The Bertrams

"But Mr. M'Gabbery perhaps may," suggested George. "At any rate, he made a little blaze just now at the brook above." And then the ladies came down, and the business of the day commenced; seeing which, the two injured ones returned to their posts.

"I am very fond of a picnic," said Sir Lionel, as, seated on a corner of a tombstone, he stretched out his glass towards Miss Todd, who had insisted on being his cupbearer for the occasion; "excessively fond. I mean the eating and drinking part, of course. There is only one thing I like better; and that is having my dinner under a roof, upon a table, and with a chair to sit on."

"Oh, you ungrateful man; after all that I am doing for you!"

"I spoke of picnics generally, Miss Todd. Could I always have my nectar filled to me by a goddess, I would be content with no room, but expect to recline on a cloud, and have thunderbolts ready at my right hand."

"What a beautiful Jupiter your father would make, Mr. Bertram!"

"Yes; and what a happy king of gods with such a Juno as you, Miss Todd!"

"Ha! ha! ha! oh dear, no. I pretend to no rôle higher than that of Hebe. Mr. M'Gabbery, may I thank you for a slice of ham? I declare, these tombs are very nice tables, are they not? Only, I suppose it's very improper. Mr. Cruse, I'm so sorry that we have no potatoes; but there is salad, I know."

"Talking of chairs," said Mr. Hunter, "after all there has been no seat yet invented by man equal to a divan, either for ease, dignity, or grace." Mr. Hunter had long been practising to sit cross-legged, and was now attempting it on on the grass for the first time in public. It had at any rate this inconvenient effect, that he was perfectly useless; for, when once seated, he could neither help himself nor any one else.

"The cigar divan is a very nice lounge when one has nothing better to do," suggested Mr. Pott. "They have capital coffee there."

"A divan and a sofa are much the same, I suppose," said George.

But to this Mr. Hunter demurred, and explained at some length what were the true essential qualities of a real Turkish divan: long before he had finished, however, George had got up to get a clean plate for Miss Waddington, and in sitting down had turned his back upon the Turk. The unfortunate Turk could not revenge himself, as in his present position any motion was very difficult to him.

Picnic dinners are much the same in all parts of the world, and chickens and salad are devoured at Jerusalem very much in the same way as they are at other places – except, indeed, by a few such proficients in Turkish manners as Mr. Hunter. The little Arab children stood around them, expectant of scraps, as I have seen children do also in England; and the conversation, which was dull enough at the commencement of the feast, became more animated when a few corks had flown. As the afternoon wore on, Mr. M'Gabbery became almost bellicose under the continual indifference of his lady-love; and had it not been for the better sense of our hero – such better sense may be expected from gentlemen who are successful – something very like a quarrel would have taken place absolutely in the presence of Miss Todd.

Perhaps Miss Waddington was not free from all blame in the matter. It would be unjust to accuse her of flirting – of flirting, at least, in the objectionable sense of the word. It was not in her nature to flirt. But it was in her nature to please herself without thinking much of the manner in which she did it, and it was in her nature also to be indifferent as to what others thought of her. Though she had never before known George Bertram, there was between them that sort of family knowledge of each other which justified a greater intimacy than between actual strangers. Then, too, he pleased her, while Mr. M'Gabbery only bored. She had not yet thought enough about the world's inhabitants to have recognized and adjudicated on the difference between those who talk pleasantly and those who do not; but she felt that she was amused by this young double-first Oxonian, and she had no idea of giving up amusement when it came in her way. Of such amusement, she had hitherto known but little. Miss Baker herself was, perhaps, rather dull. Miss Baker's friends at Littlebath were not very bright; but Caroline had never in her heart accused them of being other than amusing. It is only by knowing his contrast that we recognize a bore when we meet him. It was in this manner that she now began to ascertain that Mr. M'Gabbery certainly had bored her. Ascertaining it, she threw him off at once – perhaps without sufficient compunction.

"I'll cut that cock's comb before I have done with him," said M'Gabbery to his friend Mr. Cruse, as they rode up towards St. Stephen's gate together, the rest of the cavalcade following them. Sir Lionel had suggested to Miss Todd that they might as well return, somewhat early though it was, seeing that there was cause why that feast of reason and that flow of soul should no longer be continued by them round the yet only half-emptied hampers. So the ladies had climbed up into the tomb and there adjusted their hats, and the gentlemen had seen to the steeds; and the forks had been packed up; and when Mr. M'Gabbery made the state of his mind known to Mr. Cruse, they were on their way back to Jerusalem, close to the garden of Gethsemane.

"I'll cut that young cock's comb yet before I have done with him," repeated Mr. M'Gabbery.

Now Mr. Cruse, as being a clergyman, was of course not a fighting man. "I shouldn't take any notice of him," said he; "nor, indeed, of her either; I do not think she is worth it."

"Oh, it isn't about that," said M'Gabbery. "They were two women together, and I therefore was inclined to show them some attention. You know how those things go on. From one thing to another it has come to this, that they have depended on me for everything for the last three or four weeks."

"You haven't paid any money for them, have you?"

"Well, no; I can't exactly say that I have paid money for them. That is to say, they have paid their own bills, and I have not lent them anything. But I dare say you know that a man never travels with ladies in that free and easy way without feeling it in his pocket. One is apt to do twenty things for them which one wouldn't do for oneself; nor they for themselves if they had to pay the piper."

Now here a very useful moral may be deduced. Ladies, take care how you permit yourselves to fall into intimacies with unknown gentlemen on your travels. It is not pleasant to be spoken of as this man was speaking of Miss Baker and her niece. The truth was, that a more punctilious person in her money dealings than Miss Baker never carried a purse. She had not allowed Mr. M'Gabbery so much as to lay out on her behalf a single piastre for oranges on the road. Nor had he been their sole companion on their journey through the desert. They had come to Jerusalem with a gentleman and his wife: Mr. M'Gabbery had been kindly allowed to join them.

"Well, if I were you, I should show them a cold shoulder," said Mr. Cruse; "and as to that intolerable puppy, I should take no further notice of him, except by cutting him dead."

Mr. M'Gabbery at last promised to follow his friend's advice, and so Miss Todd's picnic came to an end without bloodshed.

CHAPTER X

THE EFFECTS OF MISS TODD'S PICNIC

Sir Lionel did not participate violently either in his son's disgust at the falsehood of that holy sepulchre church, nor in his enthusiasm as to the Mount of Olives. In the former, he walked about as he had done in many other foreign churches, looked a little to the right and a little to the left, observed that the roof seemed to be rather out of order, declined entering the sanctum sanctorum, and then asked whether there was anything more to be seen. He did not care, he said, about going upstairs into the gallery; and when George suggested that he should descend into the Armenian chapel, he observed that it appeared to be very dark and very crowded. He looked at the Turkish janitors without dismay, and could not at all understand why George should not approve of them.

He was equally cold and equally complaisant on the Mount of Olives. He would willingly have avoided the ascent could he have done so without displeasing his son; but George made a point of it. A donkey was therefore got for him, and he rode up.

"Ah! yes," said he, "a very clear view of the city; oh, that was Solomon's temple, was it? And now they have a mosque there, have they? Ah! perhaps the Brahmins will have a turn at it before the world is done. It's a barren sort of hill after all, is it not?"

And then George tried very much in vain to make his father understand why he wished to go into the church.

"By-the-by," said Sir Lionel – they were then sitting exactly on the spot where George had placed himself before, when he made that grand resolve to give up everything belonging to this world for the sake of being one of Christ's shepherds – "by-the-by, George, for heaven's sake don't throw your uncle over in choosing a profession. I certainly should be sorry to see you become an attorney."

"I have never thought of it for a moment," said George.

"Because, with your abilities, and at any rate with your chance of money, I think you would be very much thrown away; but, considering his circumstances and yours, were I you, I would really submit almost to anything."

"I will not at any rate submit to that," said George, not very well able to reconcile his father's tone to the spot on which they were sitting.

"Well, it's your own affair, my boy. I have no right to interfere, and shall not attempt to do so; but of course I must be anxious. If you did go into the church, I suppose he'd buy a living for you?"

"Certainly not; I should take a college living."

"At your age any that you could get would be very small. Ah, George! if I could only put an old head upon young shoulders, what a hand of cards you would have to play! That old man could leave you half a million of money!"

This was certainly not the object with which the son had ascended the mount, and he did not use much eloquence to induce his father to remain long in the place. Sir Lionel got again on his donkey, and they returned to Jerusalem; nor did George ever again talk to him about the Mount of Olives.

And he was not very much more successful with another friend into whose mind he endeavoured to inculcate his own high feelings. He got Miss Baker up to his favourite seat, and with her Miss Waddington; and then, before he had left Jerusalem, he succeeded in inducing the younger lady to ramble thither with him alone.

"I do not know that I think so highly of the church as you do," said Caroline. "As far as I have seen them, I cannot find that clergymen are more holy than other men; and yet surely they ought to be so."

"At any rate, there is more scope for holiness if a man have it in him to be holy. The heart of a clergyman is more likely to be softened than that of a barrister or an attorney."

"I don't exactly know what you mean by heart-softening, Mr. Bertram."

"I mean – " said Bertram, and then he paused; he was not quite able, with the words at his command, to explain to this girl what it was that he did mean, nor was he sure that she would appreciate him if he did do so; and, fond as he still was of his idea of a holy life, perhaps at this moment he was fonder still of her.

"I think that a man should do the best he can for himself in a profession. You have a noble position within your grasp, and if I were you, I certainly would not bury myself in a country parsonage."

What this girl of twenty said to him had much more weight than the time-honoured precepts of his father; and yet both, doubtless, had their weight. Each blow told somewhat; and the seed too had been sown upon very stony ground.

They sat there some three or four minutes in silence. Bertram was looking over to Mount Moriah, imaging to himself the spot where the tables of the money-changers had been overturned, while Miss Waddington was gazing at the setting sun. She had an eye to see material beauty, and a taste to love it; but it was not given to her to look back and feel those things as to which her lover would fain have spoken to her. The temple in which Jesus had taught was nothing to her.

Yes, he was her lover now, though he had never spoken to her of love, had never acknowledged to himself that he did love her – as so few men ever do acknowledge till the words that they have said make it necessary that they should ask themselves whether those words are true. They sat there for some minutes in silence, but not as lovers sit. The distance between them was safe and respectful. Bertram was stretched upon the ground, with his eyes fixed, not upon her, but on the city opposite; and she sat demurely on a rock, shading herself with her parasol.

"I suppose nothing would induce you to marry a clergyman?" said he at last.

"Why should you suppose that, Mr. Bertram?"

"At any rate, not the parson of a country parish. I am led to suppose it by what you said to me yourself just now."

"I was speaking of you, and not of myself. I say that you have a noble career open to you, and I do not look on the ordinary life of a country parson as a noble career. For myself, I do not see any nobility in store. I do not know that there is any fate more probable for myself than that of becoming a respectable vicaress."

"And why may not a vicar's career be noble? Is it not as noble to have to deal with the soul as with the body?"