This was Mrs. Bertram's present position. She had suddenly, and at a moment when she least expected it, been confronted with the ghost of a long ago past. The ghost of a past, so remote that she had almost forgotten it, had come back and stared her in the face. This ghost had assumed terrible dimensions, and the poor woman was dreadfully afraid of it.
She had taken a hurried journey to London in the vain hope of laying it. Alas! it would not be laid. Most things, however, can be bought at a price, and Mrs. Bertram had bought the silence of this troublesome ghost of the past. She had bought it at a very heavy cost.
Her money was in the hands of trustees; she dared not go to them to assist her, therefore, the only price she could pay was out of her yearly income.
To quiet this troublesome ghost she agreed to part with four hundred a year. A third of her means was, therefore, taken away with one fell swoop. Loftus must still have his allowance, for Loftus of all people must know nothing of his mother's anxieties. Mrs. Bertram and her girls would, therefore, have barely five hundred a year to live on. Out of this sum she would still struggle to save, but she knew she could save but little. She knew that all chance of introducing Catherine and Mabel into society was at an end. She had dreamed dreams for her girls, and these dreams must come to nothing. She had hoped many things for them both, she had thought that all her care and trouble would receive its fruition some day in Catherine's establishment, and that Mabel would also marry worthily. In playing with her grandchildren by-and-bye, Mrs. Bertram thought that she might relax her anxieties and feel that her labors had not been in vain. She must put these hopes aside now, for her girls would probably never marry. They would live on at this dull old Manor until their youth had left them, and their sweet, fresh bloom departed.
Mrs. Bertram thought of the girls, but no compunctions with regard to them caused her to hesitate even for a moment. She loved some one else much better than these bright-eyed lasses. Loftus was the darling of his mother's heart. It was bad to sacrifice girls, but it was impossible to sacrifice the beloved and only son.
Mrs. Bertram saw her solicitors, confided to them her difficulties, and accepted the terms proposed to her by the enemy, who, treacherous and awful, had suddenly risen out of the ashes of the past to confront her.
With four hundred a year she bought silence, and silence meant everything for her. Thus she saved herself, and one at least belonging to her, from open shame.
She received Catherine's telegram, and was made aware that Josephine Hart had come down to spy out the nakedness of the land. She felt herself, however, in a position to defy Josephine, and she returned to the Manor fairly well pleased.
It was Loftus, for whom she had really sacrificed so much, who dealt her the final blow. This idle scapegrace had got into fresh debt and difficulty. Mrs. Bertram expostulated, she wrung her hands, she could almost have torn her hair. The young man stood before her half-abashed, half sulky.
"Can you help me, mother? That's the main point," was his reiterated cry.
Mrs. Bertram managed at last to convince him that she had not a farthing of ready money left.
"In that case," he replied, "nothing but ruin awaits me."
His mother wept when he told her this. She was shaken with all she had undergone in London, poor woman, and this man, who could cringe to her for a large dole out of her pittance, was the beloved of her heart.
He begged of her to put her hand to a bill; a bill which should not become due for six months. She consented; she was weak enough to set him, as he expressed it, absolutely on his feet. All debts would be paid at once, and he would never exceed his allowance again; and as to his mother's difficulty, in meeting a bill for six hundred pounds, it was not in Loftus Bertram's nature to trouble himself on this score six months ahead.
That bill, however was the proverbial last straw to Mrs. Bertram. It haunted her by day and night; she dreamt of it, sleeping, she pondered over it, waking. Six short months would speedily disappear, and then she would be ruined; she could not meet the bill, exposure and disaster must follow.
Even very honorable people when they get themselves into corners often seek for means of escape which certainly would not occur to them as the most dignified exits if they were, for instance, not in the corner, but in the middle of the room.
Mrs. Bertram was a woman of resources, and she made up her mind what to do. She made it up absolutely, and no doubts or difficulties daunted her for an instant. Loftus should marry Beatrice Meadowsweet long before the six months were out.
Having ascertained positively not only from her mother's lips, but also from those of Mr. Ingram, that the young girl could claim as her portion twenty thousand pounds on her wedding day, Mrs. Bertram felt there was no longer need to hesitate. Beatrice was quite presentable in herself; she was handsome, she was well-bred, she had a gracious and even careless repose of manner which would pass muster anywhere for the highest breeding. It would be quite possible to crush that fat and hopelessly vulgar mother, and it would be easy, more than easy, to talk of the wealthy merchant's office instead of the obnoxious draper's shop.
Bertram, who had just moved with the dépot of his regiment to Chatham, on returning to his quarters one evening from mess saw lying on his table a thick letter in his mother's handwriting. He took it up carelessly, and, as he opened it, he yawned. Mother's letters are not particularly sacred things to idolized sons of Bertram's type.
"I wonder what the old lady has got to say for herself," he murmured. "Can she have seen Nina? And has Nina said anything. Not that she can seriously injure me in the mater's eyes. No one would be more lenient to a little harmless flirtation which was never meant to lead anywhere than my good mother. Still it was a great bore for Josephine to turn up when she did. Obliged me to shorten my leave abruptly, and see less of Miss Beatrice. What a little tiger Nina would be if her jealousy was aroused—no help for me but flight. Yes, Saunders, you needn't wait."
Bertram's servant withdrew; and taking his mother's letter out of its envelope, the young man proceeded to acquaint himself with its contents. They interested him, not a little, but deeply. The color flushed up into his face as he read. He made one or two strong exclamations, finally he laughed aloud. His laugh was excited and full of good humor.
"By Jove! the mother never thought of a better plot. Beatrice—and fortune. Beatrice, and an escape into the bargain from all my worries. Poor mater! She does not know that that six hundred of hers has only just scraped me through my most pressing liabilities. But a small dip out of Beatrice Meadowsweet's fortune will soon set me on my feet. The mater's wishes and mine never so thoroughly chimed together as now. Of course I'll do it. No fear on that point. I'll write off to the dear old lady, and set her heart at rest, by this very post. As to leave, I must manage that somehow. The mother is quite right. With a girl like Beatrice there is no time to be lost. Any fellow might come over to Northbury and pick her up. Why, she's perfectly splendid. I knew I was in love with her—felt it all along. Just think of my patrician mother giving in, though. Well, nothing could suit me better."
Bertram felt so excited that he paced up and down his room, and even drank off a brandy and soda, which was not in his usual line, for he was a sober young fellow enough.
As he walked up and down he thought again of that night when he had last seen Beatrice. How splendid she had looked in her boat on the water; how unreserved, and yet how reticent she was; how beautiful, and yet how unconscious of her beauty. What a foil she made to that dreadful little Matty Bell!
Bertram laughed as he remembered Matty's blushes and affected giggles and simpers. He conjured up the whole scene, and when he recalled poor Mrs. Bell's frantic efforts to get the white boat away from the green, his sense of hilarity doubled. Finally he thought of his walk home, of the meditations which had occupied his mind, and last of all of the girl in the gray dress who had put her arms round his neck, laid her head on his breast, and whose lips he had passionately kissed. That head! He felt a thrill now as he remembered the sheen of its golden locks, and he knew that the kisses he had given this girl had been full of the passion of his manhood. He ceased to laugh as he thought of her. A growing sense of uneasiness, of even fear, took possession of him, and chased away the high spirits which his mother's acceptable proposal had given rise to.
He sat down again in his easy chair and began to think.
"It is not," he said to himself, "that I have got into any real scrape with Nina. I have promised to marry her, of course, and I have made love to her scores and scores of times, but I don't think she has any letters of mine, and in any case, she is not the sort of girl to go to law with a fellow. No, I have nothing really to fear on that score. But what perplexes and troubles me is this: she has got a great power over me. When I am with her I can't think of any one else. She has an influence over me which I can't withstand. I want her, and her only. I know it would ruin me to marry her. She has not a penny; she is an uneducated poor waif, brought up anyhow. My God, when I think of how I first saw you, Nina! That London street, that crowd looking on, and the pure young voice rising up as it were into the very sky. And then the sound stopping, and the shout from the mob. I got into the middle of the ring somehow, and I saw you, I saw you, my little darling. Your hand was clenched, and the fellow who had dared to insult you went down with that blow you gave him to the ground. Didn't your eyes flash fire, and the flickering light from that fishmonger's shop opposite lit up your hair and your pale face. You looked half like a devil, but you were beautiful, you were superb. Then you saw me, and you must have guessed that I felt with you and for you. Our souls seemed to leap out to meet one another, and you were by my side in an instant, kissing my hand, and raining tears on it. We loved each other from that night; our love began from the moment we looked at each other, and I love you still—but I mustn't marry you, little wild, desperate, bewitching Nina, for that would ruin us both. My God! I wish I had never met you; I am afraid of you, and that is the fact."
Perhaps it was the unwonted beverage in which he had just indulged, which gave rise to such eager and impetuous thoughts in the breast of Captain Bertram. It is certain when he had slept over his mother's letter he felt much more cool and collected. If he still feared Josephine Hart, he was absolutely determined not to allow his fears to get the better of him. He ceased even to say to himself that he was in love with this pretty witch of the yellow hair, and his letter to his mother was as cool and self-possessed as the most prudent among parents could desire.
Bertram told his mother that he thought he could manage to exchange with a brother officer, so as to secure his own leave while the days were long and the weather fine. He said that if all went as he hoped, he would be at the Manor by the end of the following week, and he sent his love to his sisters, and hoped the mater was quite herself again.
Not once did he mention the name of Beatrice, but Mrs. Bertram read between the lines. She admired her son for his caution. Her heart leaped with exultation, her boy would not fail her.
If she had known that the old postman Benjafield had left a letter by the very same post for Miss Hart at the lodge, and that this letter in a disguised hand bore within the undoubted signature of her own beloved captain, her rejoicing would not have been so keen. But as people are very seldom allowed to see behind the scenes Mrs. Bertram may as well have her short hour of triumph undisturbed.
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