The Bertrams (9 page)

Old Mr. Bertram ordinarily lived at Hadley, a village about a mile beyond Barnet, just on the border of what used to be called Enfield Chase. Here he had an establishment very fit for a quiet old gentleman, but perhaps not quite adequate to his reputed wealth. By my use of the word reputed, the reader must not be led to think that Mr. Bertram's money-bags were unreal. They were solid, and true as the coffers of the Bank of England. He was no Colonel Waugh, rich only by means of his rich impudence. It is not destined that he shall fall brilliantly, bringing down with him a world of ruins. He will not levant to Spain or elsewhere. His wealth is of the old-fashioned sort, and will abide at any rate such touch of time as it may encounter in our pages. But none of the Hadleyites, or, indeed, any other ites—not even, probably, the Bank-of-Englandites, or the City-of-London-Widows'-Fundites—knew very well what his means were; and when, therefore, people at Hadley spoke of his modest household, they were apt to speak of it as being very insufficient for such a millionaire.

Hitherto George had always passed some part of his vacations at Hadley. The amusements there were not of a very exciting nature; but London was close, and even at Hadley there were pretty girls with whom he could walk and flirt, and the means of keeping a horse and a couple of pointers, even if the hunting and shooting were not conveniently to be had.

A few days after the glories of his degree, when his name was still great on the High Street of Oxford, and had even been touched by true fame in a very flattering manner in the columns of the
Daily Jupiter
, he came home to Hadley. His uncle never encouraged visits from him in the city, and they met, therefore, for the first time in the old man's drawing-room just before dinner.

"How are you, George?" said the uncle, putting out his hand to his nephew, and then instantly turning round and poking the fire. "What sort of a journey have you had from Oxford? Yes, these railways make it all easy. Which line do you use? Didcot, eh? That's wrong. You'll have a smash some of these days with one of those Great Western express trains."—Mr. Bertram held shares in the opposition line by which Oxford may be reached, and never omitted an opportunity of doing a little business. "I'm ready for dinner; I don't know whether you are. You eat lunch, I suppose. John, it's two minutes past the half-hour. Why don't we have dinner?"

Not a word was said about the degree—at least, not then. Indeed Mr. Bertram did not think very much about degrees. He had taken no degree himself, except a high degree in wealth, and could not understand that he ought to congratulate a young man of twenty-two as to a successful termination of his school-lessons. He himself at that age had been, if not on 'Change, at any rate seated on the steps of 'Change. He had been then doing a man's work; beginning to harden together the nucleus
of that snowball of money which he had since rolled onwards till it had become so huge a lump—destined, probably, to be thawed and to run away into muddy water in some much shorter space of time. He could not blame his nephew: he could not call him idle, as he would have delighted to do had occasion permitted; but he would not condescend to congratulate him on being great in Greek or mighty in abstract mathematics.

"Well, George," said he, pushing him the bottle as soon as the cloth was gone, "I suppose you have done with Oxford now?"

"Not quite, sir; I have my fellowship to receive."

"Some beggarly two hundred pounds a year, I suppose. Not that I mean to say you should not be glad to have it," he added, thus correcting the impression which his words might otherwise have made. "As you have been so long getting it, it will be better to have that than nothing. But your fellowship won't make it necessary for you to live at Oxford, will it?"

"Oh, no. But then I may perhaps go into the church."

"Oh, the church, eh? Well, it is a respectable profession; only men have to work for nothing in it."

"I wish they did, sir. If we had the voluntary system——"

"You can have that if you like. I know that the Independent ministers——"

"I should not think of leaving the Church of England on any account."

"You have decided, then, to be a clergyman?"

"Oh, no; not decided. Indeed, I really think that if a man will work, he may do better at the bar."

"Very well, indeed—if he have the peculiar kind of talent necessary."

"But then, I doubt whether a practising barrister can ever really be an honest man."

"What?"

"They have such dirty work to do. They spend their days in making out that black is white; or worse still, that white is black."

"Pshaw! Have a little more charity, master George, and do not be so over-righteous. Some of the greatest men of your country have been lawyers."

"But their being great men won't alter the fact; nor will my being charitable. When two clear-headed men take money to advocate the different sides of a case, each cannot think that his side is true."

"Fiddlestick! But mind, I do not want you to be a lawyer. You must choose for yourself. If you don't like that way of earning your bread, there are others."

"A man may be a doctor, to be sure; but I have no taste that way."

"And is that the end of the list?"

"There is literature. But literature, though the grandest occupation in the world for a man's leisure, is, I take it, a slavish profession."

"Grub Street, eh? Yes, I should think so. You never heard of commerce, I suppose?"

"Commerce. Yes, I have heard of it. But I doubt whether I lave the necessary genius."

The old man looked at him as though he doubted whether or no he were being laughed at.

"The necessary kind of genius, I mean," continued George.

"Very likely not. Your genius is adapted to dispersing, perhaps, rather than collecting."

"I dare say it is, sir."

"And I suppose you never heard of a man with a—what is it you call your degree? a double-first—going behind a counter. What sort of men are the double-lasts, I wonder!"

"It is they, I rather think, who go behind the counters," said George, who had no idea of allowing his uncle to have all the raillery on his side.

"Is it, sir? But I rather think they don't come out last when the pudding is to be proved by the eating. Success in life is not to be won by writing Greek verses; not though you write ever so many. A ship-load of them would not fetch you the value of this glass of wine at any market in the world."

"Commerce is a grand thing," said George, with an air of conviction.

"It is the proper work for men," said his uncle, proudly.

"But I have always heard," replied the nephew, "that a man in this country has no right to look to commerce as a profession unless he possesses capital." Mr. Bertram, feeling that the tables had been turned against him, finished his glass of wine and poked the fire.

A few days afterwards the same subject was again raised between them. "You must choose for yourself, George," said the old man; "and you should choose quickly."

"If I could choose for myself—which I am aware that I cannot do; for circumstances, after all, will have the decision—but, if I could choose, I would go into Parliament."

'Go where?" said Mr. Bertram, who would have thought it as reasonable if his nephew had proposed to take a house in Belgrave Square with the view of earning a livelihood.

"Into Parliament, sir."

"Is Parliament a profession? I never knew it before."

"Perhaps not, ordinarily, a money-making profession; nor would I wish to make it so."

"And what county or what borough do you intend to honour by representing it? Perhaps the University will return you."

"Perhaps it may some of these days."

"And, in the meantime, you mean to live on your fellowship, I suppose?"

"On that and anything else that I can get."

Mr. Bertram sat quiet for some time without speaking, and George also seemed inclined to muse awhile upon the subject. "George," said the uncle, at last, "I think it will be better that we should thoroughly understand each other. You are a good fellow in your way, and I like you well enough. But you must not get into your head any idea that you are to be my heir."

"No, sir; I won't."

"Because it would only ruin you. My idea is that a man should make his own way in the world as I made mine. If you were my son, it may be presumed that I should do as other men do, and give you my money. And, most probably, you would make no better use of it than
the sons of other men who, like me, have made money. But you are not my son."

"Quite true, sir; and therefore I shall be saved the danger. At any rate, I shall not be the victim of disappointment."

"I am very glad to hear it," said Mr. Bertram, who, however, did not give any proof of his gladness, seeing that he evinced some little addition of acerbity in his temper and asperity in his manner. It was hard to have to deal with a nephew with whom he could find so little ground for complaint.

"But I have thought it right to warn you," he continued. "You are aware that up to the present moment the expense of your education has been borne by me."

"No, sir; not my education."

"Not your education! How, then, has it been borne?"

"I speak of my residence at Oxford. I have had a great many indulgences there, and you have paid for them. The expenses of my education I could have paid myself." This was fair on George's part. He had not asked his uncle for a liberal allowance, and was hardly open to blame for having taken it.

"I only know I have paid regularly one hundred and fifty pounds a year to your order, and I find from Pritchett"—Pritchett was his man of business—"that I am paying it still."

"He sent me the last quarter the other day; but I have not touched it."

"Never mind; let that pass. I don't know what your father's views are about you, and never could find out."

"I'll ask him. I mean to go and see him."

"Go and see him! Why, he's at Bagdad."

"Yes. If I start at once I shall just catch him there, or perhaps meet him at Damascus."

"Then you'll be a great fool for your pains—a greater fool almost than I take you to be. What do you expect your father can do for you? My belief is, that if four hundred pounds would take him to heaven, he couldn't make up the money. I don't think he could raise it either in Europe or Asia. I'm sure of this; I wouldn't lend it him."

"In such a case as that, sir, his personal security would go for so little."

"His personal security has always gone for little. But, as I was saying, I have consented ever since you went to Wilkinson's to allow your father to throw the burthen of your expenses on my shoulders. I thought it a pity that you should not have the chance of a decent education. Mind, I claim no gratitude, as I shall expect your father to pay me what I have advanced."

"How on earth can he do that, sir? But perhaps I can."

"Can you? Very well; then you can settle it with him. But listen to me."

"Listen to me for a moment, uncle George. I think you are hard on my father, and certainly hard on me. When I went to Wilkinson's, what did I know of who paid the bill?"

"Who says you knew anything, sir?"

"And, counting on from that time, at what period ought I to have begun to know it?
When should I have first learnt to feel that I was a burden to any one?"

"Who has talked about a burden?"

"You say I am not to be your heir?"

"Certainly not."

"I never thought of being your heir. I don't care a straw about being anybody's heir. What you have given freely, I have taken freely. As for my father, if you felt so harshly towards him, why did you let him incur this debt?"

"I was to see you kicked out of Wilkinson's house and starve in the ditch, I suppose? But now, if you can control your fine feelings for one moment, will you listen to me? I have never blamed you in the matter at all, and don't blame you now—at least not yet."

"I hope you never will—that is about money matters."

"Now do listen to me. It seems to me that you are quite astray about a profession. You don't like commerce, and what you said the other day about capital is quite true. I count a man a knave who goes into trade without capital. In a small way we might, perhaps, have managed it. But in a very small way you would not have liked it."

"Neither small nor great, sir."

"Very well. You need not be afraid that anything very great will be thrust upon you. But it seems to me that what you are most fitted for is a lawyer."

Young Bertram paused a moment. "Uncle, I really hardly know. Sometimes I have a strange desire to go into orders."

"Very strange indeed! But now, if you will listen to me—I have been speaking to Mr. Dry. Messrs. Dry and Stickatit have done business for me for the last forty years. Now, George, I will advance you three thousand pounds at four percent——"

"What should I want with three thousand pounds?"

"You don't suppose you can get into a house like that without money, do you?"

"And be an attorney?" said George, with a look of horror which almost penetrated the thick skin of the old man's feelings. What! had he taken a double-first, been the leading man of his year, spouted at the debating club, and driven himself nearly dizzy with Aristotle for this—for a desk in the office of Messrs. Dry and Stickatit, attorneys of old Bucklersbury! No, not for all the uncles! not for any uncle!

"They net four thousand pounds a year," said Mr. Bertram; "and in process of time you would be the working partner, and have, at any rate, a full half of the business."

But, no! George was not to be talked into such a scheme as that by the offer of any loan, by the mention of any number of thousands. He positively refused to consider the proposition; and his uncle, with equal positiveness, refused to hold any further converse with him on the subject of a profession. "Pritchett will pay you your present allowance," said he, "for two years longer—that is, if I live."

"I can do without it, sir," said George.

"Pritchett will pay that amount for two years," said the uncle, with great positiveness; "after that it will be discontinued. And for the next three months I shall be happy to see you here as my guest."