The Bertrams Part 31

They found Miss Baker in her drawing-room, and with her Adela and aunt Penelope.

"And where is Caroline?" said George, when the introductions had been duly performed. He had to make a little effort to say this in a voice that should signify that he was at home there, but which should not savour too much of the lover. On the whole, he succeeded pretty well.

"Why, to tell the truth," said Miss Baker, laughing, "she is doing duty at this moment as head butler in the dining-room. If you feel any vocation that way, you may go and help her."

"Well, I am a fairish good hand at drawing a cork," said Bertram, as he left the room.

"So the lovers' privileges are all arranged for," thought Harcourt to himself.

When Bertram entered the dining-room, the butler's duties seemed to be complete; at any rate, Miss Waddington was not engaged in their performance. She was leaning on the mantel-piece, and was apparently engaged in contemplating a bouquet of flowers which Bertram had contrived to send to the house since his arrival at Littlebath. It was no wonder that the boots should know all about it.

Let us agree to say nothing about the lovers' privileges. Caroline Waddington was not a girl to be very liberal of such favours, and on the occasion in question she was not more liberal than usual.

"Is Mr. Harcourt here?" said she.

"Yes, of course he is. He is upstairs."

"And I am to go up to be looked at. How vain you men are of your playthings! Not that you have anything in this respect of which you ought to be vain."

"But a great deal of which I ought to be, and am, very proud. I am proud of you, Caroline; proud at this moment that my friend should see how beautiful is the girl that loves me."

"Tus.h.!.+" said Caroline, putting the back of her nosegay up to his mouth. "What delightful nonsense you can talk. But come, your London friend won't much appreciate my excellence if I keep him waiting for his dinner." And so they went upstairs.

But Caroline, though she laughed at her lover for showing her off, had not failed to make the best of herself. She was sufficiently anxious that Bertram should be proud of her, should have cause to be proud of her; and she seemed to be aware that if she could satisfy Mr. Harcourt's fastidious judgment, she might probably hope to pa.s.s as approved of among his other friends. She determined, therefore, to look her best as she walked into the drawing-room; and she did look her best.

"Mr. Harcourt, my niece, Miss Waddington," said Miss Baker. Harcourt, as he rose and bowed, was lost in wonder.

Bertram fell immediately into conversation with Miss Penelope Gauntlet, but even while listening to her enthusiasm as to Arthur Wilkinson's luck in getting the living of Hurst Staple, and her praise of Lord Stapledean, he contrived to keep an eye on his friend Harcourt. "Yes, indeed, quite fortunate; wasn't it?" But as he thus spoke, his very soul within him was rejoicing at his own triumph.

He had said nothing about Caroline personally; he had refrained his tongue, and now he had his reward.

We have said that Harcourt was lost in wonder, and such was literally the case. He had taught himself to believe that Caroline Waddington was some tall, sharp-nosed dowdy; with bright eyes, probably, and even teeth; with a simpering, would-be-witty smile, and full of little quick answers such as might suit well for the a.s.sembly-rooms at Littlebath. When he heard that she was engaged in seeing that the sherry-bottles were duly decantered, the standard of her value did not at all rise in his estimation. Candle-ends and cold mutton would doubtless be her forte, an economical was.h.i.+ng-bill her strong point.

So was he thinking, much distressed in mind--for, to do him justice, he was as anxious on behalf of Bertram as it was in his nature to be anxious for any one--when a Juno entered the room. She did not swim in, or fly in, or glide in, but walked in, as women should walk if they properly understood their parts. She walked in as though she were mistress of her own soul, and afraid to meet no pair of eyes which any human being could bend upon her. He had intended in his good-nature to patronise her; but that other question instantly occurred to him--would she patronise him? Bertram he had known long and intimately, and held him therefore somewhat cheap in many respects, as we are all accustomed to hold our dearest friends. But now, at once he rose in his estimation a hundred per cent. What might not be expected of a man whom such a woman would acknowledge that she loved?

A Juno had entered the room; for her beauty, as we have said before, was that rather of the queen of the G.o.ds. George immediately acknowledged to himself that he had never before seen her look so grandly beautiful. Her charms have been related, and that relation shall not be repeated; but when first seen by Harcourt, their power was more thoroughly acknowledged by him, much more thoroughly than they had been by her lover when he had first met her. Then, however, she had been sitting at dinner between her aunt and Mr. M'Gabbery, quite unconscious that any one was arriving whose existence could be of importance to her.

There was no time for conversation then. The surprise arising from her entrance had, on Harcourt's part, hardly subsided, when the servant announced dinner, and he was called on to give his arm to Miss Baker.

"I hope you approve your friend's choice," said that lady, smiling.

"Miss Waddington is certainly the most lovely girl I ever beheld,"

replied he, with enthusiasm.

The Rev. Mr. Meek handed down Miss Penelope Gauntlet, and Bertram followed with the two girls, happy and high-spirited. He first tendered his arm to Adela, who positively refused it; then to Caroline, who was equally determined. Then, putting a hand behind the waist of each of them, he pushed them through the door before him.

There are certainly some privileges which an accepted lover may take in a house, and no one but an accepted lover.

George took his seat at the bottom of the table, as though he were quite at home; and Harcourt, happy sinner! found himself seated between Adela and Caroline. He was not good enough for such bliss.

But had his virtues been ever so s.h.i.+ning, how could they have availed him? Neither of his neighbours had a portion of a heart left to call her own.

But he was able to perceive that Caroline was not only beautiful. She talked to him almost exclusively, for she had capriciously seated herself away from her lover, and next to her aunt. "Adela," she had whispered, going downstairs, "I shall look to you to talk to George all the evening, for I mean to make a new conquest."

Bertram was delighted. It was hardly in him to be jealous, even had there been a shadow of cause. As it was, his love was doing exactly that which he wished her to do. She was vindicating his choice to the man whose judgment on the matter was most vitally essential to him.

When the ladies left the dining-room, both Bertram and Harcourt heartily wished that Miss Baker had not been so scrupulously hospitable. They hardly knew what to do with Mr. Meek. Mr. Meek remarked that Miss Baker was a very nice person, that Miss Waddington was a charming person, that Miss Penelope Gauntlet was a very nice person indeed, and that Miss Adela was a very sweet person; and then it seemed that all conversation was at end. "Eh! what! none especially; that is to say, the Middle Temple." Such had been Harcourt's reply to Mr. Meek's inquiry as to what London congregation he frequented; and then the three gentlemen seemed to be much occupied with their wine and biscuits. This invitation to Mr. Meek had certainly been a mistake on Miss Baker's part.

But the misery did not last long. Of the first occasion on which Mr.

Meek's gla.s.s was seen to be well empty, George took advantage. "If you don't take any more wine, Mr. Meek, we may as well go upstairs; eh, Harcourt?" and he looked suppliantly at his friend.

"Oh, I never take any more wine, you know. I'm an anchorite on such occasions as these." And so they went into the drawing-room, long before Miss Baker had her coffee ready for them.

"You see a good deal of Arthur now, I suppose?" said Bertram, addressing Adela.

"Yes; that is, not a very great deal. He has been busy since he took up the parish. But I see Mary frequently."

"Do you think Arthur likes it? He seemed to me to be hardly so much gratified as I should have thought he would have been. The living is a good one, and the marquis was certainly good-natured about it."

"Oh, yes, he was," said Adela.

"It will be a long time, I know, before I earn five hundred pounds a year. Do you know, he never wrote about it as though he thought he'd been lucky in getting it."

"Didn't he?"

"Never; and I thought he was melancholy and out of spirits when I saw him the other day. He ought to marry; that's the fact. A young clergyman with a living should always get a wife."

"You are like the fox that lost its tail," said Adela, trying hard to show that she joined in the conversation without an effort.

"Ah! but the case is very different. There can be no doubt that Arthur ought to lose his tail. His position in the world is one which especially requires him to lose it."

"He has his mother and sisters, you know."

"Oh, mother and sisters! Mother and sisters are all very well, or not very well, as the case may be; but the vicar of a parish should be a married man. If you can't get a wife for him down there in Hamps.h.i.+re, I shall have him up to London, and look one out for him there. Pray take the matter in hand when you go home, Miss Gauntlet."

Adela smiled, and did not blush; nor did she say that she quite agreed with him that the vicar of a parish should be a married man.

"Well, I shan't ask any questions," said Bertram, as soon as he and Harcourt were in the street, "or allow you to offer any opinion; because, as we have both agreed, you have not pluck enough to give it impartially." Bertram as he said this could hardly preserve himself from a slight tone of triumph.

"She is simply the most most lovely woman that my eyes ever beheld,"

said Harcourt.

"Tus.h.!.+ can't you make it a little more out of the common way than that? But, Harcourt, without joke, you need not trouble yourself. I did want you to see her; but I don't care twopence as to your liking her. I shall think much more of your wife liking her--if you ever have a wife."

"Bertram, upon my word, I never was less in a mood to joke."

"That is saying very little, for you are always in a mood to joke." Bertram understood it all; saw clearly what impression Miss Waddington had made, and for the moment was supremely happy.

"How ever you had the courage to propose yourself and your two hundred pounds a year to such a woman as that!"

"Ha! ha! ha! Why, Harcourt, you are not at all like yourself. If you admire her so much, I shall beg you not to come to Littlebath any more."