The Bertrams. Anthony Trollope
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"I hope your views have not altered since," said Caroline.
"Very materially, I fear. But I must tell you about my memory. I was lying once in my cradle—"
"You don't mean to tell me you remember that?" said M'Gabbery.
"Perfectly, as you do the picture-book. Well, there I was lying, Miss Baker, with my little eyes wide open. It is astonishing how much babies see, though people never calculate on their having eyes at all. I was lying on my back, staring at the mantelpiece, on which my mother had left her key-basket."
"You remember, of course, that it was her key-basket?" said Miss Waddington, with a smile that made M'Gabbery clench his walking-stick in his hand.
"Perfectly; because she always kept her halfpence there also. Well, there was a nursery-girl who used to be about me in those days. I distinctly saw her go to that basket, Miss Baker, and take out a penny; and I then made up my mind that the first use I would make of my coming speech should be to tell my mother. That, I think, is the furthest point to which my memory carries me."
The ladies laughed heartily, but Mr. M'Gabbery frowned bitterly. "You must have dreamt it," said he.
"It is just possible," said George; "but I don't think it. Come, Miss Waddington, let us have your earliest recollections."
"Ah! mine will not be interesting. They do not go back at all so far. I think they have reference to bread and butter."
"I remember being very angry," said Miss Baker, "because papa prophesied that I should be an old maid. It was very hard on me, for his prophecy no doubt brought about the fact."
"But the fact is no fact as yet," said Mr. M'Gabbery, with a smirking gallantry for which he ought to have been kicked.
"I beg your pardon, Mr. M'Gabbery," said Miss Waddington. "It is quite an established fact. My aunt will never have my consent to marry; and I am sure she will never dream of such a thing without it."
"And so Mr. M'Gabbery's hopes in that direction are all at an end," said George, who was now able to speak to Caroline without being heard by the others.
"I declare I think he has entertained some such idea, for he never leaves my aunt alone for a minute. He has been very civil, very; but, Mr. Bertram, perhaps you know that a very civil man may be a bore."
"He always is, I think. No man is really liked who is ever ready to run on messages and tie up parcels. It is generally considered that a man knows his own value, and that, if he be willing to do such work, such work is fit for him."
"You never do anything to oblige, then?"
"Very rarely; at least, not in the little domestic line. If one could have an opportunity of picking a lady out of a fire, or saving her from the clutches of an Italian bravo, or getting her a fortune of twenty thousand pounds, one would be inclined to do it. In such cases, there would be no contempt mixed up with the lady's gratitude. But ladies are never really grateful to a man for turning himself into a flunky."
"Ah! I like to be attended to all the same."
"Then there is Mr. M'Gabbery. Half a smile will keep him at your feet the whole day."
Mr. M'Gabbery and poor Miss Baker were now walking behind them, side by side. But his felicity in this respect was not at all sufficient for that gentleman. In their long journey from Egypt, he and Miss Waddington had always been within speaking distance; and who was the stranger of to-day that was thus to come and separate them?
"Miss Waddington," he cried, "do you remember when your horse stumbled in the sand at El Arish? Ah! what a pleasant day that was!"
"But you have not recalled it by a very pleasant incident. I was very nearly being thrown out of my saddle."
"And how we had to wait for our dinner at Gaza till the camels came up?" And Mr. M'Gabbery, urging on his horse, brought him up once more abreast with that of Miss Waddington.
"I shall soon have as great a horror of Gaza as Samson had," said she, sotto voce. "I almost feel myself already in bonds under Philistian yoke whenever it is mentioned."
"Talking of recollections, that journey will certainly be among the sunniest of my life's memories," said Mr. M'Gabbery.
"It was sunny, certainly," said Miss Waddington; for the heat of the desert had been oppressive.
"Ah! and so sweet! That encamping in your own tent; preparing your own meals; having everything, as it were, within yourself. Civilized life has nothing to offer equal to that. A person who has only gone from city to city, or from steamboat to steamboat, knows nothing of oriental life. Does he, Miss Waddington?" This was intended as a blow at Bertram, who had got to Jerusalem without sleeping under canvas.
"What ignorant wretches the natives must be!" said George; "for they apparently sleep as regularly in their own beds as any stupid Christian in England."
"I am not sure that even Mr. M'Gabbery would admire the tents so much if he had not some Christian comforts along with him."
"His brandy-flask and dressing-case, for instance," said George.
"Yes; and his mattress and blankets," said Caroline.
"His potted meat and preserved soup."
"And especially his pot to boil his potatoes in."
"That was Mr. Cruse," said Mr. M'Gabbery, quite angrily. "For myself, I do not care a bit about potatoes."
"So it was, Mr. M'Gabbery; and I beg your pardon. It is Mr. Cruse whose soul is among the potatoes. But, if I remember right, it was you who were so angry when the milk ran out." Then Mr. M'Gabbery again receded, and talked to Mrs. Jones about his associations.
"How thoroughly the Turks and Arabs beat us in point of costume," said Mrs. Hunter to Mr. Cruse.
"It will be very hard, at any rate, for any of them to beat you," said the tutor. "Since I have been out here, I have seen no one adopt their ways with half as much grace as you do."
Mrs. Hunter looked down well pleased to her ancles, which were covered, and needed to be covered, by no riding-habit. "I was not thinking so much of myself as of Mr. Hunter. Women, you know, Mr. Cruse, are nothing in this land."
"Except when imported from Christendom, Mrs. Hunter."
"But I was speaking of gentlemen's toilets. Don't you think the Turkish dress very becoming? I declare, I shall never bear to see Charles again in a coat and waistcoat and trousers."
"Nor he you in an ordinary silk gown, puffed out with crinoline."
"Well, I suppose we must live in the East altogether then. I am sure I should not object. I know one thing—I shall never endure to put a bonnet on my head again. By-the-by, Mr. Cruse, who is this Sir Lionel Bertram that has just come? Is he a baronet?"
"Oh dear, no; nothing of that sort, I imagine. I don't quite know who he is; but that young man is his son."
"They say he's very clever, don't they?"
"He has that sort of boy's cleverness, I dare say, which goes towards taking a good degree." Mr. Cruse himself had not shone very brightly at the University.
"Miss Waddington seems very much smitten with him; don't you think so?"
"Miss Waddington is a beautiful girl; and variable—as beautiful girls sometimes are."
"Mr. Cruse, don't be satirical."
"'Praise undeserved is satire in disguise,'" said Mr. Cruse, not quite understanding, himself, why he made the quotation. But it did exceedingly well. Mrs. Hunter smiled sweetly on him, said that he was a dangerous man, and that no one would take him to be a clergyman; upon which Mr. Cruse begged that she would spare his character.
And now they had come to the fountain of Enrogel, and having dismounted from their steeds, stood clustering about the low wall which surrounds the little