The Bertrams

"And so George is a double-first," said Mrs. Wilkinson.

"Yes," said the vicar, with his mouth full of toast; not evincing any great satisfaction at the success of his late pupil.

When the mother read the short postscript her heart was touched, and she put her handkerchief up to her face.

"Poor Arthur! I am sure it has not been his own fault."

"Mamma, has George done better than Arthur?" said one of the younger girls. "George always does do better, I think; doesn't he?"

"He has made himself too sure of it," said the father, in almost an angry tone. Not that he was angry; he was vexed, rather, as he would be if his wheat crop failed, or his potatoes did not come up properly.

But he felt no sympathy with his son. It never occurred to him to think of the agony with which those few lines had been written; of the wretchedness of the young heart which had hoped so much and failed so greatly; of the misery which the son felt in disappointing the father. He was a good, kind parent, who spent his long days and longer nights in thinking of his family and their welfare; he would, too, have greatly triumphed in the triumph of his son; but it went beyond his power of heart to sympathize with him in his misery.

"Do not seem to be vexed with him when he comes home," said the mother.

"Vexed with him! you mean angry. Of course, I'm not angry. He has done his best, I suppose. It's unlucky, that's all."

And then the breakfast was continued in silence.

"I don't know what he's to do," said the father, after awhile; "he'll have to take a curacy, I suppose."

"I thought he meant to stop up at Oxford and take pupils," said Mary.

"I don't know that he can get pupils now. Besides, he'll not have a fellowship to help him."

"Won't he get a fellowship at all, papa?"

"Very probably not, I should think." And then the family finished their meal in silence.

It certainly is not pleasant to have one's hopes disappointed; but Mr. Wilkinson was hardly just in allowing himself to be so extremely put about by his son's failure in getting the highest honours. Did he remember what other fathers feel when their sons are plucked? or, did he reflect that Arthur had, at any rate, done much better than nineteen out of every twenty young men that go up to Oxford? But then Mr. Wilkinson had a double cause for grief. Had George Bertram failed also, he might perhaps have borne it better.

As soon as the letter had been written and made up, Wilkinson suffered himself to be led out of the room.

"And now for Parker's," said Bertram; "you will be glad to see Harcourt."

"Indeed, I shall not. Harcourt's all very well; but just at present, I would much rather see nobody."

"Well, then, he'll be glad to see you; and that will be quite the same thing. Come along."

Mr. Harcourt was a young barrister but lately called to the bar, who had been at Oxford spending his last year when Bertram and Wilkinson were freshmen; and having been at Bertram's college, he had been intimate with both of them. He was now beginning to practise, and men said that he was to rise in the world. In London he was still a very young man; but at Oxford he was held to be one who, from his three years' life in town, had become well versed in the world's ways. He was much in the habit of coming to Oxford, and when there usually spent a good deal of his time with George Bertram.

And so Wilkinson walked forth into the street arm and arm with his cousin. It was a grievous trial to him; but he had a feeling within him that the sooner the sorrow was encountered the sooner it would be over. They turned into the High Street, and as they went they met crowds of men who knew them both. Of course it was to be expected that Bertram's friends should congratulate him. But this was not the worst; some of them were so ill advised as to condole with Wilkinson.

"Get it over at once," whispered Bertram to him, "and then it will be over, now and for ever."

And then they arrived at Parker's, and there found all those whom Bertram had named, and many others. Mr. Parker was, it is believed, a pastrycook by trade; but he very commonly dabbled in more piquant luxuries than jam tarts or Bath buns. Men who knew what was what, and who were willing to pay – or to promise to pay – for their knowledge, were in the habit of breakfasting there, and lunching. Now a breakfast or a lunch at Parker's generally meant champagne.

Harcourt was seated on the table when they got into the back room, and the other men were standing.

"Sound the timbrels, beat the drums;
See the conqu'ring hero comes,"

he sung out as Bertram entered the room. "Make way for the double-first – the hero of the age, gentlemen! I am told that they mean to put up an alabaster statue to him in the Common Room at Trinity. However, I will vote for nothing more expensive than marble."

"Make it in pie-crust," said Bertram, "and let Parker be the artist."

"Yes; and we'll celebrate the installation with champagne and paté de foie gras," said Twisleton.

"And afterwards devour the object of our idolatry, to show how short-lived is the fame for which we work so hard," said Madden.

"I should be delighted at such tokens of your regard, gentlemen. Harcourt, you haven't seen Wilkinson."

Harcourt turned round and shook hands warmly with his other friend. "Upon my word, I did not see you, Master Wilkinson. You have such a habit of hiding yourself under a bushel that one always misses you. Well; so the great day is over, and the great deed done. It's a bore out of the way, trampled under foot and got rid of; that's my idea of a degree."

Wilkinson merely smiled; but Harcourt saw at once that he was a deeply-disappointed man. The barrister, however, was too much a man of the world either to congratulate him or condole with him.

"There are fewer firsts this year than there have been for the last nine years," said Gerard, thinking to soften the asperity of Wilkinson's position.

"That may be because the examiners required more, or because the men had less to give," said Madden, forgetting all about Wilkinson.

"Why, what noodles you are," said Bertram, "not to know that it's all settled by chance at roulette the night before the lists come down! If it's not, it ought to be. The average result would be just as fair. Come, Harcourt, I know that you, with your Temple experiences, won't drink Oxford wine; but your good nature will condescend to see the children feeding. Wilkinson, sit opposite there and give Twisleton some of that pie that he was talking of." And so they sat down to their banquet; and Harcourt, in spite of the refinement which London had doubtless given to his taste, seemed perfectly able to appreciate the flavour of the University vintage.

"Gentlemen, silence for one moment," said Harcourt, when the graver work of eating began to lull, and men torpidly peeled their pears, and then cut them up into shapes instead of eating them. "It is always said at all the breakfasts I go to – "

"This is not a breakfast," said Bertram, "it's a lunch."

"Well, all the lunches, then; and God bless you. It's always said at these matutinal meals – which, by-the-by, would be the nicest things in the world, only one doesn't know what on earth to do when they're over."

"It's time to go to dinner then," said Twisleton.

"That may do for the 'dura ilia' of a freshman, but now that you're a B.A., you'll find that that power fails you greatly. But, for heaven's sake, let me go on with my speech, or you'll not get away either to dinner or to supper. It is commonly declared, I say, that there should be no speaking at these delicious little morning repasts."

"Do you call that a little repast?" said Madden, who was lying back in his chair with a cigar in his mouth, of which he hardly had strength enough left to puff out the smoke.

"I mean no offence to the feed, which, of its kind, has been only too good. If I'm to be allowed to go on, I'll say, that this rule, which is always laid down, is always broken; and therefore I feel no hesitation in breaking it on this occasion. A long speech is a long bore, and a little speech is a little bore; but bores must be endured. We can't do very well without them. Now my bore shall be a very short bore if I'm allowed to make an end of it without interruption."

"All right, Harcourt," said Bertram. "Go ahead; we're only too delighted to hear you. It isn't every day we have a London barrister here."

"No; and it isn't every day that we have a double-first at old Trinity. Gentlemen, there are, I think, five, six Trinity men here including myself. It will be a point of honour with you to drink health and prosperity to our friend Bertram with all the honours. We have many men of whom we can boast at Trinity; but if I have any insight into character, any power of judging what a man will do" – it must be remembered that Mr. Harcourt, though a very young man in London, was by no means a young man at Oxford – "there have been very few before him who have achieved a higher place than will fall to his lot, or whose name will be more in men's mouths than his. There are also here four gentlemen of other colleges; they will not, I am sure, begrudge us our triumph; they are his old friends, and will be as proud of the Oxford man as we are of the Trinity man. Gentlemen, here is prosperity to our friend the double-first, and health to enjoy the fruits of his labour."

Whereupon the toast was drunk with a great deal of fervour. It was astonishing that ten men should make so much uproar; even Wilkinson, whose heart the wine had just touched sufficiently to raise it a little from the depth to which it had fallen – even he cheered; and Madden, overcoming by degrees his not unnatural repugnance to rise, produced from certain vast depths a double-bass hurrah.

"Bertram," said he, when the voices and glasses were once more silent, "you're a credit to your college, and I've a regard for you; so I don't mind running the risk for once. But I must beg that I may not be asked to repeat it."

Bertram of course returned thanks to his guests with all the mawkish modesty which usually marks such speeches – or, rather, with modesty which would be mawkish were it not so completely a matter of course. And then he sat down; and then, with a face rather heightened in colour, he got upon his legs again.

"In spite of Madden's difficulty of utterance," said he, "and his very visible disinclination to move – "

"I'm not going to do any more shouting," said Madden, "even though you propose the health of the chancellor, vice-chancellor, and two members."