of us all. But it was unfriendly, nay unfeminine in her to say so when she must have known how much I was giving up." And so he walked on complaining; understanding perhaps accurately the wants of his own heart, but being quite in the dark as to the wants of that other heart.

But his grief, his discontent was mild in comparison with hers. She shook hands with him when he went, and endeavoured to say her last word of farewell in her usual tone; nay, for a few minutes after his departure she retained her seat calmly, fearing that he possibly might return; but then, when the door had closed on him, and she had seen him from her window pa.s.sing across the lawn, then her spirits gave way, and bitterly she made her moan.

What was this that he had said to her? He would not marry because he had his mother and sisters to support. Would not she have helped to support them? Would not she have thrown in her lot with his for better or for worse, let that lot have been ever so poor? And could it be possible that he had not known this--had not read her heart as she had read his? Could it be that he had come there day after day, looking to her for love, and sympathy, and kindness--that sort of kindness which a man demands from no one but her he loves, and which no one can give him unless she loves him? Could it be that he had done this and then thought that it all meant nothing? that the interchange of such feelings had no further signification?

Money! Had she asked about his money in those days when his father still lived, when there was no question of this living belonging to him? She would have waited for him for years had years been necessary, even though they should be counted by tens and tens. Nay, she would have been contented to wait, even though that waiting should never have been rewarded, had he given her the privilege of regarding herself as his. Money! She would have been contented to live on potato-parings could he have been contented to live with her on potatoes.