Kate’s existence, however, was too monotonous to be dwelt upon for ever,
and though all that can be afforded to the reader is a glimpse of other
scenes, yet there are one or two such glimpses which may help him to
understand how other people were affected by this complication of
affairs. Bertie Hardwick went up to London after that second brief visit
at the Rectory, when Miss Courtenay had so successfully eluded seeing
him, with anything but comfortable feelings. He had never quite known
how she looked upon himself, but now it became apparent to him that
whatever might be the amount of knowledge which she had acquired, it had
been anything but favourable to him. How far he had a right to Kate’s
esteem, or whether, indeed, it was a right thing for him to be anxious
about it, is quite a different question. He was anxious about it. He
wanted to stand well in the girl’s eyes. He had known her all his life,
he said to himself. Of course they could only be acquaintances, not even
friends, in all probability, so different must their lines of life be;
but still it was hard to feel that Kate disliked him, that she thought
badly of him. He had no right to care, but he did care. He stopped in
his work many and many a day to think of it. And then he would lay down
his book or his pen, and gnaw his nails (a bad habit, which his mother
vainly hoped she had cured him of), and think--till all the law went out
of his head which he was studying.
This was very wrong, and he did not do it any more than he could help;
but sometimes the tide of rising thought was too much for him. Bertie
was settling to work, as he had great occasion to do. He had lost much
time, and there was not a moment to be lost in making up for it. Within
the last three months, indeed, his careless life had sustained a change
which filled all his friends with satisfaction. It was but a short time
to judge by, but yet, if ever man had seen the evil of his ways, and set
himself, with true energy, to mend them, it was Bertie, everybody
allowed. He had left his fashionable and expensive cousin the moment
they had arrived in London. Instead of Bertie Eldridge’s fashionable
quarters, in one of the streets off Piccadilly, which hitherto he had
shared, he had established himself in chambers in the Temple, up two
pair of stairs, where he was working, it was reported, night and day.
Bertie Eldridge, indeed, had so frightened all his people by his
laughing accounts of the wet towels which bound the other Bertie’s head
of nights, while he laboured at his law books, that the student received
three several letters on the subject--one from each of his aunts, and
one from his mother.
‘My dear, it goes to my heart to hear how you are working,’ the latter
said. ‘I thank God that my own boy is beginning to see what is necessary
to hold his place in life. But not too much, dearest Bertie, not too
much. What would it avail me if my son came to be Lord Chancellor, and
lost his health, or even his life, on the way?’
This confusing sentence did not make Bertie ridicule the writer, for he
was, strange to say, very fond of his mother, but he wrote her a merry
explanation, and set her fears at rest. However, though he did not
indulge in wet towels, he had begun to work with an energy no one
expected of him. He had a motive. He had seen the necessity, as his
mother said. To wander all over the world with Bertie Eldridge, whose
purse was carelessly free, but whose way it was, unconsciously, while
intending to save his friends from expense, to draw them into greater
and ever greater outlay, was not a thing which could be done, or which
it would be at all satisfactory to do for life. And many very grave
thoughts had come to Bertie on the journey home. Perhaps he had grown
just a little disgusted with his cousin, who saw everything from his own
point of view, and could not enter into the feelings and anxieties of a
poorer man.
‘Oh! bother! All will come right in the end,’ he would say, when his
cousin pointed out to him the impossibility for himself of the
situation, so far as he himself was concerned.
‘How can it come right for me?’ Hardwick had asked.
‘How you do worry!’ said Bertie Eldridge. ‘Haven’t we always shared
everything? And why shouldn’t we go on doing so? I may be kept out of
it, of course, for years and years, but not for ever. Hang it, Bertie,
you know all must come right in the end; and haven’t we shared
everything all our lives?’
This is a sort of speech which it is very difficult to answer. It is so
much easier for the richer man to feel benevolent and liberal than for
the poorer man to understand his ground of gratitude in such a
partnership. Bertie Eldridge, had, no doubt, shared many of his luxuries
with his cousin. He had shared his yacht for instance--a delight which
Bertie Hardwick could by no means have procured himself--but, while
doing this, he had drawn the other into such waste of time and money as
he never could have been tempted to otherwise. Bertie Hardwick knew
that had he not ‘shared everything’ with his cousin he would have been a
wealthier man: and how then could he be grateful for that community of
goods which the other Bertie was so lavishly conscious of?
‘He can have spent nothing while we were together,’ the latter was
always saying. ‘He must have saved, in short, out of the allowance my
uncle gives him.’
Bertie Hardwick knew that the case was very different, but he could not
be so ungenerous as to insist upon this in face of his cousin’s
delightful sense of liberality. He held his tongue, and this silence did
not make him more amiable. In short, the partnership had been broken, as
partnerships of the kind are generally broken, with a little discomfort
on both sides.
Bertie Eldridge continued his pleasant, idle life--did what he liked,
and went where he liked, though, perhaps, with less freedom than of old;
while Bertie Hardwick retired to Pump Court and worked--as the other
said--night and day. He was hard at work one of those Spring afternoons
which Kate spent down at Langton. His impulse towards labour was new,
and, as yet, it had many things to struggle against. He had not been
brought up to work; he had been an out-of-door lad, fond of any pursuit
that implied open air and exercise. Most young men are so brought up
now-a-days, whether it is the best training for them or not; and since
he took his degree, which had not been accompanied by any distinction,
he had been yachting, travelling, amusing himself--none of which things
are favourable to work in Pump Court, upon a bright April afternoon. His
window was open, and the very air coming in tantalized and tempted him.
It plucked at his hair; it disordered his papers; it even blew the book
close which he was bending over. ‘Confound the wind!’ said Bertie. But,
somehow, he could not shut the window. How fresh it blew! even off the
questionable Thames, reminding the solitary student of walks and rides
through the budding woods; of the first days of the boating season; of
all the delights of the opening year; confound the wind! He opened his
book, and went at it again with a valorous and manful heart, a heart
full of anxieties, yet with hope in it too, and, what is almost better
than hope--determination. The book was very dry, but Bertie applied to
it that rule which is so good in war--so good in play--capital for
cricket and football, in the hunting-field, and wherever daring and
patience are alike necessary--_he would not be beat_! It is, perhaps,
rather a novel doctrine to apply to a book about conveyancing--or, at
least, such a use of it was novel to Bertie. But it answered all the
same.
And it was just as he was getting the mastery of his own mind, and
forgetting, for the moment, the fascinations of the sunshine and the
errant breeze, that some one came upstairs with a resounding hasty
footstep and knocked at his door. ‘It’s Bertie,’ he said to himself,
with a sigh, and opened to the new-comer. Now he was beat, but not by
the book--by fate, and the evil angels--not by any fault of his own.
Bertie Eldridge came in, bringing a gust of fresh air with him. He
seated himself on his cousin’s table, scorning the chairs. His brow was
a little clouded, though he was like one of the butterflies who toil
not, neither do they spin.
‘By Jove! to see you there grinding night and day, makes a man open his
eyes--you that were no better than other people. What do you think
you’ll ever make of it, old fellow? Not the Woolsack, mind you--I give
in to you a great deal, but you’re not clever enough for that.’
‘I never thought I was,’ said the other, laughing, but not with
pleasure; and then there was a pause, and I leave it to the reader to
judge which were the different interlocutors in the dialogue which
follows, for to continue writing ‘Bertie,’ and ‘the other Bertie,’ is
more than human patience can bear.
‘You said you had something to say to me--out with it! I have a hundred
things to do. You never were so busy in your life as I am. Indeed, I
don’t suppose you know what being occupied means.’
‘Of course it is the old subject I want to talk of. What could it be
else! What is to be done? You know everything that has happened as well
as I do. Busy! If you knew what my reflections are early and late,
waking and sleeping----’
‘I think I can form an idea. Has something new occurred--or is it the
old question, the eternal old business, which you never thought of,
unfortunately, till it was too late?’
‘It is no business of yours to taunt me, nor is it a friend’s office. I
am driven to my wit’s ends. For anything I can see, things may go on as
they are for a dozen years.’
‘Everybody must have felt so from the beginning. How you could be so
mad, both she and you; you most, in one way, for you knew the world
better; she most, in another, for it is of more importance to a woman.’
‘Shut up, Bertie. I won’t have any re-discussion of that question. The
thing is, what is to be done now? I was such a fool as to write to her
about going down to Langton, at my father’s desire; and now I dare not
go, or she will go frantic. Besides, she says it must be acknowledged
before long: she must do it, if I can’t.’
‘Good God!’
‘What is there to be horrified about? It was all natural. The thing is,
what is to be done? If she would keep quiet, all would be right. I am
sure her mother could manage everything. One place is as good as
another to live in. Don’t look at me like that. I am distracted--going
mad--and you won’t give me any help.’
‘The question is, what help can I give?’
‘It is easy enough--as easy as daylight. If I were to go, it would only
make us both miserable, and lead to imprudences. I know it would. But if
you will do it for me----’
‘Do you love her, Bertie?’
‘Love her! Good heavens! after all the sacrifices I have made! Look at
me, as I am, and ask me if I love her! But what can I do? If I speak now
we are all ruined; but if she could only be persuaded to wait--only to
wait, perhaps for a few days, or a few months----’
‘Or a few years! And to wait for what? How can you expect any good to
come to you, when you build everything upon your----’
‘Shut up, I tell you! Is it my fault? He ought to treat me differently.
I never would have entertained such a thought, but for---- Bertie,
listen to me. Will you go? They will hear reason from you.’
‘They ought not to hear reason. It is a cowardly shame! Yes, I don’t
mind your angry looks--it is a shame! You and I have been too long
together to mince matters between ourselves. I tell you I never knew
anything more cowardly and wretched. It is a shame--a----’
‘The question is, not what you think of it,’ said the other sullenly,
‘but will you go?’
‘I suppose I must,’ was the reply.
When the visitor left, half an hour later, after more conversation of
this same strain, can it be wondered at if Bertie Hardwick’s studies
were no longer so steady as they had been? He shut up his books at last,
and went out and walked towards the river. It was black and glistening,
and very full with the Spring rains. The tide was coming up--the river
was crowded with vessels of all kinds. Bertie walked to Chelsea, and got
a boat there, and went up to Richmond with the tide. But he did not go
to the ‘Star and Garter,’ where his cousin was dining with a brilliant
party. He walked back again to his chambers, turning over in his tired
brain a hundred anxieties. And that night he did sit up at work, and for
half an hour had recourse to the wet towel. Not because he was working
day and night, but because these anxieties had eaten the very heart out
of his working day.