The Bertrams (23 page)

Harcourt had spoken in earnest. Such milk-and-water, unpractical scruples were disgusting to his very soul. In thinking of them to himself, he would call them unmanly. What! was such a fellow as Bertram, a boy just fresh from college, to animadvert upon and condemn the practice of the whole bar of England? He had, too, a conviction, clearly fixed in his own mind, though he could hardly explain the grounds of it in words, that in the long run the cause of justice would be better served by the present practice of allowing wrong and right to fight on equal terms; by giving to wrong the same privilege that is given to right; by giving to wrong even a wider privilege, seeing that, being in itself necessarily weak, it needs the more protection. He would declare that you were trampling on the fallen if you told him that wrong could be entitled to no privilege, no protection whatever—to no protection, till it was admitted by itself, admitted by all, to be wrong.

Bertram had now to establish himself in London; and he was also, as he thought, under the necessity of seeing two persons, his uncle
and Miss Waddington. He could not settle himself well to work before he had done both. One preliminary business he did settle for himself, in order that his uncle, when he saw him, might know that his choice for the bar was made up and past recalling. He selected that great and enduring Chancery barrister, Mr. Neversaye Die, as the Gamaliel at whose feet he would sit as the fountain from whence he would draw the coming waters of his own eloquence; as the instructor of his legal infancy and guide of his legal youth. Harcourt was at the Common Law bar, and therefore he recommended the other branch of the profession to his friend. "The Common Law," said he, "may have the most dash about it; but Chancery has the substance." George, after thinking over the matter for some days, gave it as his opinion that Chancery barristers were rogues of a dye somewhat less black than the others, and that he would select to be a rogue of that colour. The matter was therefore so settled.

His first step, then, was to see his uncle. He told himself—and as he thought, truly—that his doing so was a duty, disagreeable in all respects, to be attended with no pecuniary results, but necessary to be performed. In truth, however, the teaching of Sir Lionel and Harcourt had not been altogether without effect: at this present moment, having just paid to Mr. Neversaye Die his first yearly contribution, he was well-nigh penniless; and, after all, if a rich uncle have money to bestow, why should he not bestow it on a nephew?
Money, at any rate, was not in itself deleterious. So much George was already prepared to allow.

He therefore called on his uncle in the City. "Ha! George—what; you're back, are you? Well, come and dine at Hadley tomorrow. I must be at the Bank before three. Goodbye, my boy."

This was all his uncle said to him at their first meeting. Then he saw Mr. Pritchett for a moment.

"Oh, Mr. George, I am glad to see you back, sir; very glad indeed, sir. I hear you have been to very foreign parts. I hope you have always found the money right, Mr. George?"

Mr. George, shaking hands with him, warmly assured him that the money had always been quite right—as long as it lasted.

"A little does not go a long way, I'm sure, in those very foreign parts," said Mr. Pritchett, oracularly. "But, Mr. George, why didn't you write, eh, Mr. George?"

"You don't mean to say that my uncle expected to hear from me?"

"He asked very often whether I had any tidings. Ah! Mr. George, you don't know an old man's ways yet. It would have been better for you to have been led by me. And so you have seen Mr. Lionel—Sir Lionel, I should say now. I hope Sir Lionel is quite well."

George told him that he had found his father in excellent health, and was going away, when Mr. Pritchett asked another question, or rather
made another observation. "And so you saw Miss Waddington, did you, Mr. George?"

Bertram felt that there was that in his countenance which might again betray him; but he managed to turn away his face as he said, "Yes, I did meet her, quite by chance, at Jerusalem."

"At Jerusalem!" said Mr. Pritchett, with such a look of surprise, with such an awe-struck tone, as might have suited some acquaintance of Æneas's, on hearing that gentleman tell how he had travelled beyond the Styx. Mr. Pritchett was rather fat and wheezy, and the effort made him sigh gently for the next two minutes.

Bertram had put on his hat and was going, when Mr. Pritchett, recovering himself, asked yet a further question. "And what did you think of Miss Waddington, sir?"

"Think of her!" said George.

"A very beautiful young lady; isn't she? and clever, too. I knew her father well, Mr. George—very well. Isn't she a very handsome young lady? Ah, well! she hasn't money enough, Mr. George; that's the fact; that's the fact. But"—and Mr. Pritchett whispered as he continued—"the old gentleman might make it more, Mr. George."

Mr. Pritchett had a somewhat melancholy way of speaking of everything. It was more in his tone than in his words. And this tone, which was all but sepulchral, was perhaps owing rather to a short neck and an asthmatic tendency than to any real sorrow or natural lowness of spirits. Those who saw Mr. Pritchett often probably remembered this, and counted on it; but with
George there was always a graveyard touch about these little interviews. He could not, therefore, but have some melancholy presentiment when he heard Miss Waddington spoken of in such a tone.

On the following day he went down to Hadley, and, as was customary there, found that he was to spend the evening
tête-à-tête
with his uncle. Nothing seemed changed since he had left it: his uncle came in just before dinner, and poked the fire exactly as he had done on the last visit George had paid him after a long absence. "Come, John, we're three minutes late! why don't we have dinner?" He asked no question—at least, not at first—either about Sir Lionel or about Jerusalem, and seemed resolute to give the traveller none of that
éclat,
to pay to his adventures none of that deferential awe which had been so well expressed by Mr. Pritchett in two words.

But Mr. Bertram, though he always began so coldly, did usually improve after a few hours. His tone would gradually become less cynical and harsh; his words would come out more freely; and he would appear somewhat less anxious to wound the
amour propre
of his companion.

"Are you much wiser for your travels, George?" he said at last, when John had taken away the dinner, and they were left alone with a bottle of port wine between them. This, too, was asked in a very cynical tone, but still there was some improvement in the very fact of his deigning to allude to the journey.

"Yes, I think I am rather wiser."

"Well, I'm glad of that. As you have lost a year in your profession, it is well that you should have gained something. Has your accession of wisdom been very extensive?"

"Somewhat short of Solomon's, sir; but probably quite as much as I should have picked up had I remained in London."

"That is very probable. I suppose you have not the slightest idea how much it cost you. Indeed, that would be a very vulgar way of looking at it."

"Thanks to your unexpected kindness, I have not been driven to any very close economy."

"Ah! that was Pritchett's doing. He seemed afraid that the land would not flow with milk and honey unless your pocket was fairly provided. But of course it's your own affair, George. It is money borrowed; that's all."

George did not quite understand what this meant, and remained silent; but at one moment it was almost on his tongue to say that it ought at least to be admitted that the borrower had not been very pressing in his application.

"And I suppose you have come back empty?" continued his uncle.

George then explained exactly how he stood with regard to money, saying how he had put himself into the hands of Mr. Neversaye Die, how he had taken chambers in the Middle Temple, and how a volume of Blackstone was already lying open in his dingy sitting-room.

"Very well, very well. I have no objection whatever. You will perhaps make nothing at the bar, and certainly never the half what you would have done with Messrs. Dry and Stickatit.
But that's your affair. The bar is thoroughly respectable. By-the-by, is your father satisfied with it as a profession?" This was the first allusion that Mr. Bertram had made to his brother.

"Perfectly so," said George.

"Because of course you were bound to consult him." If this was intended for irony, it was so well masked that George was not able to be sure of it.

"I did consult him, sir," said George, turning red in accordance with that inveterate and stupid habit of his.

"That was right. And did you consult him about another thing? did you ask him what you were to live on till such time as you could earn your own bread?"

In answer to this, George was obliged to own that he did not. "There was no necessity," said he, "for he knows that I have my fellowship."

"Oh! ah! yes; and that of course relieves him of any further cause for anxiety in the matter. I forgot that."

"Uncle George, you are always very hard on my father; much too hard."

"Am I?"

"I think you are. As regards his duty to me, if I do not complain, you need not."

"Oh! that is it, is it? I did think that up to this, his remissness in doing his duty as a father had fallen rather on my shoulders than on yours. But I suppose I have been mistaken; eh?"

"At any rate, if you have to complain, your complaint should be made to him, not to me."

"But you see I have not time to run across the world to Jerusalem; and were I to do so, the chances are ten to one I should not catch him. If you will ask Pritchett too, you will find that your father is not the best correspondent in the world. Perhaps he has sent back by you some answer to Pritchett's half-yearly letters?"

"He has sent nothing by me."

"I'll warrant he has not. But come, George, own the truth. Did he borrow money from you when he saw you? If he did not, he showed a very low opinion of your finances and my liberality."

George might have declared, without any absolute falseness, that his father had borrowed no money of him. But he had not patience at the present moment to distinguish between what would be false and what not false in defending his father's character. He could not but feel that his father had behaved very shabbily to him, and that Sir Lionel's conduct could not be defended in detail. But he also felt that his uncle was quite unjustifiable in wounding him by such attacks. It was not to him that Mr. Bertram should have complained of Sir Lionel's remissness in money matters. He resolved that he would not sit by and hear his father so spoken of; and, therefore, utterly disregardful of what might be the terribly ill effects of his uncle's anger, he thus spoke out in a tone not of the meekest:

"I will neither defend my father, Mr. Bertram; nor will I sit still and hear him so spoken of. How far you may have just ground of
complaint against him, I do not know, nor will I inquire. He is my father, and that should protect his name in my presence."

"Hoity, toity!"

"I will ask you to hear me if you please, sir. I have received very many good offices from you, for which I heartily thank you. I am aware that I owe to you all my education and support up to this time. This debt I fear I can never pay."

"And therefore, like some other people, you are inclined to resent it."

"No, by heaven! I would resent nothing said by you to myself; but I will not sit by and hear my father ill spoken of. I will not—no; not for all the money which you could give or leave me. It seems to me that what I spend of your money is added up as a debt against my father——"

"Pray don't imagine, my boy, that that is any burden to him."

"It is a burden to me, and I will endure it no longer. While at school, I knew nothing of these things, and not much while I was at college. Now I do know something, and feel something. If you please, sir, I will renounce any further assistance from you whatever; and beg, in return, that you will say nothing further to me as to any quarrel there may be between you and Sir Lionel."

"Quarrel!" said his uncle, getting up and standing with his back to the fire. "He has not spirit enough to quarrel with me."

"Well, I have," said George, who was now walking about the room; and from the fire in
his eyes, it certainly appeared that he spoke the truth in this respect.

"I know the bitterness of your spirit against your brother," continued George; "but your feelings should teach you not to show it before his son."

Mr. Bertram was still standing with his hands in his pockets, leaning against the mantelpiece, with his coat-tails over his arms. He said nothing further at once, but continued to fix his eyes on his nephew, who was now walking backwards and forwards from one end of the room to the other with great vehemence. "I think," at last said George, "that it will be better that I should go back to town. Goodnight, sir."

"You are an ass," said his uncle.

"Very likely," said George. "But asses will kick sometimes."

"And bray too," said his uncle.

There was a certain spirit about them both which made it difficult for either altogether to get the better of the other.

"That I may bray no more in your hearing, I will wish you goodnight." And again he held out his hand to the old man.

His uncle took hold of his hand, but he did not go through the process of shaking it, nor did he at once let it go again. He held it there for a time, looking steadfastly into his nephew's face, and then he dropped it. "You had better sit down and drink your wine," he said at last.

"I had rather return to town," said George, stoutly.

"And I had rather you stayed here," said his
uncle, in a tone of voice that for him was good-humoured. "Come, you need not be in a pet, like a child. Stay where you are now, and if you don't like to come again, why you can stay away."

As this was said in the manner of a request, George did again sit down. "It will be foolish to make a fuss about it," said he to himself; "and what he says is true. I need not come again, and I will not." So he sat down and again sipped his wine.