The Bertrams Part 23

Bertram certainly liked his father, and was at ease in his company; but, in spite of this, he was ashamed of him, and was sometimes very sorrowful. He was young, full of vivacity, and without that strength of character which should have withstood the charm of Sir Lionel's manner; but he knew well that he would fain have had in his father feelings of a very different nature, and he could not but acknowledge that the severity of his uncle's tone was deserved.

It had been George's intention to stay a week only at Constantinople, but his father had persuaded him to remain four. He had boasted that when he returned to England he would be in a position to give back to his uncle the three hundred pounds which Pritchett had placed to his account. But he would not now be able to do this: his father lived expensively; and even here, where Sir Lionel was now at home, George paid more than his own share of the expense.

One of their chief subjects of conversation, that, indeed, which Sir Lionel seemed to prefer to any other, was the ultimate disposal of his brother's money. He perceived that George's thoughts on this subject were by far too transcendental, that he was childishly indifferent to his own interests, and that if not brought to a keener sense of his own rights, a stronger feeling as to his position as the only nephew of a very wealthy man, he might let slip through his fingers a magnificent fortune which was absolutely within his reach.

So thinking, he detained his son near him for awhile, that he might, if possible, imbue him with some spark of worldly wisdom.

He knew how useless it would be to lecture a young man like George as to the best way in which he could play tuft-hunter to his uncle.

From such lectures George would have started away in disgust; but something, Sir Lionel thought, might be done by tact, by _finesse_, and a daily half-scornful badinage, skilfully directed towards the proper subject. By degrees, too, he thought that George did listen to him, that he was learning, that he might be taught to set his eyes greedily on those mountains of wealth. And so Sir Lionel persevered with diligence to the end.

"Say everything that is civil from me to my brother," said the colonel, the day before George left him.

"Uncle George does not care much for civil speeches," said the other, laughing.

"No, I know he does not; he'd think more of it if I could send home a remittance by you to pay the bill; eh, George? But as I can't do that, I may as well send a few civil words." Uncle George's bill had gradually become a source of joke between the father and son. Sir Lionel, at least, was accustomed to mention it in such a way that the junior George could not help laughing; and though at first this had gone against the grain of his feelings, by degrees he had become used to it.

"He expects, I fancy, neither money nor civil words," said George the younger.

"He will not, on that account, be the less pleased at getting either the one or the other. Don't you believe everything that everybody tells you in his own praise: when a man says that he does not like flattery, and that he puts no value on soft words, do not on that account be deterred from making any civil speeches you may have ready. He will not be a bit stronger than another because he boasts of his strength."

"I really think you would find it difficult to flatter your brother."

"Perhaps so; and therefore I should set about it with the more care.

But, were I in your shoes, I should not attempt flattery; I should be very submissive rather. He always loved to play the tyrant."

"And I do not love to play the slave."

"An only nephew's slavery would probably be of a very mild description."

"Yes; no harder than sitting on a clerk's stool in a merchant's counting-house for seven or eight hours a day."

"That would be an unendurable bore as a continuance; but take my word for it, George, if you could bring yourself to do it for six months, by the end of that time you would have the game in your own hands."

"At any rate, I shall not try it, sir."

"Well, you are your own master: I can only say that the temptation would be too strong for most men. I have not the slightest doubt that if you would give way to him for six months, two years would see you in Parliament." Sir Lionel had already ascertained that to sit in the House of Commons was the dearest object of his son's ambition.

On the evening of that day, as they were drinking their coffee and smoking together, Sir Lionel for the first time spoke to his son on another matter. "George," said he, "I don't know whether there was anything in it, but when we were at Jerusalem, I thought you were very sweet on Caroline Waddington."

George blushed deeply, and affected to laugh.

"She was certainly a very fine girl," continued his father; "I think as handsome a girl as I have seen these ten years. What a shoulder and neck she had! When you used to be dragging her up the Mount of Olives, I could not but think there was more in it than mere scripture geography--eh, George?"

George merely laughed, and looked rather like a simpleton.

"If you were not in love with her, I can only say that you ought to have been. I was, I know."

"Well, sir, I believe she is free as yet; you can try your chance if you have a mind."

"Ah! I would I could. If I knew Medea's secret, I would have myself chopped and boiled that I might come out young on her behalf; but, George, I can tell you something about her."

"Well, sir!"

"I would have told you then, when we were at Jerusalem, but we were not so well acquainted then as we are now, and I did not like to interfere."

"It could not be interference from you."

"Well, but the matter is this: if my brother ever loved any human being--and I am not quite sure he ever did--but if he did, it was that girl's father. Had Waddington lived, he would now have been my age. Your uncle took him early by the hand, and would have made his fortune for him, but the poor fellow died. In my opinion, it would a.s.sist your views if your uncle knew that you were going to marry Caroline Waddington."

George said nothing, but sat sucking the mouth-piece of his pipe-stick and blowing out great clouds of smoke. Sir Lionel said nothing further, but easily changed the conversation. Early on the following morning, Bertram left Constantinople, having received a promise that Sir Lionel would visit him in England as soon as the exigencies of the public service would permit of his doing so.

CHAPTER XII.

GEORGE BERTRAM DECIDES IN FAVOUR OF THE BAR.

George Bertram did not return directly to England. Since he had been in Turkey, he had made arrangement by letter with his friend Harcourt to meet him in the Tyrol, and to travel home with him through Switzerland. It was about the middle of June when he left Constantinople, and Harcourt was to be at Innspruck on the 5th August. George might therefore well have remained a week or two longer with his father had either of them so wished; but neither of them did wish it. The living at Constantinople was dear, and George's funds would not stand much more of it; and Sir Lionel, free and easy as he was, still felt his son's presence as some impediment--perhaps in the way of his business, perhaps in that of his pleasures.

From Constantinople Bertram went up across the Balkan to the Danube, and thence through Bucharest into Transylvania, travelling, as in those days was necessary, somewhat by permission of the Russian authorities. He then again struck the Danube at Pesth; remained some little time there; again a week or so at Vienna; from thence he visited Saltzburg, and exactly on the appointed day shook hands with his friend in the hall of the old "Golden Sun" at Innspruck.

At first, on leaving his father, George was very glad to be once more alone. Men delighted him not; nor women either at that moment--seeing that his thoughts were running on Caroline Waddington, and that her presence was not to be had. But by the time that he found himself in the Tyrol, he was delighted once more to have a companion. He had of course picked up Englishmen, and been picked up by them at every town he had pa.s.sed; one always does; some ladies also he had casually encountered--but he had met with no second Caroline. While wandering about the mountains of Transylvania, he had been quite contented to be alone: at Pesth he had not ceased to congratulate himself on his solitude, though sometimes he found the day a little too long for his purpose in doing so; at Vienna he was glad enough to find an old Oxonian; though, even while enjoying the treat, he would occasionally say to himself that, after all, society was only a bore. But by the time he had done the Saltzburg country, he was heartily sick of himself, somewhat sick also of thinking of his love, and fully able to re-echo all that Harcourt had to say in praise of some very fine old wine which that fastidious gentleman caused to be produced for them from the cellars of the "Golden Sun."

Innspruck is a beautiful little town. Perhaps no town in Europe can boast a site more exquisitely picturesque. Edinburgh would be equal to it, if it had a river instead of a railroad running through its valley and under its Castle-hill. But we sojourned too long in the Holy Land to permit of our dwelling even for half a chapter in the Tyrol. George, however, and his friend remained there for a fortnight. They went over the Brenner and looked down into Italy; made an excursion to those singular golden-tinted mountains, the Dolomites, among which live a race of men who speak neither German nor Italian, nor other language known among the hundred dialects of Europe, but a patois left to them from the ancient Latins; they wandered through the valleys of the Inn and its tributaries and wondered at the odd way of living which still prevails in their picturesque castellated mansions.

For awhile Bertram thought that Harcourt was the best companion in the world. He was as agreeable and easy tempered as his father; and was at the same time an educated man, which his father certainly was not. Harcourt, though he put his happiness in material things perhaps quite as much as did Sir Lionel, required that his material things should be of a high flavour. He was a reading man, addicted, in a certain cynical, carping sort of way, even to poetry, was a critic almost by profession, loved pictures, professed to love scenery, certainly loved to watch and scrutinize the different cla.s.ses of his brother-men. He was gifted pre-eminently with a lawyer's mind, but it was not a lawyer's mind of a vulgar quality. He, too, loved riches, and looked on success in the world as a man's chief, nay, perhaps his only aim; but for him it was necessary that success should be polished. Sir Lionel wanted money that he might swallow it and consume it, as a shark does its prey; but, like sharks in general, he had always been hungry,--had never had his bellyful of money.

Harcourt's desire for money was of a different cla.s.s. It would not suit him to be in debt to any one. A good balance at his banker's was a thing dear to his soul. He aimed at perfect respectability, and also at perfect independence.

For awhile, therefore, Harcourt's teaching was a great improvement on Sir Lionel's, and was felt to be so. He preached a love of good things; but the good things were to be corollaries only to good work.

Sir Lionel's summum bonum would have been an unexpected pocketful of money, three months of idleness in which to spend it, and pleasant companions for the time, who should be at any rate as well provided in pocket as himself. Harcourt would have required something more.

The world's respect and esteem were as necessary to him as the world's pleasures.

But nevertheless, after a time, Harcourt's morality offended Bertram, as Bertram's transcendentalism offended Harcourt. They admired the same view, but they could not look at it through the same coloured gla.s.s.

"And so on the whole you liked your governor?" said Harcourt to him one day as they were walking across a mountain range from one valley to another.

"Yes, indeed."

"One is apt to be prejudiced in one's father's favour, of course,"

said Harcourt. "That is to say, when one hasn't seen him for twenty years or so. A more common, constant knowledge, perhaps, puts the prejudice the other way."

"Sir Lionel is undoubtedly a very pleasant man; no one, I fancy, could help liking his society."

"I understand it all as well as though you had written a book about him. You have none of that great art, Bertram, which teaches a man to use his speech to conceal his thoughts."

"Why should I wish to conceal my thoughts from you?"

"I know exactly what you mean about your father: he is no martinet in society, even with his son. He a.s.sumes to himself no mysterious unintelligible dignity. He has none of the military Grimgruffenuff about him. He takes things easily, and allows other people to do the same."