The Bertrams

"My mother would have been very glad if you would have stayed at the parsonage till your aunt's return; and so would my sisters – and so should I."

"You are all very kind – too kind," said Adela.

Then came another pause, perhaps for a quarter of a mile, but it was up-hill work, and the quarter of a mile passed by very slowly.

"It seems so odd that you should go away from us, whom you have known so long, to stay with Miss Todd, whom you never have even seen."

"I think change of scene will be good for me, Mr. Wilkinson."

"Well, perhaps so." And then the other quarter of a mile made away with itself. "Come, get along, Dumpling." This was said to the fat steed; for they had now risen to level ground.

"Our house, I know, must be very stupid for you. It is much changed from what it was; is it not?"

"Oh, I don't know."

"Yes, it is. There is neither the same spirit, nor the same good-will. We miss my father greatly."

"Ah, yes. I can feel for you there. It is a loss; a great loss."

"I sometimes think it unfortunate that my mother should have remained at the vicarage after my father's death."

"You have been very good to her, I know."

"I have done my best, Adela." It was the first time she had distinctly heard him call her by her Christian name since she had come to stay with them. "But I have failed. She is not happy there; nor, indeed, for that matter, am I."

"A man should be happy when he does his duty."

"We none of us do that so thoroughly as to require no other source of happiness. Go on, Dumpling, and do your duty."

"I see that you are very careful in doing yours."

"Perhaps you will hardly believe me, but I wish Lord Stapledean had never given me the living."

"Well; it is difficult to believe that. Think what it has been for your sisters."

"I know we should have been very poor, but we should not have starved. I had my fellowship, and I could have taken pupils. I am sure we should have been happier. And then – "

"And then – well?" said Adela; and as she spoke, her heart was not quite at rest within her breast.

"Then I should have been free. Since I took that living, I have been a slave." Again he paused a moment, and whipped the horse; but it was only now for a moment that he was silent. "Yes, a slave. Do you not see what a life I live? I could be content to sacrifice myself to my mother if the sacrifice were understood. But you see how it is with her. Nothing that I can do will satisfy her; and yet for her I have sacrificed everything – everything."

"A sacrifice is no sacrifice if it be agreeable. The sacrifice consists in its being painful."

"Well, I suppose so. I say that to myself so often. It is the only consolation I have."

"Not that I think your home should be made uncomfortable to you. There is no reason why it should be. At least, I should think not." She spoke with little spasmodic efforts, which, however, did not betray themselves to her companion, who seemed to her to be almost more engaged with Dumpling than with the conversation. It certainly had been through no wish of hers that they were thus talking of his household concerns; but as they were speaking of them, she was forced into a certain amount of hypocrisy. It was a subject on which she could not speak openly.

There was then another hill to be walked up, and Adela thought there would be no more of it. The matter had come up by accident, and would now, probably, drop away. But no. Whether by design, or from chance, or because no other topic presented itself, Arthur went back to the subject, and did so now in a manner that was peculiarly startling to Miss Gauntlet.

"Do you remember my calling once at West Putford, soon after I got the living? It is a long time ago now, and I don't suppose you do remember it."

"Yes, I do; very well."

"And do you remember what I told you then?"

"What was it?" said Adela. It clearly is the duty of a young lady on very many occasions to be somewhat hypocritical.

"If there be any man to whose happiness marriage is more necessary than to that of another, it is a country clergyman."

"Yes, I can believe that. That is, if there be not ladies of his own family living with him."

"I do not know that that makes any difference."

"Oh, yes; it must make a difference. I think that a man must be very wretched who has no one to look after his house."

"And is that your idea of the excellence of a wife? I should have expected something higher from you, Adela. I suppose you think, then, that if a man have his linen looked after, and his dinner cooked, that is sufficient." Poor Adela! It must be acknowledged that this was hard on her.

"No, I do not think that sufficient."

"It would seem so from what you say."

"Then what I said belied my thoughts. It seems to me, Mr. Wilkinson, since you drive me to speak out, that the matter is very much in your own hands. You are certainly a free agent. You know better than I can tell you what your duty to your mother and sisters requires. Circumstances have made them dependent on you, and you certainly are not the man to disacknowledge the burden."

"Certainly not."

"No, certainly not. But, having made up my mind to that, I would not, were I you, allow myself to be a slave."

"But what can I do?"

"You mean that you would be a poor man, were you – were you to give up your fellowship and at the same time take upon yourself other cares as well. Do as other poor men do."

"I know no other man situated as I am."

"But you know men who are much worse situated as regards their worldly means. Were you to give your mother the half of your income, you would still, I presume, be richer than Mr. Young." Mr. Young was the curate of a neighbouring parish, who had lately married on his curacy.

It will be said by my critics, especially by my female critics, that in saying this, Adela went a long way towards teaching Mr. Wilkinson the way to woo. Indeed, she brought that accusation against herself, and not lightly. But she was, as she herself had expressed it, driven in the cause of truth to say what she had said. Nor did she, in her heart of hearts, believe that Mr. Wilkinson had any thought of her in saying what she did say. Her mind on that matter had been long made up. She knew herself to be "the poor sequestered stag, left and abandoned by his velvet friend." She had no feeling in the matter which amounted to the slightest hope. He had asked her for her counsel, and she had given him the only counsel which she honestly could give.

Therefore, bear lightly on her, oh my critics! Bear lightly on her especially, my critics feminine. To the worst of your wrath and scorn I willingly subject the other lovers with whom my tale is burthened.

"Yes, I should be better off than Young," said Wilkinson, as though he were speaking to himself. "But that is not the point. I do not know that I have ever looked at it exactly in that light. There is the house, the parsonage I mean. It is full of women" – 'twas thus irreverently that he spoke of his mother and sisters – "what other woman would come among them?"

"Oh, that is the treasure for which you have to search" – this she said laughingly. The bitterness of the day was over with her; or at least it then seemed so. She was not even thinking of herself when she said this.

"Would you come to such a house, Adela? You, you yourself?"

"You mean to ask whether, if, as regards other circumstances, I was minded to marry, I would then be deterred by a mother-in-law and sister-in-law?"

"Yes, just so," said Wilkinson, timidly.