‘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.