CHAPTER III.
RETROSPECTIVE.—SECOND YEAR.
The next year passed almost more uncomfortably for George Bertram and for the ladies at Littlebath than had the latter months of the last year. Its occurrences can, I hope, be stated less in detail, so that we may get on without too great delay to the incidents of the period which is to be awhile for us the present existing time.
This year was Harcourt's great year. In January and February and March he did great things in Chancery. In April he came into Parliament. In May and June and July, he sat on committees. In August he stuck to his work till London was no longer endurable. In the latter part of autumn there was an extraordinary session, during which he worked like a horse. He studied the corn-law question as well as sundry legal reforms all the Christmas week, and in the following spring he came out with his great speech on behalf of Sir Robert Peel. But, nevertheless, he found time to devote to the cares and troubles of Miss Baker and Miss Waddington.
In the spring Bertram paid one or two visits to Littlebath; but it may be doubted whether he made himself altogether agreeable there. He stated broadly that he was doing little or nothing at his profession: he was, he said, engaged on other matters; the great excitement to work, under which he had commenced, had been withdrawn from him; and under these circumstances he was not inclined to devote himself exclusively to studies which certainly were not to his taste. He did not condescend again to ask Caroline to revoke her sentence; he pressed now for no marriage; but he made it quite apparent that all the changes in himself for the worse—and there had been changes for the worse—were owing to her obstinacy.
He was now living a life of dissipation. I do not intend that it should be understood that he utterly gave himself up to pleasures disgraceful in themselves, that he altogether abandoned the reins, and allowed himself to live such a life as is passed by some young men in London. His tastes and appetites were too high for this. He did not sink into a slough of despond. He did not become filthy and vicious, callous and bestial; but he departed very widely astray from those rules which governed him during his first six months in London.
All this was well known at Littlebath; nor did Bertram at all endeavour to conceal the truth. Indeed, it may be said of him, that he never concealed anything. In this especial case he took a pride in letting Caroline know the full extent of the evil she had done.
It was a question with them whether he had not now given up the bar as a profession altogether. He did not say that he had done so, and it was certainly his intention to keep his terms, and to be called; but he had now no longer a legal Gamaliel. Some time in the April of this year, Mr. Die had written to him a very kind little note, begging him to call one special morning at the chambers in Stone Buildings, if not very inconvenient to him. Bertram did call, and Mr. Die, with many professions of regard and regret, honestly returned to him his money paid for that year's tutelage. "It had been," he said, "a pleasure and a pride to him to have Mr. Bertram in his chambers; and would still be so to have him there again. But he could not take a gentleman's money under a false pretence; as it seemed to be no longer Mr. Bertram's intention to attend there, he must beg to refund it." And he did refund it accordingly. This also was made known to the ladies at Littlebath.
He was engaged, he had said, on other matters. This also was true. During the first six months of his anger, he had been content to be idle; but idleness did not suit him, so he sat himself down and wrote a book. He published this book without his name, but he told them at Littlebath of his authorship; and some one also told of it at Oxford. The book—or bookling, for it consisted but of one small demy-octavo volume—was not such as delighted his friends either at Littlebath or at Oxford, or even at those two Hampshire parsonages. At Littlebath it made Miss Baker's hair stand on end, and at Oxford it gave rise to a suggestion in some orthodox quarters that Mr. Bertram should be requested to resign his fellowship.