The Bertrams Part 69

"Perhaps Mr. O'Callaghan," suggested Miss Penelope, conscious, probably, that an ardent young evangelical clergyman is generally in want of an income.

"Mr. O'Callaghan!" shouted Miss Todd, throwing up her head with scorn. "Pho! The gentleman I speak of would have made me a lady.

Lady--! Now who do you think it was, Miss Baker?"

"Oh, I couldn't guess at all," said poor Miss Baker. But she now knew that it was Sir Lionel. It might have been worse, however, and that she felt--much worse!

"Was it Sir Lionel Bertram?" asked the other.

"Ah! Miss Gauntlet, you know all about the gentlemen of Littlebath. I can see that. It was Sir Lionel. Wasn't that a triumph?"

"And you refused him?" asked Miss Penelope.

"Of course I did. You don't mean to say that you think I would have accepted him?"

To this Miss Penelope made no answer. Her opinions were of a mixed sort. She partly misbelieved Miss Todd--partly wondered at her.

Unmarried ladies of a certain age, whatever may be their own feelings in regard to matrimony on their own behalf, seem always impressed with a conviction that other ladies in the same condition would certainly marry if they got an opportunity. Miss Penelope could not believe that Miss Todd had rejected Sir Lionel; but at the same time she could not but be startled also by the great fact of such a rejection. At any rate her course of duty was open. Littlebath should be enlightened on the subject before the drawing-room candles were lit that evening; or at any rate that set in Littlebath to which she belonged. So she rose from her chair, and, declaring that she had sat an unconscionable time with Miss Baker, departed, diligent, about her work.

"Well, what do you think of that, my dear?" said Miss Todd, as soon as the two of them were left alone.

It was strange that Miss Todd, who was ordinarily so good-natured, who was so especially intent on being good-natured to Miss Baker, should have thus roughly communicated to her friend tidings which were sure to wound. But she had omitted to look at it in this light.

Her intention had been to punish Sir Lionel for having been so grossly false and grossly foolish. She had seen through him--at least, hardly through him; had seen at least that he must have been doubting between the two ladies, and that he had given up the one whom he believed to be the poorer. She did not imagine it possible that, after having offered to her, he should then go with a similar offer to Miss Baker. Had such an idea arisen in her mind, she would certainly have allowed Miss Baker to take her chance of promotion unmolested.

Miss Baker gave a long sigh. Now that Miss Gauntlet was gone she felt herself better able to speak; but, nevertheless, any speech on the subject was difficult to her. Her kind heart at once forgave Miss Todd. There could now be no marriage between that false one and her friend; and therefore, if the ice would only get itself broken, she would not be unwilling to converse upon the subject. But how to break the ice!

"I always thought he would," at last she said.

"Did you?" said Miss Todd. "Well, he certainly used to come there, but I never knew why. Sometimes I thought it was to talk about you."

"Oh, no!" said Miss Baker, plaintively.

"I gave him no encouragement--none whatever;--used to send him here and there--anything to get rid of him. Sometimes I thought--" and then Miss Todd hesitated.

"Thought what?" asked Miss Baker.

"Well, I don't want to be ill-natured; but sometimes I thought that he wanted to borrow money, and didn't exactly know how to begin."

"To borrow money!" He had once borrowed money from Miss Baker.

"Well, I don't know; I only say I thought so. He never did."

Miss Baker sighed again, and then there was a slight pause in the conversation.

"But, Miss Todd--"

"Well, my dear!"

"Do you think that--"

"Think what? Speak out, my dear; you may before me. If you've got any secret, I'll keep it."

"Oh! I've got no secret; only this. Do you think that Sir Lionel is--is poor--that he should want to borrow money?"

"Well; poor! I hardly know what you call poor. But we all know that he is a distressed man. I suppose he has a good income, and a little ready money would, perhaps, set him up; but there's no doubt about his being over head and ears in debt, I suppose."

This seemed to throw a new and unexpected light on Miss Baker's mind.

"I thought he was always so very respectable," said she.

"Hum-m-m!" said Miss Todd, who knew the world.

"Eh?" said Miss Baker, who did not.

"It depends on what one means by respectable," said Miss Todd.

"I really thought he was so very--"

"Hum-m-m-m," repeated Miss Todd, shaking her head.

And then there was a little conversation carried on between these ladies so entirely _sotto voce_ that the reporter of this scene was unable to hear a word of it. But this he could see, that Miss Todd bore by far the greater part in it.

At the end of it, Miss Baker gave another, and a longer, and a deeper sigh. "But you know, my dear," said Miss Todd, in her most consolatory voice, and these words were distinctly audible, "nothing does a man of that sort so much good as marrying."

"Does it?" asked Miss Baker.

"Certainly; if his wife knows how to manage him."

And then Miss Todd departed, leaving Miss Baker with much work for her thoughts. Her female friend Miss Baker had quite forgiven; but she felt that she could never quite forgive him. "To have deceived me so!" she said to herself, recurring to her old idea of his great respectability. But, nevertheless, it was probably his other sin that rankled deepest in her mind.

Of Miss Baker it may be said that she had hardly touched the pitch; at any rate, that it had not defiled her.

Sir Lionel was somewhat ill at ease as he walked from the Paragon to his livery stables. He had certainly looked upon success with Miss Todd as by no means sure; but, nevertheless, he was disappointed. Let any of us, in any attempt that we may make, convince ourselves with ever so much firmness that we shall fail, yet we are hardly the less down-hearted when the failure comes. We a.s.sure ourselves that we are not sanguine, but we a.s.sure ourselves falsely. It is man's nature to be sanguine; his nature, and perhaps his greatest privilege.

And Sir Lionel, as he walked along, began to fear that his own scruples would now stand in the way of that other marriage--of that second string to his bow. When, in making his little private arrangements within his own mind, he had decided that if Miss Todd rejected him he would forthwith walk off to Miss Baker, it never occurred to him that his own feelings would militate against such a proceeding. But such was now absolutely the fact. Having talked about "dear Sarah," he found that even he would have a difficulty in bringing himself to the utterance of "dear Mary."

He went to bed, however, that night with the comfortable reflection that any such nonsense would be dissipated by the morning. But when the morning came--his morning, one P.M.--his feeling he found was the same. He could not see Miss Baker that day.

He was disgusted and disappointed with himself. He had flattered himself that he was gifted with greater firmness; and now that he found himself so wanting in strength of character, he fretted and fumed, as men will do, even at their own faults. He swore to himself that he would go to-morrow, and that evening went to bed early, trying to persuade himself that indigestion had weakened him. He did great injustice, however, to as fine a set of internal organs as ever blessed a man of sixty.

At two o'clock next day he dressed himself for the campaign in Montpellier Terrace; but when dressed he was again disorganised. He found that he could not do it. He told himself over and over again that with Miss Baker there need be no doubt; she, at least, would accept him. He had only to smile there, and she would smile again. He had only to say "dear Mary," and those soft eyes would be turned to the ground and the battle would be won.

But still he could not do it. He was sick; he was ill; he could not eat his breakfast. He looked in the gla.s.s, and found himself to be yellow, and wrinkled, and wizened. He was not half himself. There were yet three weeks before Miss Baker would leave Littlebath. It was on the whole better that his little arrangement should be made immediately previous to her departure. He would leave Littlebath for ten days, and return a new man. So he went up to London, and bestowed his time upon his son.

At the end of the ten days much of his repugnance had worn off. But still the sound of that word "Sarah," and the peal of laughter which followed, rang in his ears. That utterance of the verbiage of love is a disagreeable task for a gentleman of his years. He had tried it, and found it very disagreeable. He would save himself a repet.i.tion of the nuisance and write to her.

He did so. His letter was not very long. He said nothing about "Mary"

in it, but contented himself with calling her his dearest friend. A few words were sufficient to make her understand what he meant, and those few words were there. He merely added a caution, that for both their sakes, the matter had better not at present be mentioned to anybody.

Miss Baker, when she received this letter, had almost recovered her equanimity. Hers had been a soft and gentle sorrow. She had had no fits of bursting grief; her wailings had been neither loud nor hysterical. A gentle, soft, faint tinge of melancholy had come upon her; so that she had sighed much as she sat at her solitary tea, and had allowed her novel to fall uncared for to the ground. "Would it not be well for her," she said to herself more than once, "to go to Hadley? Would not any change be well for her?" She felt now that Caroline's absence was a heavy blow to her, and that it would be well that she should leave Littlebath. It was astonishing how this affair of Miss Todd's reconciled her to her future home.