The Bertrams Part 22

"Now, Mr. Bertram, you are hardly so sincere as you a.s.serted yourself to be, and required me to be on the mount. You are yourself quite aware that n.o.body has thought you presumptuous. I have nothing to complain of, and much to thank you for--independently of the honour you have now done me;--for from you it is an honour. But I cannot say that I love you. It would not be natural that I should do so."

"Good heavens! not natural. I love you with the whole strength of my heart. Is that unnatural?"

"It is the province of men to take the initiative in such matters,"

said Caroline, smiling.

"I know nothing as to man's province, or of woman's province either.

By province, you mean custom and conventional rule; and conventional rule means falsehood. I have known you but a week or two, and I love you dearly. You, of course, have known me as long, and are at any rate as capable of loving as I am. There would be nothing unnatural in you loving me--though, indeed, it may be very unlikely that you should do so."

"Well; I will not contradict you in anything if I can help it, except perhaps as to that last little would-be-proud, petulant protest. But putting out of sight all question of likelihood, what ought I to do if I do not love you? What in such a case would you recommend a sister to do? Is it not better that we should not be immediately thrown together, as must so certainly be the case in travelling?"

"Then I am to understand that you positively can never love me?"

"I have not said so: but you press me unfairly, Mr. Bertram."

"Unfairly. No, by heavens! no pressure in such case can be unfair. I would press the truth out from you--the real truth; the truth that so vitally concerns myself. You will not say that you have an aversion to me?"

"Aversion! No, certainly not."

"Or that you cannot love me? Then why not let us remain together? You argue that you do not yet know me well enough; will not that be the way to know me better?"

"If I were to travel with you now, Mr. Bertram, it would be tantamount to accepting you. Your own sense will certainly tell you that. Were I to do so, I should give you the privilege of coming with me as my lover. Forgive me for saying that I cannot give you that privilege. I grieve to hurt your feelings for a day even; but I am sure you will ultimately approve of what I am doing."

"And are we to meet no more, then?"

"Of course we shall meet again; at least, in all human probability.

My guardian is your uncle."

"I never even knew that till I met you the other day."

"Because you have always been at school or at college; but you know it now. I, at least, shall look forward to meeting you--and so will my aunt."

"Yes; as acquaintances. It would be impossible for me to meet you in that way. I hardly think you know or realize what my feelings to you are. I can only meet you to tell you again and again that I love you. You are so cold yourself that you cannot understand my--my--my impetuosity, if you choose to call it so."

"In three or four months, Mr. Bertram, you will be laughing at your own impetuosity--when I perhaps shall be grieving over my own coldness." These last words she said with a smile in which there was much archness, and perhaps also a little encouragement.

"You will tell me at any rate that I may hope?"

"No; certainly not. You will hope enough for anything you really desire without my telling you. But I will not joke, as I believe that you are serious."

"Oh, you believe so, do you?"

"Yes; I suppose I must believe so. Your declaration the other day took me very much by surprise. I had no conception that you had any feelings towards me of that sort. I certainly had entertained none such towards you. Love with me cannot be the birth of a moment. I cannot say that I will love merely because I am asked. You would not wish me to be false even in your own favour. We will part now, Mr.

Bertram; and being apart we shall better learn to know, each of us, how we value the other. On my part I can truly say that I hope we shall meet again--at any rate, as friends." And then she held out her hand to him.

"Is this to be our farewell?" said he, without at once taking it.

"It shall be if you so please. We shall meet again only at the public table."

"And you will not tell me that I may hope?"

"I will tell you nothing further, Mr. Bertram. You will shake hands with me as with a friend, will you not?"

He then took her hand, and, holding it in his own, gazed for a moment into her face. She bore the weight of his eyes with unabashed front.

She showed neither anger nor pleasure; neither disdain nor pride; the same sweet smile was still upon her face, somewhat playful, somewhat hopeful, but capable of no definite construction either for making or marring a man's comfort.

"Caroline!" he said at last.

"Good-bye, Mr. Bertram. I thoroughly hope you may enjoy your journey."

"Caroline!"

She essayed to withdraw her hand from his. Feeling this, he raised it to his lips and kissed it, and then left the room. As he closed the door the same smile was on her face.

I hope it will be admitted that Miss Waddington had played her part with skill, and judgment, and good breeding; and not altogether heartlessly either. She had thought much on the subject since George had first thrown himself at her feet, and had concluded, putting the good against the bad, and balancing the affair as accurately as facts would enable her, that the match would be one which she ought to regard as desirable. There were two valid reasons, however, why she should not at once accept his offer. Firstly, he might not know his own mind, and it might be serviceable to him to have the option of renewing his proposal or retreating from it after a few months' trial of his own feelings. And secondly, she hardly knew her own mind. She could not in truth say yet whether she did love him, or whether she did not. She was rather inclined to think she did; but it would be well that she should try the matter before she committed herself.

The statement made by her aunt that George would doubtless be his uncle's heir certainly had its weight with her. It would be wrong in her to engage herself to a man who was without the means of maintaining her in that rank of life in which she had resolved to live; wrong both on his account and on her own. She felt that she could not be a good poor man's wife. It was not the walk of life for which she had destined herself. She had made up her mind on that point too, and having made it up was not weak enough to be driven from her resolve by any little gust of feeling. She did like Bertram--much, very much, better then she had ever liked any other man. He came up in many points to her idea of what a man should be.

He was not sufficiently collected, not sufficiently thoughtful, and perhaps almost too enthusiastic: success in life would be easier to a man who put less heart into everything he said and did. But years would teach him much in this respect, and she also might perhaps teach him something. She did like Bertram; and what objection could there be to the match if, as appeared so probable, he was to inherit his uncle's money?

Prudent as she was, she was ready to run some risk in this respect.

She did not wish to be a poor man's wife; but neither did she wish to be an idle man's wife. What she did desire was, that her husband should be an earnest, rising, successful man;--one whose name, as she had herself said to Bertram, might be frequent in men's mouths, and daily to be read in the columns of newspapers. She would not marry a fool, even though he were also a Croesus; she would not marry a fool, even though he were also an earl. In choosing a master, her first necessity was that she should respect him, then that the world should do so also. She could respect talent--talent if needs be alone--but nothing without talent. The world's respect could not be had without wealth. As for love, that was necessary too; but it was only a third necessity.

Such being our heroine's mind about marriage, I make bold to say that she had behaved with skill and judgment, and not altogether heartlessly either.

On the following morning, Sir Lionel and George left Jerusalem together. The colonel had his own servant, as he always had; George was followed by the dragoman, who had now been with him for some time; and each had also an Arab groom. On quitting Jerusalem, Sir Lionel had made no objection to having the entire bill settled by his son.

"Well, George," he had said with a smile, "I know you are in ample funds, and I never am. You, moreover, have a milch cow that will not run dry. The government is my cow, and she is apt to be very chary in her supply; she does run dry with uncommon quickness."

George smiled also, and paid the bill readily, protesting that of course he ought to do so, as Sir Lionel had come there only to see him. The colonel plumed himself at once upon having managed well; but he was greatly mistaken. His calculation in this respect had been made on a false basis. "George," he said to himself, "is a young man; he will think nothing of this: a fellow at his age cares nothing for money." George did care but little for the money, but he did care about his father; and he understood the ways of the world well enough to know that his father ought to have paid his own bill. He began for the first time to experience something of that feeling which his uncle so often expressed.

They started, too, with somewhat different ideas as to the purport of their route. Sir Lionel wished to get to Constantinople, and was content, for George's sake, to go by Damascus and Beyrout; but George had to visit Ramah, and Gibeon, and Luz; to see the well of the woman of Samaria at Sichem; to climb Mount Carmel, and to sleep at least for a night within its monastery. Mount Tabor also, and Bethsaida, and Capernaum, he must visit; he must bathe in the Sea of Galilee, as he had already bathed in Jordan and the Dead Sea; Gadara he must see, and Gergesa, and Chorazin; and, above all, he must stand with naked feet in Nazareth, and feel within his heart that he was resting on holy ground.

Sir Lionel did not care a straw for Bethsaida or Chorazin--not a straw even for Nazareth. For many reasons he wished to be well with his son. In the first place, a man whose bill is paid for him always makes some concession to the man who pays it. He should do so, at any rate; and on this point Sir Lionel was willing to be just. And then he had ulterior views, which made it very necessary that George should like him. In this respect he had hitherto played his cards well--well, with the exception of that Jerusalem bill. He had made his society very pleasant to his son, had done much towards gaining the young man's heart, and was well inclined to do more--anything, indeed, short of putting himself to real personal inconvenience. We may perhaps add, without doing too much violence to Sir Lionel's established character, that he himself really liked his son.

All this for some days carried him hither and thither, if not with patience, at any rate with perseverance. He went to spots which he was told had a world-wide celebrity, of the names of which he had but a bare distant remembrance, and which he found to be arid, comfortless, and uninteresting. Gibeon he did endure, and Shiloh, and Sichem; Gilgal, also, and Carmel. But there he broke down: he could not, he said, justify it to himself to be absent longer from his official duties. He found that he was near Beyrout: he could ride thither in two days, avoiding Damascus altogether. The cookery at Mount Carmel did not add to his love of the Holy Land. He found himself to be not very well. He laughingly reminded George that there was a difference between twenty-three and sixty; and ended by declining altogether to go backwards towards the Sea of Galilee. If George could only be induced to think that he had seen enough of these regions, his father would be so delighted to have his company direct from Beyrout to Constantinople!

George, however, was inexorable about Nazareth: and so they parted, agreeing that they would meet again at Constantinople. We need not closely follow either on his journey. Sir Lionel, having had everything paid for him up to the moment of their separation, arrived--let us hope with a full purse--at the Bosphorus. George, when left to himself, travelled more slowly, and thought much of these holy places--much also of his love. He could have found it in his heart to rush back, and catch Miss Baker and Caroline at Jaffa.

He would have done so as soon as he quitted Nazareth, only that he was ashamed.

About a fortnight after his father's departure, he found himself at Damascus, and in another week, he was stepping on board the packet at Beyrout. When leaving Palestine, that land of such wondrous a.s.sociations, his feelings were not altogether consolatory. He had at one moment acknowledged what he believed to be a spiritual influence within him, and yielding himself to it, had spoken of devoting his life to a high and holy purpose. He had, indeed, spoken only to himself, and the wound to his pride was therefore the less. But his high and holy purpose had been blown to the winds by a few words from a pair of ruby lips, by one glance of scorn from a pair of bright eyes. And he had so yielded, even though those lips would acknowledge no love for him; though those eyes would not look on him kindly. He could not be proud of his visit to the Holy Land; and yet he felt a longing to linger there. It might be, that if he would return once more to that mount, look once again on Sion and the temple, the spirit might yet get the better of the flesh. But, alas! he had to own to himself that he had now hardly a wish that the spirit should predominate. The things of the world were too bright to be given up.

The charms of the flesh were too strong for him. With a sigh, he looked back for the last time from Mount Hermon, stretched out his arms once more towards Jerusalem, said one farewell in his heart as his eye rested for a moment on the distant gla.s.sy waters of Galilee, and then set his horse's head towards Damascus.

When a traveller in these railroad days takes leave of Florence, or Vienna, or Munich, or Lucerne, he does so without much of the bitterness of a farewell. The places are now comparatively so near that he expects to see them again, or, at any rate, hopes that he may do so. But Jerusalem is still distant from us no Sabbath-day's journey. A man who, having seen it once, takes his leave, then sees it probably for the last time. And a man's heart must be very cold who can think of Palestine exactly as of any other land. It is not therefore surprising that Bertram was rather sad as he rode down the further side of Mount Hermon.

At Constantinople, Sir Lionel and George again met, and our hero spent a pleasant month there with his father. It was still spring, the summer heats had hardly commenced, and George was charmed, if not with the city of the Sultan, at any rate with the scenery around it.

Here his father appeared in a new light: they were more intimate with each other than they had been at Jerusalem; they were not now living in ladies' society, and Sir Lionel by degrees threw off what little restraint of governorship, what small amount of parental authority he had hitherto a.s.sumed. He seemed anxious to live with his son on terms of perfect equality; began to talk to him rather as young men talk to each other than men of ages so very different, and appeared to court a lack of reverence.

In his ordinary habits of life, and, indeed, in his physical vivacity, Sir Lionel was very young for his time of life. He never pleaded his years in bar of any pleasure, and never pleaded them at all except when desirous of an excuse for escaping something that was disagreeable. There are subjects on which young men talk freely with each other, but on which they hesitate to speak to their elders without restraint. Sir Lionel did his best to banish any such feeling on the part of his son. Of wine and women, of cards and horses, of money comforts and money discomforts, he spoke in a manner which Bertram at first did not like, but which after awhile was not distasteful to him. There is always some compliment implied when an old man unbends before a young one, and it is this which makes the viciousness of old men so dangerous. I do not say that Sir Lionel purposely tempted his son to vice; but he plainly showed that he regarded morality in a man to be as thoroughly the peculiar attribute of a clergyman as a black coat; and that there could be no reason for other men even to pretend to it when there were no women by to be respected and deceived.