Part 25 (2/2)
George then explained exactly how he stood with regard to money, saying how he had put himself into the hands of Mr. Neversaye Die, how he had taken chambers in the Middle Temple, and how a volume of Blackstone was already lying open in his dingy sitting-room.
”Very well, very well. I have no objection whatever. You will perhaps make nothing at the bar, and certainly never the half what you would have done with Messrs. Dry and Stickat.i.t. But that's your affair. The bar is thoroughly respectable. By-the-by, is your father satisfied with it as a profession?” This was the first allusion that Mr.
Bertram had made to his brother.
”Perfectly so,” said George.
”Because of course you were bound to consult him.” If this was intended for irony, it was so well masked that George was not able to be sure of it.
”I did consult him, sir,” said George, turning red in accordance with that inveterate and stupid habit of his.
”That was right. And did you consult him about another thing? did you ask him what you were to live on till such time as you could earn your own bread?”
In answer to this, George was obliged to own that he did not. ”There was no necessity,” said he, ”for he knows that I have my fellows.h.i.+p.”
”Oh! ah! yes; and that of course relieves him of any further cause for anxiety in the matter. I forgot that.”
”Uncle George, you are always very hard on my father; much too hard.”
”Am I?”
”I think you are. As regards his duty to me, if I do not complain, you need not.”
”Oh! that is it, is it? I did think that up to this, his remissness in doing his duty as a father had fallen rather on my shoulders than on yours. But I suppose I have been mistaken; eh?”
”At any rate, if you have to complain, your complaint should be made to him, not to me.”
”But you see I have not time to run across the world to Jerusalem; and were I to do so, the chances are ten to one I should not catch him. If you will ask Pritchett too, you will find that your father is not the best correspondent in the world. Perhaps he has sent back by you some answer to Pritchett's half-yearly letters?”
”He has sent nothing by me.”
”I'll warrant he has not. But come, George, own the truth. Did he borrow money from you when he saw you? If he did not, he showed a very low opinion of your finances and my liberality.”
George might have declared, without any absolute falseness, that his father had borrowed no money of him. But he had not patience at the present moment to distinguish between what would be false and what not false in defending his father's character. He could not but feel that his father had behaved very shabbily to him, and that Sir Lionel's conduct could not be defended in detail. But he also felt that his uncle was quite unjustifiable in wounding him by such attacks. It was not to him that Mr. Bertram should have complained of Sir Lionel's remissness in money matters. He resolved that he would not sit by and hear his father so spoken of; and, therefore, utterly disregardful of what might be the terribly ill effects of his uncle's anger, he thus spoke out in a tone not of the meekest:--
”I will neither defend my father, Mr. Bertram; nor will I sit still and hear him so spoken of. How far you may have just ground of complaint against him, I do not know, nor will I inquire. He is my father, and that should protect his name in my presence.”
”Hoity, toity!”
”I will ask you to hear me if you please, sir. I have received very many good offices from you, for which I heartily thank you. I am aware that I owe to you all my education and support up to this time.
This debt I fear I can never pay.”
”And therefore, like some other people, you are inclined to resent it.”
”No, by heaven! I would resent nothing said by you to myself; but I will not sit by and hear my father ill spoken of. I will not--no; not for all the money which you could give or leave me. It seems to me that what I spend of your money is added up as a debt against my father--”
”Pray don't imagine, my boy, that that is any burden to him.”
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