Dear Miss Ley,—You will not consider it unflattering if I ask myself when exactly it was that I had the good fortune to make your acquaintance; for, though I am well aware the date is not far distant, I seem to have known you all my life. Was it really during the summer before last, at Naples? (I forget why you go habitually to winter resorts in the middle of August; the reasons you gave were ingenious but inconclusive—surely it is not to avoid your fellow-countrymen?) I was in the Gallery of Masterpieces, looking at the wonderful portrait-statue of Agrippina, when you, sitting beside me, asked some question. We began to talk—by the way, we never inquired if our respective families were desirable; you took my reputability for granted—and since then we have passed a good deal of time together; indeed, you have been seldom absent from my thoughts.
Now that we stand at a parting of ways (the phrase is hackneyed and you would loathe it), you must permit me to tell you what pleasure your regard has given me and how thoroughly I have enjoyed our intercourse, regretting always that inevitable circumstances made it so rare. I confess I stand in awe of you—this you will not believe, for you have often accused me of flippancy (I am not half so flippant as you); but your thin and mocking smile, after some remark of mine, continually makes me feel that I have said a foolish thing, than which in your eyes I know there is no greater crime.... You have told me that when an acquaintance has left a pleasant recollection, one should resist the temptation to renew it; altered time and surroundings create new impressions which cannot rival with the old, doubly idealised by novelty and absence. The maxim is hard, but therefore, perhaps, more likely to be true. Still, I cannot wish that the future may bring us nothing better than forgetfulness. It is certain that our paths are different, I shall be occupied with other work and you will be lost to me in the labyrinth of Italian hotels, wherein it pleases you, perversely, to hide your lights. I see no prospect of reunion (this sounds quite sentimental and you hate effusiveness. My letter is certainly over-full of parentheses); but I wish, notwithstanding and with all my heart, that some day you may consent to risk the experiment. What say you? I am, dear Miss Ley, very truly (don’t laugh at me, I should like to say—affectionately),—Yours,
W. M.
THIS book might be called also The Triumph of Love. Bertha was looking out of window, at the bleakness of the day. The sky was sombre and the clouds heavy and low; the neglected carriage-drive was swept by the bitter wind, and the elm-trees that bordered it were bare of leaf, their naked branches shivering with horror of the cold. It was the end of November, and the day was utterly cheerless. The dying year seemed to have cast over all Nature the terror of death; the imagination would not bring to the wearied mind thoughts of the merciful sunshine, thoughts of the Spring coming as a maiden to scatter from her baskets the flowers and the green leaves.
Bertha turned round and looked at her aunt, cutting the leaves of a new Spectator. Wondering what books to get down from Mudie’s, Miss Ley read the autumn lists and the laudatory expressions which the adroitness of publishers extracts from unfavourable reviews.
“You’re very restless this afternoon, Bertha,” she remarked, in answer to the girl’s steady gaze.
“I think I shall walk down to the gate.”
“You’ve already visited the gate twice in the last hour. Do you find in it something alarmingly novel?”
Bertha did not reply, but turned again to the window: the scene in the last two hours had fixed itself upon her mind with monotonous accuracy.
“What are you thinking about, Aunt Polly?” she asked suddenly, turning back to her aunt and catching the eyes fixed upon her.
“I was thinking that one must be very penetrative to discover a woman’s emotions from the view of her back hair.”
Bertha laughed: “I don’t think I have any emotions to discover. I feel ...” she sought for some way of expressing the sensation—“I feel as if I should like to take my hair down.”
Miss Ley made no rejoinder, but looked again at her paper. She hardly wondered what her niece meant, having long ceased to be astonished at Bertha’s ways and doings; indeed, her only surprise was that they never sufficiently corroborated the common opinion that Bertha was an independent young woman from whom anything might be expected. In the three years they had spent together since the death of Bertha’s father the two women had learned to tolerate one another extremely well. Their mutual affection was mild and perfectly respectable, in every way becoming to fastidious persons bound together by ties of convenience and decorum.... Miss Ley, called to the deathbed of her brother in Italy, made Bertha’s acquaintance over the dead man’s grave, and the girl was then too old and of too independent character to accept a stranger’s authority; nor had Miss Ley the smallest desire to exert authority over any one. She was a very indolent woman, who wished nothing more than to leave people alone and be left alone by them. But if it was obviously her duty to take charge of an orphan niece, it was also an advantage that Bertha was eighteen, and, but for the conventions of decent society, could very well take charge of herself. Miss Ley was not unthankful to a merciful Providence on the discovery that her ward had every intention of going her own way, and none whatever of hanging about the skirts of a maiden aunt who was passionately devoted to her liberty.
They travelled on the Continent, seeing many churches, pictures, and cities, in the examination of which their chief aim appeared to be to conceal from one another the emotions they felt. Like the Red Indian who will suffer the most horrid tortures without wincing, Miss Ley would have thought it highly disgraceful to display feeling at some touching scene. She used polite cynicism as a cloak for sentimentality, laughing that she might not cry—and her want of originality herein, the old repetition of Grimaldi’s doubleness, made her snigger at herself. She felt that tears were unbecoming and foolish.
“Weeping makes a fright even of a good-looking woman,” she said, “but if she is ugly they make her simply repulsive.”
Finally, letting her own flat in London, Miss Ley settled down with Bertha to cultivate rural delights at Court Leys, near Blackstable, in the county of Kent. The two ladies lived together with much harmony, although the demonstrations of their affection did not exceed a single kiss morning and night, given and received with almost equal indifference. Each had considerable respect for the other’s abilities, and particularly for the wit which occasionally exhibited itself in little friendly sarcasms. But they were too clever to get on badly, and since they neither hated nor loved one another excessively, there was really no reason why they should not continue on the best of terms. The general result of their relations was that Bertha’s restlessness on this particular day aroused in Miss Ley no more question than was easily answered by the warmth of her young blood; and her eccentric curiosity in respect of the gate on a very cold and unpleasant winter afternoon did not even cause a shrug of disapproval or an upraising of the eyelids in wonder.
Bertha put on a hat and walked out. The avenue of elm-trees, reaching from the façade of Court Leys in a straight line to the gates, had been once rather an imposing sight, but now announced clearly the ruin of an ancient house. Here and there a tree had died and fallen, leaving an unsightly gap, and one huge trunk still lay upon the ground after a terrific storm of the preceding year, left there to rot in the indifference of bailiffs and of tenants. On either side of the elms was a broad strip of meadow which once had been a well-kept lawn, but now was foul with docks and rank weeds; a few sheep nibbled the grass where a century ago fine ladies in hoops and gentlemen with periwigs had sauntered, discussing the wars and the last volumes of Mr. Richardson. Beyond was an ill-trimmed hedge, and then the broad fields of the Ley estate.... Bertha walked down, looking at the highway beyond the gate. It was a relief to feel no longer Miss Ley’s cold eyes fixed upon her; she had emotions enough in her breast, they beat against one another like birds in a net struggling to get free; but not for worlds would Bertha have bidden any one look in her heart full of expectation, of longings, of a hundred strange desires. She went out on the highroad that led from Blackstable to Tercanbury, she looked up and down with a tremor, and a quick beating of the heart. But the road was empty, swept by the winter wind, and she almost sobbed with disappointment.
She could not return to the house; a roof just then would stifle her, and the walls seemed like a prison: there was a certain pleasure in the biting wind that blew through her clothes and chilled her to the bone. The waiting was terrible. She entered the grounds and looked up the carriage-drive to the big white house which was hers. The very roadway was in need of repair, and the dead leaves that none troubled about rustled hither and thither in the gusts of wind. The house stood in its squareness without relation to any environment: built in the reign of George II., it seemed to have acquired no hold upon the land which bore it. With its plain front and many windows, the Doric portico exactly in the middle, it looked as if it were merely placed upon the ground as a house of cards is built upon the floor, with no foundations. The passing years had given it no beauty, and it stood now as for more than a century it had stood, a blot upon the landscape, vulgar and new. Surrounded by the fields, it had no garden but for a few beds planted about its feet, and in these the flowers, uncared for, had grown wild or withered away.
The day was declining and the lowering clouds seemed to shut out the light. Bertha gave up hope. But she looked once more down the hill and her heart gave a great thud against her chest; she felt herself blushing furiously. Her blood seemed to rush through the vessels with sudden rapidity, and in dismay at her want of composure she had an impulse to turn quickly and fly. She forgot the sickening expectation, the hours she had spent in looking for the figure that tramped up the hill.
Of course it was a man! He came nearer, a tall fellow of twenty-seven, massively set together, big boned, with long arms and legs, and a magnificent breadth of chest. Bertha recognised the costume that always pleased her, the knickerbockers and gaiters, the Norfolk-jacket of rough tweed, the white stock and the cap—all redolent of the country which for his sake she was beginning to love, and all vigorously masculine. Even the huge boots which covered his feet gave her by their very size a thrill of pleasure; their dimensions suggested a certain firmness of character, a masterfulness, which were intensely reassuring. The style of dress fitted perfectly the background of brown road and of ploughed field. Bertha wondered if he knew that he was exceedingly picturesque as he climbed the hill.
“Afternoon, Miss Bertha.”
He showed no sign of pausing, and the girl’s heart sank at the thought that he might go on with only a commonplace word of greeting.
“I thought it was you I saw coming up the hill,” she said, stretching out her hand.
He stopped and shook it; the touch of his big, firm fingers made her tremble. His hand was massive and hard as if it were hewn of stone. She looked up at him and smiled.
“Isn’t it cold?” she said. It is terrible to be desirous of saying all sorts of passionate things, while convention debars you from any but the most commonplace.
“You haven’t been walking at the rate of five miles an hour,” he said, cheerily. “I’ve been into Blackstable to see about buying a nag.”
He was the very picture of health; the winds of November were like summer breezes to him, and his face glowed with the pleasant cold. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes glistened. His vitality was intense, shining out upon others with almost a material warmth.
“Were you going out?” he asked.
“Oh no,” Bertha replied, without strict regard to truth. “I just walked down to the gate and I happened to catch sight of you.”
“I am very glad—I see you so seldom now, Miss Bertha.”
“I wish you wouldn’t call me Miss Bertha” she cried, “it sounds horrid.” It was worse than that, it sounded almost menial. “When we were boy and girl we used to call each other by our Christian names.”
He blushed a little and his modesty filled Bertha with delight.
“Yes, but when you came back six months ago, you had changed so much—I didn’t dare; and besides, you called me Mr. Craddock.”
“Well, I won’t any more,” she said, laughing; “I’d much sooner call you Edward.”
She did not add that the word seemed to her the most beautiful in the whole list of Christian names, nor that in the past few weeks she had already repeated it to herself a thousand times.
“It’ll be like old days,” he said. “D’you remember what fun we used to have when you were a little girl, before you went abroad with Mr. Ley?”
“I remember that you used to look upon me with great contempt because I was a little girl,” she replied, laughing.
“Well, I was awfully frightened the first time I saw you again—with your hair up and long dresses.”
“I’m not really very terrible.”
For five minutes they had been looking into one another’s eyes, and suddenly, without obvious reason, Craddock blushed. Bertha noticed it, and a strange little thrill went through her; she reddened too, and her dark eyes flashed even more brightly than before.
“I wish I didn’t see you so seldom, Miss Bertha,” he said.
“You have only yourself to blame, fair sir. You perceive the road that leads to my palace, and at the end you will certainly find a door.”
“I’m rather afraid of your aunt.”
It was on the tip of Bertha’s tongue to say that faint heart never won fair lady, but for modesty’s sake she refrained. Her spirits had suddenly gone up and she felt extraordinarily happy.
“Do you want to see me very badly?” she asked, her heart beating at quite an absurd rate.
Craddock blushed again and seemed to have some difficulty in finding a reply; his confusion and his ingenuous air were new enchantments to Bertha.
“If he only knew how I adored him!” she thought; but naturally she could not tell him in so many words.
“You’ve changed so much in these years,” he said, “I don’t understand you.”
“You haven’t answered my question.”
“Of course I want to see you, Bertha,” he said quickly, seeming to take his courage in both hands; “I want to see you always.”
“Well,” she said, with a charming smile, “I sometimes take a walk after dinner to the gate and observe the shadows of night.”
“By Jove, I wish I’d known that before.”
“Foolish creature!” said Bertha to herself with amusement, “he doesn’t gather that this is the first night upon which I shall have done anything of the kind.”
WITH swinging step Bertha returned to the house, and like a swarm of birds a hundred amorets flew about her head; Cupid leapt from tree to tree and shot his arrows into her willing heart; her imagination clothed the naked branches with tender green, and in her happiness the gray sky turned to azure.... It was the first time that Edward Craddock had shown his love in a manner which was unmistakable; if before, much had suggested that he was not indifferent, nothing had been absolutely convincing, and the doubt had caused her every imaginable woe. As for her, she made no effort to conceal it from herself; she was not ashamed, she loved him passionately, she worshipped the ground he trod on; she confessed boldly that he of all men was the one to make her happy; her life she would give into his strong and manly hands. She had made up her mind firmly that Craddock should lead her to the altar.
Times without number already had she fancied herself resting in his arms—in his strong arms—the very thought of which was a protection against all the ills of the world. Oh yes, she wanted him to take her in his arms and kiss her; in imagination she felt his lips upon hers, and the warmth of his breath made her faint with the anguish of love.
She asked herself how she could wait till the evening; how on earth was she to endure the slow passing of the hours? And she must sit opposite her aunt and pretend to read, or talk on this subject and on that. It was insufferable. Then, inconsequently, she asked herself if Edward knew that she loved him; he could not dream how intense was her desire.
“I’m sorry I’m late for tea,” she said, on entering the drawing-room.
“My dear,” said Miss Ley, “the buttered toast is probably horrid, but I don’t see why you should not eat cake.”
“I don’t want anything to eat,” cried Bertha, flinging herself on a chair.
“But you’re dying with thirst,” added Miss Ley, looking at her niece with sharp eyes. “Wouldn’t you like your tea out of a breakfast cup?”
Miss Ley had come to the conclusion that the restlessness and the long absence could only be due to some masculine cause. Mentally she shrugged her shoulders, hardly wondering who the creature was.
“Of course,” she thought, “it’s certain to be some one quite ineligible. I hope they won’t have a long engagement.”
Miss Ley could not have supported for several months the presence of a bashful and love-sick swain. She found lovers invariably ridiculous. She watched Bertha drink six cups of tea: of course those shining eyes, the flushed cheeks and the breathlessness, indicated some amorous excitement; it amused her, but she thought it charitable and wise to pretend that she noticed nothing.
“After all it’s no business of mine,” she thought; “and if Bertha is going to get married at all, it would be much more convenient for her to do it before next quarter-day, when the Browns give up my flat.”
Miss Ley sat on the sofa by the fireside, a woman of middle-size, very slight, with a thin and much wrinkled face. Of her features the mouth was the most noticeable, not large, with lips that were a little too thin; it was always so tightly compressed as to give her an air of great determination, but there was about the corners an expressive mobility, contradicting in rather an unusual manner the inferences which might be drawn from the rest of her person. She had a habit of fixing her cold eyes on people with a steadiness that was not a little embarrassing. They said Miss Ley looked as if she thought them great fools, and as a matter of fact that usually was her precise opinion. Her thin gray hair was very plainly done; and the extreme simplicity of her costume gave a certain primness, so that her favourite method of saying rather absurd things in the gravest and most decorous manner often disconcerted the casual stranger. She was a woman who, one felt, had never been handsome, but now, in middle-age, was distinctly prepossessing.
Young men thought her somewhat terrifying till they discovered that they were to her a constant source of amusement; while elderly ladies asserted that she was a little queer.
“You know, Aunt Polly,” said Bertha, finishing her tea and getting up, “I think you should have been christened Martha or Matilda. I don’t think Polly suits you.”
“My dear, you need not remind me so pointedly that I’m forty-five and you need not smile in that fashion because you know that I’m really forty-seven. I say forty-five merely as a round number; in another year I shall call myself fifty. A woman never acknowledges such a nondescript age as forty-eight unless she is going to marry a widower with seventeen children.”
“I wonder why you never married, Aunt Polly?” said Bertha, looking away.
Miss Ley smiled almost imperceptibly, finding Bertha’s remark highly significant. “My dear,” she said, “why should I? I had five hundred a year of my own.... Ah yes, I know it’s not what might have been expected; I’m sorry for your sake that I had no hopeless amour. The only excuse for an old maid is, that she has pined thirty years for a lover who is buried under the snow-drops, or has married another.”
Bertha made no answer; she was feeling that the world had turned good, and wanted to hear nothing that could suggest imperfections in human nature: suddenly there had come over the universe a Sunday-school air which appealed to her better self. Going upstairs she sat at the window, gazing towards the farm where lived her heart’s desire. She wondered what Edward was doing! was he awaiting the night as anxiously as she? It gave her quite a pang that a sizeable hill should intervene between herself and him. During dinner she hardly spoke, and Miss Ley was mercifully silent. Bertha could not eat; she crumbled her bread and toyed with the various meats put before her. She looked at the clock a dozen times, and started absurdly when it struck the hour.
She did not trouble to make any excuse to Miss Ley, whom she left to think as she chose. The night was dark and cold; Bertha slipped out of the side-door with a delightful feeling of doing something venturesome. But her legs would scarcely carry her, she had a sensation that was entirely novel; never before had she experienced that utter weakness of the knees so that she feared to fall; her breathing was strangely oppressive, and her heart beat almost painfully. She walked down the carriage-drive scarcely knowing what she did. She had forced herself to wait indoors till the desire to go out became uncontrollable, and she dared not imagine her dismay if there was no one to meet her when she reached the gate. It would mean he did not love her; she stopped with a sob. Ought she not to wait longer? It was still early. But her impatience forced her on.
She gave a little cry. Craddock had suddenly stepped out of the darkness.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said, “I frightened you. I thought you wouldn’t mind my coming this evening. You’re not angry?”
She could not answer; it was an immense load off her heart. She was extremely happy, for then he did love her; and he feared she was angry with him.
“I expected you,” she whispered. What was the good of pretending to be modest and bashful? She loved him and he loved her. Why should she not tell him all she felt?
“It’s so dark,” he said, “I can’t see you.”
She was too deliriously happy to speak, and the only words she could have said were, I love you, I love you. She moved a step nearer so as to touch him. Why did he not open his arms and take her in them, and kiss her as she had dreamt that he would kiss her?
But he took her hand and the contact thrilled her; her knees were giving way, and she almost tottered.
“What’s the matter?” he said. “Are you trembling?”
“I’m only a little cold.” She was trying with all her might to speak naturally. Nothing came into her head to say.
“You’ve got nothing on,” he said. “You must wear my coat.” He began to take it off.
“No,” she said, “then you’ll be cold.”
“Oh no, I shan’t.”
What he was doing seemed to her a marvel of unselfish kindness; she was beside herself with gratitude.
“It’s awfully good of you, Edward,” she whispered, almost tearfully.
When he put it round her shoulders, the touch of his hands made her lose the little self-control she had left. A curious spasm passed through her, and she pressed herself closer to him; at the same time his hands sank down, dropping the cloak, and encircled her waist. Then she surrendered herself entirely to his embrace and lifted her face to his. He bent down and kissed her. The kiss was such utter madness that she almost groaned. She could not tell if it was pain or pleasure. She flung her arms round his neck and drew him to her.
“What a fool I am,” she said at last, with something between a sob and a laugh. She drew herself a little away, though not so violently as to make him withdraw the arm which so comfortably encircled her.
But why did he say nothing? Why did he not swear he loved her? Why did he not ask what she was so willing to grant? She rested her head on his shoulder.
“Do you like me at all, Bertha?” he asked. “I’ve been wanting to ask you almost ever since you came home.”
“Can’t you see?” She was reassured; she understood that it was only timidity that clogged his tongue. “You’re so absurdly bashful.”
“You know who I am, Bertha; and——“ he hesitated.
“And what, foolish boy?” she nestled still more closely to him.
“And you’re Miss Ley of Court Leys, while I’m just one of your tenants, with nothing whatever to my back.”
“I’ve got very little,” she said. “And if I had ten thousand a year, my only wish would be to lay it at your feet.”
“Bertha, what d’you mean? Don’t be cruel to me. You know what I want, but——“
“As far as I can make out,” she said, laughing, “you want me to propose to you.”
“Oh, Bertha, don’t laugh at me. I love you; I want to ask you to marry me. But I haven’t got anything to offer you, and I know I oughtn’t—don’t be angry with me, Bertha.”
“But I love you with all my heart,” she cried. “I want no better husband; you can give me happiness, and I want nothing else in the world.”
Then he caught her again in his arms, quite passionately, and kissed her.
“Didn’t you see that I loved you?” she whispered.
“I thought perhaps you did; but I wasn’t sure, and I was afraid that you wouldn’t think me good enough.”
“Oh yes, I love you with all my heart. I never imagined it possible to love a person as I love you. Oh, Eddie, you don’t know how happy you have made me.”
He kissed her again, and again she flung her arms around his neck.
“Oughtn’t you to be going in,” he said at last; “what will Miss Ley think?”
“Oh no—not yet,” she cried.
“How will you tell her? D’you think she’ll like me? She’ll try and make you give me up.”
“Oh, I’m sure she’ll love you; besides, what does it matter if she doesn’t?—she isn’t going to marry you.”
“She can take you abroad again and then you may see some one you like better.”
“But I’m twenty-one to-morrow, Edward—didn’t you know? And I shall be my own mistress. I shan’t leave Blackstable till I’m your wife.”
They were walking slowly towards the house, whither he, in his anxiety lest she should stay out too long, had guided her steps. They went arm in arm, and Bertha enjoyed her happiness.
“Dr. Ramsay is coming to luncheon to-morrow,” she said, “and I shall tell them both that I’m going to be married to you.”
“He won’t like it,” said Craddock, rather nervously.
“I’m sure I don’t care. If you like it and I like it, the rest can think as they choose.”
“I leave everything in your hands,” he said.
They had arrived at the portico, and Bertha looked at it doubtfully.
“I suppose I ought to go in,” she said, wishing Edward to persuade her to take one more turn round the garden.
“Yes, do,” he said. “I’m so afraid you’ll catch cold.”
It was charming of him to be so solicitous about her health, and of course he was right. Everything he did and said was right; for the moment Bertha forgot her wayward nature, and wished suddenly to subject herself to his strong guidance. His very strength made her feel curiously weak.
“Good-night, my beloved,” she whispered, passionately.
She could not tear herself away from him; it was utter madness. Their kisses never ended.
“Good-night!”
She watched him at last disappear into the darkness, and finally shut the door behind her.
WITH old and young great sorrow is followed by a sleepless night, and with the old great joy is as disturbing; but youth, I suppose, finds happiness more natural and its rest is not thereby disturbed. Bertha slept without dreams, and awaking, for the moment did not remember the occurrence of the previous day; but quickly it came back to her and she stretched herself with a sigh of great content. She lay in bed to contemplate her well-being. She could hardly realise that she had attained her dearest wish. God was very good, and gave His creatures what they asked; without words, from the fulness of her heart, she offered up thanks. It was quite extraordinary, after the maddening expectation, after the hopes and fears, the lover’s pains which are nearly pleasure, at last to be satisfied. She had now nothing more to desire, for her happiness was complete. Ah yes, indeed, God was very good!
Bertha thought of the two months she had spent at Blackstable.... After the first excitement of getting into the house of her fathers she had settled down to the humdrum of country life; she spent the day wandering about the lanes or on the seashore watching the desolate sea; she read a great deal, and looked forward to the ample time at her disposal to satisfy an immoderate desire for knowledge. She spent long hours in the library which her father had made, for it was only with falling fortunes that the family of Ley had taken to reading books; it had only applied itself to literature when it was too poor for any other pursuit. Bertha looked at the titles of the many volumes, receiving a certain thrill as she read over the great names of the past, and imagined the future delights that they would give her.
One day she was calling at the Vicarage and Edward Craddock happened to be there, lately returned from a short holiday. She had known him in days gone by—his father had been her father’s tenant, and he still farmed the same land—but for eight years they had not seen one another, and now Bertha hardly recognised him. She thought him, however, a good-looking fellow in his knickerbockers and thick stockings, and was not displeased when he came up to speak, asking if she remembered him. He sat down and a certain pleasant odour of the farmyard was wafted over to Bertha, a mingled perfume of strong tobacco, of cattle and horses; she did not understand why it made her heart beat, but she inhaled it voluptuously and her eyes glittered. He began to talk, and his voice sounded like music in her ears; he looked at her and his eyes were large and gray, she found them highly sympathetic; he was clean shaven, and his mouth was very attractive. She blushed and felt herself a fool. Bertha took pains to be as charming as possible; she knew her own dark eyes were beautiful, and fixed them upon his. When at last he bade her good-bye and shook hands, she blushed again; she was extraordinarily troubled, and as, with his rising, the strong masculine odour of the countryside reached her nostrils, her head whirled. She was very glad Miss Ley was not there to see her.
She walked home in the darkness trying to compose herself, for she could think of nothing but Edward Craddock. She recalled the past, trying to bring back to her memory incidents of their old acquaintance. At night she dreamt of him, and she dreamt he kissed her.
She awoke in the morning, thinking of Craddock, and felt it impossible to go through the day without seeing him. She thought of sending an invitation to luncheon or to tea, but hardly dared; and she did not want Miss Ley to see him yet. Then she remembered the farm; she would walk there, was it not hers? He would surely be working upon it. The god of love was propitious, and in a field she saw him, directing some operation. She trembled at the sight, her heart beat very quickly; and when, seeing her, he came forward with a greeting, she turned red and then white in the most compromising fashion. But he was very handsome as, with easy gait, he sauntered to the hedge; above all he was manly, and the pleasing thought passed through Bertha that his strength must be quite herculean. She barely concealed her admiration.
“Oh, I didn’t know this was your farm,” she said, shaking hands. “I was just walking at random.”
“I should like to show you round, Miss Bertha.”
Craddock opened the gate and took her to the sheds where he kept his carts, pointing out a couple of sturdy horses ploughing an adjacent field; he showed her his cattle, and poked the pigs to let her admire their excellent condition; he gave her sugar for his hunter, and took her to the sheep—explaining everything while she listened spell-bound. When, with great pride, Craddock showed her his machines and explained the use of the horse-tosser and the expense of the reaper, she thought that never in her life had she heard anything so enthralling. But above all Bertha wished to see the house in which he lived.
“D’you mind giving me a glass of water?” she said, “I’m so thirsty.”
“Do come in,” he answered, opening the door.
He led her to a little parlour with an oil-cloth on the floor. On the table, which took up most of the room, was a stamped, red cloth; the chairs and the sofa, covered with worn old leather, were arranged with the greatest possible stiffness. On the chimney-piece, along with pipes and tobacco-jars, were bright china vases with rushes in them, and in the middle a marble clock.
“Oh how pretty!” cried Bertha, with enthusiasm. “You must feel very lonely here by yourself.”
“Oh no—I’m always out. Shall I get you some milk? It’ll be better for you than water.”
But Bertha saw a napkin laid on the table, a jug of beer, and some bread and cheese.
“Have I been keeping you from your lunch?” she asked. “I’m so sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter at all. I just have a little snack at eleven.”
“Oh, may I have some too? I love bread and cheese, and I’m perfectly ravenous.”
They sat opposite one another, seeing a great joke in the impromptu meal. The bread, which he cut in a great chunk, was delicious, and the beer, of course, was nectar. But afterwards, Bertha feared that Craddock must be thinking her somewhat odd.
“D’you think it’s very eccentric of me to come and lunch with you in this way?”
“I think it’s awfully good of you. Mr. Ley often used to come and have a snack with my father.”
“Oh, did he?” said Bertha. Of course that made her proceeding quite natural. “But I really must go now. I shall get into awful trouble with Aunt Polly.”
He begged her to take some flowers, and hastily cut a bunch of dahlias. She accepted them with the most embarrassing gratitude; and when they shook hands at parting, her heart went pit-a-pat again ridiculously.
Miss Ley inquired from whom she got her flowers.
“Oh,” said Bertha coolly, “I happened to meet one of the tenants and he gave them to me.”
“Hm,” murmured Miss Ley, “it would be more to the purpose if they paid their rent.”
Miss Ley presently left the room, and Bertha looked at the prim dahlias with a heart full of emotion. She gave a laugh.
“It’s no good trying to hide it from myself,” she murmured, “I’m head over ears in love.”
She kissed the flowers and felt very glad.... She evidently was in that condition, since by the night Bertha had made up her mind to marry Edward Craddock or die. She lost no time, for less than a month had passed and their wedding-day was certainly in sight.
Miss Ley loathed all manifestations of feeling. Christmas, when everybody is supposed to take his neighbour to his bosom and harbour towards him a number of sentimental emotions, caused her such discomfort that she habitually buried herself for the time in some continental city where she knew no one, and could escape the over-brimming of other people’s hearts. Even in summer Miss Ley could not see a holly-tree without a little shiver of disgust; her mind went immediately to the decorations of middle-class houses, the mistletoe hanging from a gas-chandelier, and the foolish old gentlemen who found amusement in kissing stray females. She was glad that Bertha had thought fit to refuse the display of enthusiasm from servants and impoverished tenants, which, on the attainment of her majority, her guardian had wished to arrange. Miss Ley could imagine that the festivities possible on such an occasion, the handshaking, the making of good cheer, and the obtrusive joviality of the country Englishman, might surpass even the tawdry rejoicings of Yule-tide. But Bertha fortunately detested such things as sincerely as did Miss Ley herself, and suggested to the persons concerned that they could not oblige her more than by taking no notice of an event which really did not to her seem very significant.
But Dr. Ramsay’s heartiness could not be entirely restrained; and he had also a fine old English sense of the fitness of things, that passion to act in a certain manner merely because in times past people have always so acted. He insisted on solemnly meeting Bertha to offer congratulations, a blessing, and some statement of his stewardship.
Bertha came downstairs when Miss Ley was already eating breakfast—a very feminine meal, consisting of nothing more substantial than a square inch of bacon and a morsel of dry toast. Miss Ley was really somewhat nervous, she was bothered by the necessity of referring to Bertha’s natal day.
“That is one advantage of women,” she told herself, “after twenty-five they gloss over their birthdays like improprieties. A man is so impressed with his cleverness in having entered the world at all that the anniversary always interests him; and the foolish creature thinks it interests other people as well.”
But Bertha came into the room and kissed her.
“Good morning, dear,” said Miss Ley, and then, pouring out her niece’s coffee, “our estimable cook has burnt the milk in honour of your majority; I trust she will not celebrate the occasion by getting drunk—at all events, till after dinner.”
“I hope Dr. Ramsay won’t enthuse too vigorously,” replied Bertha, understanding Miss Ley’s feeling.
“Oh, my dear, I tremble at the prospect of his jollity. He’s a good man. I should think his principles were excellent, and I don’t suppose he’s more ignorant than most general practitioners; but his friendliness is sometimes painfully aggressive.”
But Bertha’s calm was merely external, her brain was in a whirl, and her heart beat with excitement. She was full of impatience to declare her news. Bertha had some sense of dramatic effect and looked forward a little to the scene when, the keys of her kingdom being handed to her, she made the announcement that she had already chosen a king to rule by her side. She felt also that between herself and Miss Ley alone the necessary explanations would be awkward. Dr. Ramsay’s outspoken bluffness made him easier to deal with; there is always a difficulty in conducting oneself with a person who ostentatiously believes that every one should mind his own business and who, whatever her thoughts, takes more pleasure in the concealment than in the expression thereof. Bertha sent a note to Craddock, telling him to come at three o’clock to be introduced as the future lord and master of Court Leys.
Dr. Ramsay arrived and burst at once into a prodigious stream of congratulation, partly jocose, partly grave and sentimental, but entirely distasteful to the fastidiousness of Miss Ley. Bertha’s guardian was a big, broad-shouldered man, with a mane of fair hair, now turning white; Miss Ley vowed he was the last person upon this earth to wear mutton-chop whiskers. He was very red cheeked, and by his size, joviality, and florid complexion, gave an idea of unalterable health. With his shaven chin and his loud-voiced burliness he looked like a yeoman of the old school, before bad times and the spread of education had made the farmer a sort of cross between the city clerk and the Newmarket trainer. Dr. Ramsay’s frock coat and top hat, notwithstanding the habit of many years, sat uneasily upon him with the air of Sunday clothes upon an agricultural labourer. Miss Ley, who liked to find absurd descriptions of people, or to hit upon an apt comparison, had never been able exactly to suit him; and that somewhat irritated her. In her eyes the only link that connected the doctor with humanity was a certain love of antiquities, which had filled his house with old snuff-boxes, china, and other precious things: humanity, Miss Ley took to be a small circle of persons, mostly feminine, middle-aged, unattached, and of independent means, who travelled on the continent, read good literature and abhorred the vast majority of their fellow-creatures, especially when these shrieked philanthropically, thrust their religion in your face, or cultivated their muscle with aggressive ardour!
Dr. Ramsay ate his luncheon with an appetite that Miss Ley thought must be a great source of satisfaction to his butcher. She asked politely after his wife, to whom she secretly objected for her meek submission to the doctor. Miss Ley made a practice of avoiding those women who had turned themselves into mere shadows of their lords, more especially when their conversation was of household affairs; and Mrs. Ramsay, except on Sundays, when her mind was turned to the clothes of the congregation, thought of nothing beyond her husband’s enormous appetite and the methods of subduing it.
They returned to the drawing-room and Dr. Ramsay began to tell Bertha about the property, who this tenant was and the condition of that farm, winding up with the pitiful state of the times and the impossibility of getting rents.
“And now, Bertha, what are you thinking of doing?” he asked.
This was the opportunity for which Bertha had been looking.
“I?” she said quietly—“Oh, I intend to get married.”
Dr. Ramsay, opening his mouth, threw back his head and laughed immoderately.
“Very good indeed,” he cried. “Ha, ha!”
Miss Ley looked at him with uplifted eyebrows.
“Girls are coming on nowadays,” he said, with much amusement. “Why, in my time, a young woman would have been all blushes and downcast glances. If any one had talked of marriage she would have prayed Heaven to send an earthquake to swallow her up.”
“Fiddlesticks!” said Miss Ley.
Bertha was looking at Dr. Ramsay with a smile that she with difficulty repressed, and Miss Ley caught the expression.
“So you intend to be married, Bertha?” said the doctor, again laughing.
“Yes.”
“When?” asked Miss Ley, who did not take Bertha’s remark as merely playful.
Bertha was looking out the window, wondering when Edward would arrive.
“When?” she repeated, turning round. “This day four weeks!”
“What!” cried Dr. Ramsay, jumping up. “You don’t mean to say you’ve found some one! Are you engaged? Oh, I see, I see. You’ve been having a little joke with me. Why didn’t you tell me that Bertha was engaged all the time, Miss Ley?”
“My good doctor,” answered Miss Ley, with great composure, “until this moment I knew nothing whatever about it.... I suppose we ought to offer our congratulations; it’s a blessing to get them all over on one day.”
Dr. Ramsay looked from one to the other with perplexity.
“Well, upon my word,” he said, “I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I,” replied Miss Ley, “but I keep calm.”
“It’s very simple,” said Bertha. “I got engaged last night, and as I say, I mean to be married exactly four weeks from to-day—to Mr. Craddock.”
“What!” cried Dr. Ramsay, jumping up in astonishment and causing the floor to quake in the most dangerous way. “Craddock! What d’you mean? Which Craddock?”
“Edward Craddock,” replied Bertha coolly, “of Bewlie’s Farm.”
“Brrh!!” Dr. Ramsay’s exclamation cannot be transcribed, but it sounded horrid! “The scoundrel! It’s absurd. You’ll do nothing of the sort.”
Bertha looked at him with a gentle smile, but did not trouble to answer.
“You’re very emphatic, dear doctor,” said Miss Ley. “Who is this gentleman?”
“He isn’t a gentleman,” said Dr. Ramsay, purple with vexation.
“He’s going to be my husband, Dr. Ramsay,” said Bertha, compressing her lips in the manner which with Miss Ley had become habitual; and turned to that lady: “I’ve known him all my life, and father was a great friend of his father’s. He’s a gentleman-farmer.”
“The definition of which,” said Dr. Ramsay, “is a man who’s neither a farmer nor a gentleman.”
“I forget what your father was?” said Bertha, who remembered perfectly well.
“My father was a farmer,” replied Dr. Ramsay, with some heat, “and, thank God! he made no pretence of being a gentleman. He worked with his own hands; I’ve seen him often enough with a pitchfork, turning over a heap of manure, when no one else was handy.”
“I see,” said Bertha.
“But my father can have nothing to do with it; you can’t marry him because he’s been dead these thirty years, and you can’t marry me because I’ve got a wife already.”
Miss Ley, amused at the doctor’s bluntness, concealed a smile; but Bertha, getting rather angry, thought him singularly rude.
“And what have you against him?” she asked.
“If you want to make a fool of yourself, he’s got no right to encourage you. He knows he isn’t a fit match for you.”
“Why not, if I love him?”
“Why not!” shouted Dr. Ramsay. “Because he’s the son of a farmer—like I am—and you’re Miss Ley of Court Leys. Because a man in that position without fifty pounds to his back doesn’t make love on the sly to a girl with a fortune.”
“Five thousand acres which pay no rent,” murmured Miss Ley, who was always in opposition.
“You have nothing whatever against him,” retorted Bertha; “you told me yourself that he had the very best reputation.”
“I didn’t know you were asking me with a view to matrimony.”
“I wasn’t. I care nothing for his reputation. If he were drunken and idle and dissolute I’d marry him, because I love him.”
“My dear Bertha,” said Miss Ley, “the doctor will have an apoplectic fit if you say such things.”
“You told me he was one of the best fellows you knew, Dr. Ramsay,” said Bertha.
“I don’t deny it,” cried the doctor, and his red cheeks really had in them a purple tinge that was quite alarming. “He knows his business and he works hard, and he’s straight and steady.”
“Good heavens, Doctor,” cried Miss Ley, “he must be a miracle of rural excellence. Bertha would surely never have fallen in love with him if he were faultless.”
“If Bertha wanted an agent,” Dr. Ramsay proceeded, “I could recommend no one better, but as for marrying him——“
“Does he pay his rent?” asked Miss Ley.
“He’s one of the best tenants we’ve got,” growled the doctor, somewhat annoyed by Miss Ley’s frivolous interruptions.
“Of course in these bad times,” added Miss Ley, who was determined not to allow Dr. Ramsay to play the heavy father with too much seriousness, “I suppose about the only resource of the respectable farmer is to marry his landlady.”
“Here he is!” interrupted Bertha.
“Good God, is he coming here?” cried her guardian.
“I sent for him. Remember he is going to be my husband.”
“I’m damned if he is!” said Dr. Ramsay.
BERTHA threw off her troubled looks and the vexation which the argument had caused her. She blushed charmingly as the door opened, and with the entrance of the fairy prince her face was wreathed in smiles. She went towards him and took his hands.
“Aunt Polly,” she said, “this is Mr. Edward Craddock.... Dr. Ramsay you know.”
He shook hands with Miss Ley and looked at the doctor, who promptly turned his back on him. Craddock flushed, and sat down by Miss Ley.
“We were talking about you, dearest,” said Bertha. The pause at his arrival had been disconcerting, and while Craddock was rather nervously thinking of something to say, Miss Ley made no effort to help him. “I have told Aunt Polly and Dr. Ramsay that we intend to be married four weeks from to-day.”
This was the first that Craddock had heard of the date, but he showed no particular astonishment. He was, in fact, trying to recall the speech which he had composed for the occasion.
“I will try to be a good husband to your niece, Miss Ley,” he began.
But that lady interrupted him: she had already come to the conclusion that he was a man likely to say on a given occasion the sort of thing which might be expected; and that, in her eyes, was a hideous crime.
“Oh yes, I have no doubt,” she replied. “Bertha, as you know, is her own mistress, and responsible for her acts to no one.”
Craddock was a little embarrassed; he had meant to express his sense of unworthiness and his desire to do his duty, also to make clear his own position, but Miss Ley’s remark seemed to prohibit further explanation.
“Which is really very convenient,” said Bertha, coming to his rescue, “because I have a mind to manage my life in my own way, without interference from anybody.”
Miss Ley wondered whether the young man looked upon Bertha’s statement as auguring complete tranquillity in the future, but Craddock seemed to see in it nothing ominous; he looked at Bertha with a grateful smile, and the glance which she returned was full of the most passionate devotion.
Since his arrival Miss Ley had been observing Craddock with great minuteness, and, being a woman, could not help finding some pleasure in the knowledge that Bertha was trying with anxiety to discover her judgment. Craddock’s appearance was prepossessing. Miss Ley liked young men generally, and this was a very good-looking member of the species. His eyes were good, but otherwise there was nothing remarkable in the physiognomy—he looked healthy and good-tempered. Miss Ley noticed even that he did not bite his nails, and that his hands were strong and firm. There was really nothing to distinguish him from the common run of healthy young Englishmen, with good morals and fine physique; but the class is pleasant. Miss Ley’s only wonder was that Bertha had chosen him rather than ten thousand others of the same variety, for that Bertha had chosen him somewhat actively there was in Miss Ley’s mind not the shadow of a doubt.
Miss Ley turned to him.
“Has Bertha shown you our chickens?” she asked, calmly.
“No,” he said, surprised at the question; “I hope she will.”
“Oh, no doubt. You know I am quite ignorant of agriculture. Have you ever been abroad?”
“No, I stick to my own country,” he replied; “it’s good enough for me.”
“I dare say it is,” said Miss Ley, looking to the ground. “Bertha must certainly show you our chickens. They interest me because they’re very like human beings—they’re so stupid.”
“I can’t get mine to lay at all at this time of year,” said Craddock.
“Of course I’m not an agriculturist,” repeated Miss Ley, “but chickens amuse me.”
Dr. Ramsay began to smile, and Bertha flushed angrily.
“You have never shown any interest in the chickens before, Aunt Polly.”
“Haven’t I, my dear? Don’t you remember last night I remarked how tough was that one we had for dinner?... How long have you known Bertha, Mr. Craddock?”
“It seems all my life,” he replied. “And I want to know her more.”
This time Bertha smiled, and Miss Ley, though she felt certain the repartee was unintentional, was not displeased with it.
All this time Dr. Ramsay was not saying a word, and his behaviour aroused Bertha’s anger.
“I have never seen you sit for five minutes in silence before, Dr. Ramsay,” she said.
“I think what I have to say would scarcely please you, Miss Bertha.”
Miss Ley was anxious that no altercation should disturb the polite discomfort of the meeting.
“You’re thinking about those rents again, doctor,” she said, and turning to Craddock: “The poor doctor is unhappy because half of our tenants say they cannot pay.”
The poor doctor grunted and sniffed, and Miss Ley thought it was high time for the young man to take his leave. She looked at Bertha, who quickly understood, and getting up, said—
“Let us leave them alone, Eddie; I want to show you the house.”
He rose with alacrity, evidently much relieved at the end of the ordeal. He shook Miss Ley’s hand, and this time could not be restrained from making a little speech.
“I hope you’re not angry with me for taking Bertha away from you. I hope I shall soon get to know you better, and that we shall become great friends.”
Miss Ley was taken aback, but really thought his effort not bad. It might have been worse, and at all events he had kept out of it references to the Almighty and to his duty! Then Craddock turned to Dr. Ramsay, and went up to him with an outstretched hand that could not be refused.
“I should like to see you sometime, Dr. Ramsay,” he said, looking at him steadily. “I fancy you want to have a talk with me, and I should like it too. When can you give me an appointment?”
Bertha flushed with pleasure at his frank words, and Miss Ley was pleased at the courage with which he had attacked the old curmudgeon.
“I think it would be a very good idea,” said the doctor. “I can see you to-night at eight.”
“Good! Good-bye, Miss Ley.”
He went out with Bertha.
Miss Ley was not one of those persons who consider it indiscreet to form an opinion upon small evidence. Before knowing a man for five minutes she made up her mind about him, and liked nothing better than to impart her impression to any that asked her.
“Upon my word, doctor,” she said, as soon as the door was shut, “he’s not so terrible as I expected.”
“I never said he was not good-looking,” pointedly answered Dr. Ramsay, who was convinced that any and every woman was willing to make herself a fool with a handsome man.
Miss Ley smiled. “Good looks, my dear doctor, are three parts of the necessary equipment in the battle of life. You can’t imagine the miserable existence of a really plain girl.”
“Do you approve of Bertha’s ridiculous idea?”
“To tell you the truth, I think it makes very little difference if you and I approve or not; therefore we’d much better take the matter quietly.”
“You can do what you like, Miss Ley,” replied the doctor very bluntly, “but I mean to stop the business.”
“You won’t, my dear doctor,” said Miss Ley, smiling again. “I know Bertha so much better than you. I’ve lived with her for three years, and I’ve found constant entertainment in the study of her character.... Let me tell you how I first knew her. Of course you know that her father and I hadn’t been on speaking terms for years. Having played ducks and drakes with his own money, he wanted to play the same silly game with mine; and as I strongly objected he flew into a violent passion, called me an ungrateful wretch, and nourished the grievance to the end of his days. Well, his health broke down after his wife’s death, and he spent several years with Bertha wandering about the continent. She was educated as best could be, in half-a-dozen countries, and it’s a marvel to me that she is not entirely ignorant or entirely vicious. She’s a brilliant example in favour of the opinion that the human race is inclined to good rather than to evil.”
Miss Ley smiled, for she was herself convinced of precisely the opposite.
“Well, one day,” she proceeded, “I got a telegram, sent through my solicitors: ‘Father dead, please come if convenient.—Bertha Ley.’ It was addressed from Naples and I was in Florence. Of course I rushed down, taking nothing but a bag, a few yards of crape, and some smelling-salts. I was met at the station by Bertha, whom I hadn’t seen for ten years; I saw a tall and handsome young woman, very self-possessed, and admirably gowned in the very latest fashion. I kissed her in a subdued way, proper to the occasion; and as we drove back, inquired when the funeral was to be, holding the smelling-salts in readiness for an outburst of weeping. ‘Oh, it’s all over,’ she said. ‘I didn’t send my wire till everything was settled; I thought it would only upset you. I’ve given notice to the landlord of the villa and to the servants. There was really no need for you to come at all, only the doctor and the English parson seemed to think it rather queer of me to be here alone.’ I used the smelling-salts myself! Imagine my emotion; I expected to find a hobbledehoy of a girl in hysterics, everything topsy-turvy and all sorts of horrid things to do; instead of which I found everything arranged perfectly well and the hobbledehoy rather disposed to manage me if I let her. At luncheon she looked at my travelling dress. ‘I suppose you left Florence in a hurry,’ she remarked. ‘If you want to get anything black, you’d better go to my dressmaker; she’s not bad. I must go there this afternoon myself to try some things on.’”
Miss Ley stopped and looked at the doctor to see the effect of her words. He said nothing.
“And the impression I gained then,” she added, “has only been strengthened since. You’ll be a very clever man if you prevent Bertha from doing a thing upon which she has set her mind.”
“D’you mean to tell me that you’re going to sanction the marriage?”
Miss Ley shrugged her shoulders. “My dear Dr. Ramsay, I tell you it won’t make the least difference whether we bless or curse. And he seems an average sort of young man—let us be thankful that she’s done no worse. He’s not uneducated.”
“No, he’s not that. He spent ten years at Regis School, Tercanbury; so he ought to know something.”
“What was exactly his father?”
“His father was the same as himself—a gentleman-farmer. He’d been educated at Regis School, as his son was. He knew most of the gentry, but he wasn’t quite one of them; he knew all the farmers and he wasn’t quite one of them either. And that’s what they’ve been for generations, neither flesh, fowl, nor good red herring.”
“It’s those people that the newspapers tell us are the backbone of the country, Dr. Ramsay.”
“Let ’em remain in their proper place then, in the back,” said the doctor. “You can do as you please, Miss Ley; I’m going to put a stop to the business. After all, old Mr. Ley made me the girl’s guardian, and though she is twenty-one I think it’s my duty to see that she doesn’t fall into the hands of the first penniless scamp who asks her to marry him.”
“You can do as you please,” retorted Miss Ley, who was a little bored. “You’ll do no good with Bertha.”
“I’m not going to Bertha; I’m going to Craddock direct, and I mean to give him a piece of my mind.”
Miss Ley shrugged her shoulders. Dr. Ramsay evidently did not see who was the active party in the matter, and she did not feel it her duty to inform him.
“The question is,” she said quietly, “can she marry any one worse? I must say I’m quite relieved that Bertha doesn’t want to marry a creature from Bayswater.”
The doctor took his leave, and in a few minutes Bertha joined Miss Ley. The latter obviously intended to make no efforts to disturb the course of true love.
“You’ll have to be thinking of ordering your trousseau, my dear,” she said, with a dry smile.
“We’re going to be married quite privately,” answered Bertha. “We neither of us want to make a fuss.”
“I think you’re very wise. Of course most people, when they get married, fancy they’re doing a very original thing. It never occurs to them that quite a number of persons have committed matrimony since Adam and Eve.”
“I’ve asked Edward to luncheon to-morrow,” said Bertha.
NEXT day, after luncheon, Miss Ley retired to the drawing-room and unpacked the books which had just arrived from Mudie. She looked through them, and read a page here and there to see what they were like, thinking meanwhile of the meal they had just finished. Edward Craddock had been somewhat nervous, sitting uncomfortably on his chair, too officious, perhaps, in handing things to Miss Ley, salt and pepper and the like, as he saw she wanted them. He evidently wished to make himself amiable. At the same time he was subdued, and not gaily enthusiastic as might be expected from a happy lover. Miss Ley could not help asking herself if he really loved her niece. Bertha was obviously without a doubt on the subject. She had been radiant, keeping her eyes all the while fixed upon the young man as if he were the most delightful and wonderful object she had ever seen. Miss Ley was surprised at the girl’s expansiveness, contrasting with her old reserve. She seemed now not to care a straw if all the world saw her emotions. She was not only happy to be in love, she was proud also. Miss Ley laughed aloud at the doctor’s idea that he could disturb the course of such passion.... But if Miss Ley, well aware that the watering-pots of reason could not put out those raging fires, had no intention of hindering the match, neither had she a desire to witness the preliminaries thereof; and after luncheon, remarking that she felt tired and meant to lie down, went into the drawing-room alone. It pleased her to think she could at the same time suit the lovers’ pleasure and her own convenience.
She chose that book from the bundle which seemed most promising, and began to read. Presently the door was opened by a servant, and Miss Glover was announced. An expression of annoyance passed over Miss Ley’s face, but was immediately succeeded by one of mellifluous amiability.
“Oh, don’t get up, dear Miss Ley,” said the visitor, as her hostess slowly rose from the sofa.
Miss Ley shook hands and began to talk. She said she was delighted to see Miss Glover, thinking meanwhile that this estimable person’s sense of etiquette was very tedious. The Glovers had dined at Court Leys during the previous week, and punctually seven days afterwards Miss Glover was paying a ceremonious call.
Miss Glover was a worthy person, but dull; and that Miss Ley could not forgive. Better ten thousand times, in her opinion, was it to be Becky Sharp and a monster of wickedness than Amelia and a monster of stupidity.
“Pardon me, Madam, it is well known that Thackeray, in Amelia, gave us a type of the pure-hearted, sweet-minded English maiden, whose qualities are the foundation of the greatness of Great Britain, and the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon race.”
“I have no doubt that such was his intention. But why do you think novelists, when they draw the average English girl, should invariably produce an utter fool?”
“Madam, Madam, this is heresy.”
“No, sir, it is merely a question—prompted by a desire for information.”
“It must be their want of skill.”
“I hope so.”
Miss Glover was one of the best natured and most charitable creatures upon the face of the earth, a miracle of abnegation and unselfishness; but a person to be amused by her could have been only an absolute lunatic.
“She’s really a dear kind thing,” said Miss Ley of her, “and she does endless good in the parish—but she’s really too dull: she’s only fit for heaven!”
And the image passed through Miss Ley’s mind, unsobered by advancing years, of Miss Glover, with her colourless hair hanging down her back, wings, and a golden harp, singing hymns in a squeaky voice, morning, noon, and night. Indeed, the general conception of paradisaical costume suited Miss Glover very ill. She was a woman of about eight and twenty, but might have been any age between one score and two; you felt that she had always been the same and that years would have no power over her strength of mind. She had no figure, and her clothes were so stiff and unyielding as to give an impression of armour. She was nearly always dressed in a tight black jacket of ribbed cloth that was evidently most durable, the plainest of skirts, and strong, really strong boots! Her hat was suited for all weathers and she had made it herself! She never wore a veil, and her skin was dry and hard, drawn so tightly over the bones as to give her face extraordinary angularity; over her prominent cheek-bones was a red flush, the colour of which was not uniformly suffused, but with the capillaries standing out distinctly, forming a network. Her nose and mouth were what is politely termed of a determined character, her pale blue eyes slightly protruded. Ten years of East Anglian winds had blown all the softness from her face, and their bitter fury seemed to have bleached even her hair. One could not tell if this was brown and had lost its richness, or gold from which the shimmer had vanished; and the roots sprang from the cranium with a curious apartness, so that Miss Ley always thought how easy in her case it would be for the Recording Angel to number the hairs. But notwithstanding the hard, uncompromising exterior which suggested extreme determination, Miss Glover was so bashful, so absurdly self-conscious, as to blush at every opportunity; and in the presence of a stranger to go through utter misery from inability to think of a single word to say. At the same time she had the tenderest of hearts, sympathetic, compassionate; she overflowed with love and pity for her fellow-creatures. She was also excessively sentimental!
“And how is your brother?” asked Miss Ley.
Mr. Glover was the Vicar of Leanham, which was about a mile from Court Leys on the Tercanbury Road, and for him Miss Glover had kept house since his appointment to the living.
“Oh, he’s very well. Of course he’s rather worried about the dissenters. You know they’re putting up a new chapel in Leanham; it’s perfectly dreadful.”
“Mr. Craddock mentioned the fact at luncheon.”
“Oh, was he lunching with you? I didn’t know you knew him well enough for that.”
“I suppose he’s here now,” said Miss Ley; “he’s not been in to say good-bye.”
Miss Glover looked at her with some want of intelligence. But it was not to be expected that Miss Ley could explain before making the affair a good deal more complicated.
“And how is Bertha?” asked Miss Glover, whose conversation was chiefly concerned with inquiries about mutual acquaintance.
“Oh, of course, she’s in the seventh heaven of delight.”
“Oh!” said Miss Glover, not understanding at all what Miss Ley meant.
She was somewhat afraid of the elder lady. Even though her brother Charles said he feared she was worldly, Miss Glover could not fail to respect a woman who had lived in London and on the continent, who had met Dean Farrar and seen Miss Marie Corelli.
“Of course,” she said, “Bertha is young, and naturally high spirited.”
“Well, I’m sure, I hope she’ll be happy.”
“You must be very anxious about her future, Miss Ley.” Miss Glover found her hostess’s observations simply cryptic, and, feeling foolish, blushed a fiery red.
“Not at all; she’s her own mistress, and as able-bodied and as reasonably-minded as most young women. But, of course, it’s a great risk.”
“I’m very sorry, Miss Ley,” said the vicar’s sister, in such distress as to give her friend certain qualms of conscience, “but I really don’t understand. What is a great risk?”
“Matrimony, my dear.”
“Is Bertha going to be married? Oh, dear Miss Ley, let me congratulate you. How happy and proud you must be!”
“My dear Miss Glover, please keep calm. And if you want to congratulate anybody, congratulate Bertha—not me.”
“But I’m so glad, Miss Ley. To think of dear Bertha getting married; Charles will be so pleased.”
“It’s to Mr. Edward Craddock,” drily said Miss Ley, interrupting these transports.
“Oh!” Miss Glover’s jaw dropped and she changed colour; then, recovering herself: “You don’t say so!”
“You seem surprised, dear Miss Glover,” said the elder lady, with a thin smile.
“I am surprised. I thought they scarcely knew one another; and besides—“ Miss Glover stopped, with embarrassment.
“And besides what?” inquired Miss Ley, sharply.
“Well, Miss Ley, of course Mr. Craddock is a very good young man and I like him, but I shouldn’t have thought him a suitable match for Bertha.”
“It depends upon what you mean by a suitable match.”
“I was always hoping Bertha would marry young Mr. Branderton of the Towers.”
“Hm!” said Miss Ley, who did not like the neighboring squire’s mother, “I don’t know what Mr. Branderton has to recommend him beyond the possession of four or five generations of particularly stupid ancestors and two or three thousand acres which he can neither let nor sell.”
“Of course Mr. Craddock is a very worthy young man,” added Miss Glover, who was afraid she had said too much. “If you approve of the match no one else can complain.”
“I don’t approve of the match, Miss Glover, but I’m not such a fool as to oppose it. Marriage is always a hopeless idiocy for a woman who has enough money of her own to live upon.”
“It’s an institution of the Church, Miss Ley,” replied Miss Glover, rather severely.
“Is it?” retorted Miss Ley. “I always thought it was an arrangement to provide work for the judges in the Divorce Court.”
To this Miss Glover very properly made no answer.
“Do you think they’ll be happy together?”
“I think it very improbable,” said Miss Ley.
“Well, don’t you think it’s your duty—excuse my mentioning it, Miss Ley—to do something?”
“My dear Miss Glover, I don’t think they’ll be more unhappy than most married couples; and one’s greatest duty in this world is to leave people alone.”
“There I cannot agree with you,” said Miss Glover, bridling. “If duty was not more difficult than that there would be no credit in doing it.”
“Ah, my dear, your idea of a happy life is always to do the disagreeable thing: mine is to gather the roses—with gloves on, so that the thorns should not prick me.”
“That’s not the way to win the battle, Miss Ley. We must all fight.”
“My dear Miss Glover!” said Bertha’s aunt.
She fancied it a little impertinent for a woman twenty years younger than herself to exhort her to lead a better life. But the picture of that poor, ill-dressed creature fighting with a devil, cloven-footed, betailed and behorned, was as pitiful as it was comic; and with difficulty Miss Ley repressed an impulse to argue and to startle a little her estimable friend.
But at that moment Dr. Ramsay came in. He shook hands with both ladies.
“I thought I’d look in to see how Bertha was,” he said.
“Poor Mr. Craddock has another adversary,” remarked Miss Ley. “Miss Glover thinks I ought to take the affair seriously.”
“I do, indeed,” said Miss Glover.
“Ever since I was a young girl,” said Miss Ley, “I’ve been trying not to take things seriously, and I’m afraid now I’m hopelessly frivolous.”
The contrast between this assertion and Miss Ley’s prim manner was really funny, but Miss Glover saw only something quite incomprehensible.
“After all,” added Miss Ley, “nine marriages out of ten are more or less unsatisfactory. You say young Branderton would have been more suitable; but really a string of ancestors is no particular assistance to matrimonial felicity, and otherwise I see no marked difference between him and Edward Craddock. Mr. Branderton has been to Eton and Oxford, but he conceals the fact with very great success. Practically he’s just as much a gentleman-farmer as Mr. Craddock; but one family is working itself up and the other is working itself down. The Brandertons represent the past and the Craddocks the future; and though I detest reform and progress, so far as matrimony is concerned I prefer myself the man who founds a family to the man who ends it. But, good Heavens! you’re making me sententious.”
It was curious how opposition was making Miss Ley almost a champion of Edward Craddock.
“Well,” said the doctor, in his heavy way, “I’m in favour of every one sticking to his own class. Nowadays, whoever a man is he wants to be the next thing better; the labourer apes the tradesman, the tradesman apes the professional man.”
“And the professional man is worst of all, dear doctor,” said Miss Ley, “for he apes the noble lord, who seldom affords a very admirable example. And the amusing thing is that each set thinks itself quite as good as those above, while harbouring profound contempt for all below. In fact the only members of society who hold themselves in proper estimation are the servants. I always think that the domestics of gentlemen’s houses in South Kensington are several degrees less odious than their masters.”
This was not a subject which Miss Glover or Dr. Ramsay could discuss, and there was a momentary pause.
“What single point can you bring in favour of this marriage?” asked the doctor, suddenly.
Miss Ley looked at him as if she were thinking, then, with a dry smile: “My dear doctor, Mr. Craddock is so matter of fact—the moon will never rouse him to poetic ecstasies.”
“Miss Ley!” said the parson’s sister, in a tone of entreaty.
Miss Ley glanced from one to the other. “Do you want my serious opinion?” she asked, rather more gravely than usual. “The girl loves him, my dear doctor. Marriage, after all, is such a risk that only passion makes it worth while.”
Miss Glover looked up uneasily at the word passion.
“Yes, I know what you all think in England,” said Miss Ley, catching the glance and its meaning. “You expect people to marry from every reason except the proper, one—and that is the instinct of reproduction.”
“Miss Ley!” exclaimed Miss Glover, blushing.
“Oh, you’re old enough to take a sensible view of the, matter,” answered Miss Ley, somewhat brutally. “Bertha is merely the female attracted to the male, and that is the only decent foundation of marriage—the other way seems to me merely horrid. And what does it matter if the man is not of the same station, the instinct has nothing to do with the walk in life; if I’d ever been in love I shouldn’t have cared if it was a pot-boy, I’d have married him—if he asked me.”
“Well, upon my word!” said the doctor.
But Miss Ley was roused now, and interrupted him: “The particular function of a woman is to propagate her species; and if she’s wise she’ll choose a strong and healthy man to be the father of her children. I have no patience with those women who marry a man because he’s got brains. What is the good of a husband who can make abstruse mathematical calculations? A woman wants a man with strong arms and the digestion of an ox.”
“Miss Ley,” broke in Miss Glover, “I’m not clever enough to argue with you, but I know you’re wrong. I don’t think I am right to listen to you; I’m sure Charles wouldn’t like it.”
“My dear, you’ve been brought up like the majority of English girls—that is, like a fool.”
Poor Miss Glover blushed. “At all events I’ve been brought up to regard marriage as a holy institution. We’re here upon earth to mortify the flesh, not to indulge it. I hope I shall never be tempted to think of such matters in the way you’ve suggested. If ever I marry I know that nothing will be further from me than carnal thoughts. I look upon marriage as a spiritual union in which it is my duty to love, honour, and obey my husband, to assist and sustain him, to live with him such a life that when the end comes we may be prepared for it.”
“Fiddlesticks!” said Miss Ley.
“I should have thought you of all people,” said Dr. Ramsay, “would object to Bertha marrying beneath her.”
“They can’t be happy,” said Miss Glover.
“Why not? I used to know in Italy Lady Justitia Shawe, who married her footman. She made him take her name, and they drank like fishes. They lived for forty years in complete felicity, and when he drank himself to death poor Lady Justitia was so grieved that her next attack of delirium tremens carried her off. It was most pathetic.”
“I can’t think you look forward with pleasure to such a fate for your only niece, Miss Ley,” said Miss Glover, who took everything seriously.
“I have another niece, you know,” answered Miss Ley, “My sister, Mrs. Vaudrey, has three children.”
But the doctor broke in: “Well, I don’t think you need trouble yourselves about the matter, for I have authority to announce to you that the marriage of Bertha and young Craddock is broken off.”
“What!” cried Miss Ley. “I don’t believe it.”
“You don’t say so,” ejaculated Miss Glover at the same moment. “Oh, I am relieved.”
Dr. Ramsay rubbed his hands, beaming with delight. “I knew I should stop it,” he said. “What do you think now, Miss Ley?”
He was evidently rejoicing over her discomfiture, and that lady became rather cross.
“How can I think anything till you explain yourself?” she asked.
“He came to see me last night—you remember he asked for an interview of his own accord—and I put the case before him. I talked to him, I told him that the marriage was impossible; and I said the Leanham and Blackstable people would call him a fortune-hunter. I appealed to him for Bertha’s sake. He’s an honest, straightforward fellow—I always said he was. I made him see he wasn’t doing the straight thing, and at last he promised he’d break it off.”
“He won’t keep a promise of that sort,” said Miss Ley.
“Oh, won’t he!” cried the doctor. “I’ve known him all his life, and he’d rather die than break his word.”
“Poor fellow!” said Miss Glover, “it must have pained him terribly.”
“He bore it like a man.”
Miss Ley pursed her lips till they practically disappeared. “And when is he supposed to carry out your ridiculous suggestion, Dr. Ramsay?” she asked.
“He told me he was lunching here to-day, and would take the opportunity to ask Bertha for his release.”
“The man’s a fool!” muttered Miss Ley to herself, but quite audibly.
“I think it’s very noble of him,” said Miss Glover, “and I shall make a point of telling him so.”
“I wasn’t thinking of Mr. Craddock,” snapped Miss Ley.
Miss Glover looked at Dr. Ramsay to see how he took the rudeness; but at that moment the door was opened and Bertha walked in. Miss Ley caught her mood at a glance. Bertha was evidently not at all distressed; there were no signs of tears, but her cheeks showed more colour than usual, and her lips were firmly compressed; Miss Ley concluded that her niece was in a very pretty passion. However, she drove away the appearance of anger, and her face was full of smiles as she greeted her visitors.
“Miss Glover, how kind of you to come. How d’you do, Dr. Ramsay?... Oh, by the way, I think I must ask you—er—not to interfere in future with my private concerns.”
“Dearest,” broke in Miss Glover, “it’s all for the best.”
Bertha turned to her and the flush on her face deepened: “Ah, I see you’ve been discussing the matter. How good of you! Edward has been asking me to release him.”
Dr. Ramsay nodded with satisfaction.
“But I refused!”
Dr. Ramsay sprang up, and Miss Glover, lifting her hands, cried: “Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” This was one of the rare occasions in her life upon which Miss Ley was known to laugh outright.
Bertha now was simply beaming with happiness. “He pretended that he wanted to break the engagement—but I utterly declined.”
“D’you mean to say you wouldn’t let him go when he asked you?” said the doctor.
“Did you think I was going to let my happiness be destroyed by you?” she asked, contemptuously. “I found out that you had been meddling, Dr. Ramsay. Poor boy, he thought his honour required him not to take advantage of my inexperience; I told him, what I’ve told him a thousand times, that I love him, and that I can’t live without him.... Oh, I think you ought to be ashamed of yourself, Dr. Ramsay. What d’you mean by coming between me and Edward?”
Bertha said the last words passionately, breathing hard. Dr. Ramsay was taken aback, and Miss Glover, thinking such a manner of speech almost unladylike, looked down. Miss Ley’s sharp eyes played from one to the other.
“Do you think he really loves you?” said Miss Glover, at last. “It seems to me that if he had, he would not have been so ready to give you up.”
Miss Ley smiled; it was certainly curious that a creature of quite angelic goodness should make so Machiavellian a suggestion.
“He offered to give me up because he loved me,” said Bertha, proudly. “I adore him ten thousand times more for the suggestion.”
“I have no patience with you,” cried the doctor, unable to contain himself. “He’s marrying you for your money.”
Bertha gave a little laugh. She was standing by the fire and turned to the glass.... She looked at her hands, resting on the edge of the chimney-piece, small and exquisitely modelled, the fingers tapering, the nails of the softest pink. They were the gentlest hands in the world, made for caresses; and, conscious of their beauty, she wore no rings. With them Bertha was well satisfied. Then, raising her glance, she saw herself in the mirror: for a while she gazed into her dark eyes, flashing sometimes and at others conveying the burning messages of love. She looked at her ears—small, and pink like a shell; they made one feel that no materials were so grateful to the artist’s hands as the materials which make up the body of man. Her hair was dark too, so abundant that she scarcely knew how to wear it, curling; one wanted to pass one’s hands through it, imagining that its touch must be delightful. She put her fingers to one side, to arrange a stray lock: they might say what they liked, she thought, but her hair was good. Bertha wondered why she was so dark; her olive skin suggested, indeed, the south with its burning passion: she had the complexion of the fair women in Umbria, clear and soft beyond description. A painter once had said that her skin had in it all the colour of the setting sun, of the setting sun at its borders where the splendour mingles with the sky; it had an hundred mellow tints, cream and ivory, the palest yellow of the heart of roses and the faintest, the very faintest green, all flushed with radiant light. She looked at her full, red lips, almost passionately sensual. Bertha smiled at herself, and saw the even, glistening teeth; the scrutiny had made her blush, and the colour rendered still more exquisite the pallid, marvellous complexion. She turned slowly and faced the three persons looking at her.
“Do you think it impossible for a man to love me for myself? You are not flattering, dear doctor.”
Miss Ley thought Bertha certainly very bold thus to challenge the criticism of two women, both unmarried; but she silenced it. Miss Ley’s eyes went from the statuesque neck to the arms as finely formed, and to the figure.
“You’re looking your best, my dear,” she said, with a smile.
The doctor uttered an expression of annoyance: “Can you do nothing to hinder this madness, Miss Ley?”
“My dear Dr. Ramsay, I have trouble enough in arranging my own life; do not ask me to interfere with other people’s.”
BERTHA surrendered herself completely to the enjoyment of her love. Her sanguine temperament never allowed her to do anything half-heartedly, and she took no care now to conceal her feelings; love was a great sea into which she boldly plunged, uncaring whether she would swim or sink.
“I am such a fool,” she told Craddock, “I can’t realise that any one has loved before. I feel that the world is only now beginning.”
She hated any separation from him. In the morning she existed for nothing but her lover’s visit at luncheon time, and the walk back with him to his farm; then the afternoon seemed endless, and she counted the hours that must pass before she saw him again. But what bliss it was when, after his work was over, he arrived, and they sat side by side near the fire, talking; Bertha would have no other light than the fitful flaming of the coals, so that, but for the little space where they sat, the room was dark, and the redness of the fire threw on Edward’s face a glow and weird shadows. She loved to look at him, at his clean-cut features, and into his grey eyes. Then her passion knew no restraint.
“Shut your eyes,” she whispered, and she kissed the closed lids; she passed her lips slowly over his lips, and the soft contact made her shudder and laugh. She buried her face in his clothes, inhaling those masterful scents of the countryside which had always fascinated her.
“What have you been doing to-day, my dearest?”
“Oh, there’s nothing much going on the farm just now. We’ve just been ploughing and root-carting.”
It enchanted her to receive information on agricultural subjects, and she could have listened to him for hours. Every word that Edward spoke was charming and original Bertha never took her eyes off him; she loved to see him speak, and often scarcely listened to what he said, merely watching the play of his expression. It puzzled him sometimes to catch her smile of intense happiness, when he was discussing the bush-drainage, for instance, of some field. However, she really took a deep interest in all his stock, and never failed to inquire after a bullock that was indisposed; it pleased her to think of the strong man among his beasts, and the thought gave a tautness to her own muscles. She determined to learn riding and tennis and golf, so that she might accompany him in his amusements; her own attainments seemed unnecessary and even humiliating. Looking at Edward Craddock she realised that man was indeed the lord of creation. She saw him striding over his fields with long steps, ordering his labourers here and there, able to direct their operations, fearless, brave, and free. It was astonishing how many excellent traits she derived from examination of his profile.
Then, talking of the men he employed, she could imagine no felicity greater than to have such a master.
“I should like to be a milkmaid on your farm,” she said.
“I don’t keep milkmaids,” he replied. “I have a milkman; it’s more useful.”
“You dear old thing,” she cried. “How matter of fact you are!”
She caught hold of his hands and looked at them.
“I’m rather frightened of you, sometimes,” she said, laughing. “You’re so strong. I feel so utterly weak and helpless beside you.”
“Are you afraid I shall beat you?”
She looked up at him and then down at the strong hands.
“I don’t think I should mind if you did. I think I should only love you more.”
He burst out laughing and kissed her.
“I’m not joking,” she said. “I understand now those women who love beasts of men. They say that some wives will stand anything from their husbands; they love them all the more because they’re brutal. I think I’m like that; but I’ve never seen you in a passion, Eddie. What are you like when you’re angry?”
“I never am angry.”
“Miss Glover told me that you had the best temper in the world. I’m terrified at all these perfections.”
“Don’t expect too much from me, Bertha. I’m not a model man, you know.”
Of course she kissed him when he made remarks of such absurd modesty.
“I’m very pleased,” she answered; “I don’t want perfection. Of course you’ve got faults, though I can’t see them yet. But when I do, I know I shall only love you better. When a woman loves an ugly man, they say the ugliness only makes him more attractive and I shall love your faults as I love everything that is yours.”
They sat for a while without speaking, and the silence was even more entrancing than the speech. Bertha wished she could remain thus for ever, resting in his arms. She forgot that soon Craddock would develop a healthy appetite and demolish a substantial dinner.
“Let me look at your hands,” she said.
She loved them too. They were large and roughly made, hard with work and exposure, ten times pleasanter, she thought, than the soft hands of the townsman. She felt them firm and intensely masculine. They reminded her of a hand in an Italian Museum, sculptured in porphyry, but for some reason left unfinished; and the lack of detail gave the same impression of massive strength. His hands, too, might have been those of a demi-god or of an hero. She stretched out the long, strong fingers. Craddock, knowing her very little, looked with wonder and amusement. She caught his glance, and with a smile bent down to kiss the upturned palms. She wanted to abase herself before the strong man, to be low and humble before him. She would have been his handmaiden, and nothing could have satisfied her so much as to perform for him the most menial services. She knew not how to show the immensity of her passion.
It pleased Bertha to walk into Blackstable with her lover and to catch the people’s stares, knowing how much the marriage interested them. What did she care if they were surprised at her choosing Edward Craddock, whom they had known all his life? She was proud of him, proud to be his wife.
One day, when it was very warm for the time of year, she was resting on a stile, while Craddock stood by her side. They did not speak, but looked at one another in ecstatic happiness.
“Look,” said Craddock, suddenly. “There’s Arthur Branderton.”
He glanced at Bertha, then from side to side uneasily, as if he wished to avoid a meeting.
“He’s been away, hasn’t he?” asked Bertha. “I wanted to meet him.” She was quite willing that all the world should see them. “Good afternoon, Arthur!” she called out, as the youth approached.
“Oh! is it you, Bertha? Hulloa, Craddock!” He looked at Edward, wondering what he did there with Miss Ley.
“We’ve just been walking into Leanham, and I was tired.”
“Oh!” Young Branderton thought it queer that Bertha should take walks with Craddock.
Bertha burst out laughing. “Oh, he doesn’t know, Edward! He’s the only person in the county who hasn’t heard the news.”
“What news?” asked Branderton. “I’ve been in Yorkshire for the last week at my brother-in-law’s.”
“Mr. Craddock and I are going to be married.”
“Are you, by Jove!” cried Branderton; he looked at Craddock and then, awkwardly, offered his congratulations. They could not help seeing his astonishment, and Craddock flushed, knowing it due to the fact that Bertha had consented to marry a penniless beggar like himself, a man of no family. “I hope you’ll invite me to the wedding,” said the young man to cover his confusion. “Oh, it’s going to be very quiet—there will only be ourselves, Dr. Ramsay, my aunt, and Edward’s best man.”
“Then mayn’t I come?” asked Branderton.
Bertha looked quickly at Edward; it had caused her some uneasiness to think that he might be supported by a person of no great consequence in the place. After all she was Miss Ley; and she had already discovered that some of her lover’s friends were not too desirable. Chance offered her means of surmounting the difficulty.
“I’m afraid it’s impossible,” she said, in answer to Branderton’s appeal, “unless you can get Edward to offer you the important post of best man.”
She succeeded in making the pair thoroughly uncomfortable. Branderton had no great wish to perform that office for Edward—“of course, Craddock is a very good fellow, and a fine sportsman, but not the sort of chap you’d expect a girl like Bertha Ley to marry.” And Edward, understanding the younger man’s feelings, was silent.
But Branderton had some knowledge of polite society, and broke the momentary pause.
“Who is going to be your best man, Craddock?” he asked; he could do nothing else.
“I don’t know—I haven’t thought of it.”
But Branderton, catching Bertha’s eye, suddenly understood her desire and the reason of it.
“Won’t you have me?” he said quickly. “I dare say you’ll find me intelligent enough to learn the duties.”
“I should like it very much,” answered Craddock. “It’s very good of you.”
Branderton looked at Bertha, and she smiled her thanks; he saw she was pleased.
“Where are you going for your honeymoon?” he asked now, to make conversation.
“I don’t know,” answered Craddock. “We’ve hardly had time to think of it yet.”
“You certainly are very vague in all your plans.”
He shook hands with them, receiving from Bertha a grateful pressure, and went off.
“Have you really not thought of our honeymoon, foolish boy?” asked Bertha.
“No!”
“Well, I have. I’ve made up my mind and settled it all. We’re going to Italy, and I mean to show you Florence and Pisa and Siena. It’ll be simply heavenly. We won’t go to Venice, because it’s too sentimental; self-respecting people can’t make love in gondolas at the end of the nineteenth century.... Oh, I long to be with you in the South, beneath the blue sky and the countless stars of night.”
“I’ve never been abroad before,” he said, without much enthusiasm.
But her fire was quite enough for two. “I know, I shall have the pleasure of unfolding it all to you. I shall enjoy it more than I ever have before; it’ll be so new to you. And we can stay six months if we like.”
“Oh, I couldn’t possibly,” he cried. “Think of the farm.”
“Oh, bother the farm. It’s our honeymoon, Sposo mio.”
“I don’t think I could possibly stay away more than a fortnight.”
“What nonsense! We can’t go to Italy for a fortnight. The farm can get on without you.”
“And in January and February too, when all the lambing is coming on.”
He did not want to distress Bertha, but really half his lambs would die if he were not there to superintend their entrance into this wicked world.
“But you must go,” said Bertha. “I’ve set my heart upon it.”
He looked down for a while, rather unhappily.
“Wouldn’t a month do?” he asked. “I’ll do anything you really want, Bertha.”
But his obvious dislike to the suggestion cut Bertha’s heart. She was only inclined to be stubborn when she saw he might resist her; and his first word of surrender made her veer round penitently.
“What a selfish beast I am!” she said. “I don’t want to make you miserable, Eddie. I thought it would please you to go abroad, and I’d planned it all so well.... But we won’t go; I hate Italy. Let’s just go up to town for a fortnight, like two country bumpkins.”
“Oh, but you won’t like that.”
“Of course I shall. I like everything you like. D’you think I care where we go so long as I’m with you?... You’re not angry with me, darling, are you?”
Mr. Craddock was good enough to intimate that he was not.
Miss Ley, much against her will, had been driven by Miss Glover into working for some charitable institution, and was knitting babies’ socks (as the smallest garments she could make) when Bertha told her of the altered plan: she dropped a stitch! Miss Ley was too wise to say anything, but she wondered if the world were coming to an end; Bertha’s schemes were shattered like brittle glass, and she really seemed delighted. A month ago opposition would have made Bertha traverse seas and scale precipices rather than abandon an idea that she had got into her head. Verily, love is a prestidigitator who can change the lion into the lamb as easily as a handkerchief into a flower-pot! Miss Ley began to admire Edward Craddock.
He, on his way home after leaving Bertha, was met by the Vicar of Leanham. Mr. Glover was a tall man, angular, fair, thin and red-cheeked—a somewhat feminine edition of his sister, but smelling in the most remarkable fashion of antiseptics; Miss Ley vowed he peppered his clothes with iodoform, and bathed daily in carbolic acid. He was strenuous and charitable, hated a Dissenter, and was over forty.
“Ah, Craddock, I wanted to see you.”
“Not about the banns, Vicar, is it? We’re going to be married by special license.”
Like many countrymen, Edward saw something funny in the clergy—one should not grudge it them, for it is the only jest in their lives—and he was given to treating the parson with more humour than he used in the other affairs of this world. The Vicar laughed; it is one of the best traits of the country clergy that they are willing to be amused with their parishioners’ jocosity.
“The marriage is all settled then? You’re a very lucky young man.”
Craddock put his arm through Mr. Glover’s with the unconscious friendliness that had gained him an hundred friends. “Yes, I am lucky,” he said. “I know you people think it rather queer that Bertha and I should get married, but we’re very much attached to one another, and I mean to do my best by her. You know I’ve never racketed about, Vicar, don’t you?”
“Yes, my boy,” said the Vicar, touched at Edward’s confidence. “Every one knows you’re steady enough.”
“Of course, she could have found men of much better social position than mine—but I’ll try to make her happy. And I’ve got nothing to hide from her as some men have; I go to her almost as straight as she comes to me.”
“That is a very fortunate thing to be able to say.”
“I have never loved another woman in my life, and as for the rest—well, of course, I’m young and I’ve been up to town sometimes; but I always hated and loathed it. And the country and the hard work keep one pretty clear of anything nasty.”
“I’m very glad to hear you say that,” answered Mr. Glover. “I hope you’ll be happy, and I think you will.”
The Vicar felt a slight pricking of conscience, for at first his sister and himself had called the match a mésalliance (they pronounced the word vilely), and not till they learned it was inevitable did they begin to see that their attitude was a little wanting in charity. The two men shook hands.
“I hope you don’t mind me spitting out these things to you, Vicar. I suppose it’s your business in a sort of way. I’ve wanted to tell Miss Ley something of the kind; but somehow or other I can never get an opportunity.”
EXACTLY one month after her twenty-first birthday, as Bertha had announced, the marriage took place; and the young couple started off to spend their honeymoon in London. Bertha, knowing she would not read, took with her notwithstanding a book, to wit the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius; and Edward, thinking that railway journeys were always tedious, bought for the occasion The Mystery of the Six-fingered Woman, the title of which attracted him. He was determined not to be bored, for, not content with his novel, he purchased at the station a Sporting Times.
“Oh,” said Bertha, when the train had started, heaving a great sigh of relief, “I’m so glad to be alone with you at last. Now we shan’t have anybody to worry us, and no one can separate us, and we shall be together for the rest of our lives.”
Craddock put down the newspaper, which, from force of habit, he had opened after settling himself in his seat.
“I’m glad to have the ceremony over too.”
“D’you know,” she said, “I was terrified on the way to church; it occurred to me that you might not be there—that you might have changed your mind and fled.”
He laughed. “Why on earth should I change my mind? That’s a thing I never do.”
“Oh, I can’t sit solemnly opposite you as if we’d been married a century. Make room for me, boy.”
She came over to his side and nestled close to him.
“Tell me you love me,” she whispered.
“I love you very much.”
He bent down and kissed his wife, then putting his arm around her waist drew her nearer to him. He was a little nervous, he would not really have been very sorry if some officious person had disregarded the engaged on the carriage and entered. He felt scarcely at home with Bertha, and was still bewildered by his change of fortune; there was, indeed, a vast difference between Court Leys and Bewlie’s Farm.
“I’m so happy,” said Bertha. “Sometimes I’m afraid.... D’you think it can last, d’you think we shall always be as happy? I’ve got everything I want in the world, and I’m absolutely and completely content.” She was silent for a minute, caressing his hands. “You will always love me, Eddie, won’t you—even when I’m old and horrible?”
“I’m not the sort of chap to alter.”
“Oh, you don’t know how I adore you,” she cried passionately. “My love will never alter, it is too strong. To the end of my days I shall always love you with all my heart. I wish I could tell you what I feel.”
Of late the English language had seemed quite incompetent for the expression of her manifold emotions.
They went to a far more expensive hotel than they could afford. Craddock had prudently suggested something less extravagant, but Bertha would not hear of it; as Miss Ley she had been unused to the second-rate, and she was too proud of her new name to take it to any but the best hotel in London.
The more Bertha saw of her husband’s mind, the more it delighted her. She loved the simplicity and the naturalness of the man; she cast off like a tattered silken cloak the sentiments with which for years she had lived, and robed herself in the sturdy homespun which so well suited her lord and master. It was charming to see his naïve enjoyment of everything. To him all was fresh and novel; he would explode with laughter at the comic papers, and in the dailies continually find observations which struck him for their profound originality. He was the unspoiled child of nature; his mind free from the million perversities of civilisation. To know him was in Bertha’s opinion an education in all the goodness and purity, the strength and virtue of the Englishman!
They went often to the theatre, and it pleased Bertha to watch her husband’s simple enjoyment. The pathetic passages of a melodrama, which made Bertha’s lips curl with semi-amused contempt, moved him to facile tears; and in the darkness he held her hand to comfort her, imagining that his wife enjoyed the same emotions as himself. Ah, she wished she could; she hated the education of foreign countries, which, in the study of pictures and palaces and strange peoples, had released her mind from its prison of darkness, yet had destroyed half her illusions; now she would far rather have retained the plain and unadorned illiteracy, the ingenuous ignorance of the typical and creamy English girl. What is the use of knowledge? Blessed are the poor in spirit: all that a woman really wants is purity and goodness, and perhaps a certain acquaintance with plain cooking.
But the lovers, the injured heroine and the wrongly suspected hero, had bidden one another a heartrending good-bye, and the curtain descended to rapturous applause. Edward cleared his throat and blew his nose.
“Isn’t it splendid?” he said, turning to his wife.
“You dear thing!” she whispered.
It touched her to see how deeply he felt it all. How clean and big and simple and good must be his heart! She loved him ten times more because his emotions were easily aroused. Ah yes, she abhorred the cold cynicism of the worldly-wise who sneer at the burning tears of the simple minded.
The curtain rose on the next act, and in his eagerness to see what was about to happen, Edward immediately ceased to listen to what Bertha was in the middle of saying, and gave himself over to the play. The feelings of the audience having been sufficiently harrowed, the comic relief was turned on. The funny man made jokes about various articles of clothing, tumbling over tables and chairs; and it charmed Bertha again to see her husband’s open-hearted hilarity. It tickled her immensely to hear his peals of unrestrained laughter; he put his head back, and, with his hands to his sides, simply roared.
“He has a charming character,” she thought.
Craddock had the strictest notions of morality, and absolutely refused to take his wife to a music-hall; Bertha had seen abroad many sights, the like of which Edward did not dream, but she respected his innocence. It pleased her to see the firmness with which he upheld his principles, and it somewhat amused her to be treated like a little schoolgirl. They went to all the theatres; Edward, on his rare visits to London, had done his sightseeing economically, and the purchase of stalls, the getting into dress-clothes, were new sensations which caused him great pleasure. Bertha liked to see her husband in evening dress; the black suited his florid style, and the white shirt with a high collar threw up his sunburnt, weather-beaten face. He looked strong above all things, and manly; and he was her husband, never to be parted from her except by death: she adored him.
Craddock’s interest in the stage was unflagging; he always wanted to know what was going to happen, and he was able to follow with the closest attention even the incomprehensible plot of a musical comedy. Nothing bored him. Even the most ingenuous find a little cloying the humours and the harmonies of a Gaiety burlesque; they are like toffee and butterscotch, delicacies for which we cannot understand our youthful craving. Bertha had learnt something of music in lands where it is cultivated as a pleasure rather than as a duty, and the popular melodies with obvious refrains sent cold shivers down her back; but they stirred Craddock to the depths of his soul. He beat time to the swinging, vulgar tunes, and his face was transfigured when the band played a patriotic march with a great braying of brass and beating of drums. He whistled and hummed it for days afterwards. “I love music,” he told Bertha in the entracte. “Don’t you?”
With a tender smile she confessed she did, and for fear of hurting Edward’s feelings did not suggest that the music in question made her almost vomit. What mattered it if his taste in that respect were not beyond reproach; after all there was something to be said for the honest, homely melodies that touched the people’s heart. It is only by a convention that the Pastoral Symphony is thought better art than Tarara-boom-deay. Perhaps, in two or three hundred years, when everything is done by electricity and every one is equal, when we are all happy socialists, with good educations and better morals, Beethoven’s complexity will be like a mass of wickedness, and only the plain, honest homeliness of the comic song will appeal to our simple feelings.
“When we get home,” said Craddock, “I want you to play to me; I’m so fond of it.”
“I shall love to,” she murmured. She thought of the long winter evenings which they would spend at the piano, her husband by her side to turn the leaves, while to his astonished ears she unfolded the manifold riches of the great composers. She was convinced that his taste was really excellent.
“I have lots of music that my mother used to play,” he said. “By Jove, I shall like to hear it again—some of those old tunes I can never hear often enough—The Last Rose of Summer, and Home, Sweet Home, and a lot more like that.”
“By Jove, that show was ripping,” said Craddock, when they were having supper; “I should like to see it again before we go back.”
“We’ll do whatever you like, my dearest.”
“I think an evening like that does you good. It bucks me up; doesn’t it you?”
“It does me good to see you amused,” replied Bertha, diplomatically.
The performance had appeared to her vulgar, but in the face of her husband’s enthusiasm she could only accuse herself of a ridiculous squeamishness. Why should she set herself up as a judge of these things? Was it not somewhat vulgar to find vulgarity in what gave such pleasure to the unsophisticated? She was like the nouveau riche who is distressed at the universal lack of gentility; but she was tired of analysis and subtlety, and all the concomitants of decadent civilisation.
“For goodness’s sake,” she thought, “let us be simple and easily amused.”
She remembered the four young ladies who had appeared in flesh-coloured tights and nothing else worth mentioning, and danced a singularly ungraceful jig, which the audience, in its delight, had insisted on having twice repeated.
With no business to do and no friends to visit, there is some difficulty in knowing how to spend one’s time in London. Bertha would have been content to sit all day with Edward in the private sitting-room, contemplating him and her extreme felicity. But Craddock had the fine energy of the Anglo-Saxon race, that desire to be always doing something which has made the English athletes, and missionaries, and members of Parliament.
After his first mouthful of breakfast he invariably asked, “What shall we do to-day?” And Bertha ransacked her brain and a Baedeker to find sights to visit, for to treat London as a foreign town and systematically to explore it was their only resource. They went to the Tower of London and gaped at the crowns and sceptres, at the insignia of the various orders; to Westminster Abbey and joined the party of Americans and country folk who were being driven hither and thither by a black-robed verger; they visited the tombs of the kings and saw everything which it was their duty to see. Bertha developed a fine enthusiasm for the antiquities of London; she quite enjoyed the sensations of bovine ignorance with which the Cook’s tourist surrenders himself into the hands of a custodian, looking as he is told and swallowing with open mouth the most unreliable information. Feeling herself more stupid, Bertha was conscious of a closer connection with her fellow-men. Edward did not like all things in an equal degree; pictures bored him (they were the only things that really did), and their visit to the National Gallery was not a success. Neither did the British Museum meet with his approval; for one thing, he had great difficulty in directing Bertha’s attention so that her eyes should not wander to various naked statues which are exhibited there with no regard at all for the susceptibilities of modest persons. Once she stopped in front of a group that some shields and swords quite inadequately clothed, and remarked on their beauty. Edward looked about uneasily to see whether any one noticed them, and agreeing briefly that they were fine figures, moved rapidly away to some less questionable object.
“I can’t stand all this rot,” he said, when they stood opposite the three goddesses of the Parthenon; “I wouldn’t give twopence to come to this place again.”
Bertha felt somewhat ashamed that she had a sneaking admiration for the statues in question.
“Now tell me,” he said, “where is the beauty of those creatures without any heads?”
Bertha could not tell him, and he was triumphant. He was a dear, good boy and she loved him with all her heart!
The Natural History Museum, on the other hand, aroused Craddock to great enthusiasm. Here he was quite at home; no improprieties were there from which he must keep his wife, and animals were the sort of things that any man could understand. But they brought back to him strongly the country of East Kent and the life which it pleased him most to lead. London was all very well, but he did not feel at home, and it was beginning to pall upon him. Bertha also began talking of home and of Court Leys; she had always lived more in the future than in the present, and even in this, the time of her greatest happiness, looked forward to the days to come at Leanham, when complete felicity would indeed be hers.
She was contented enough now—it was only the eighth day of her married life, but she ardently wished to settle down and satisfy all her anticipations. They talked of the alterations they must make in the house, Craddock had already plans for putting the park in order, for taking over the Home Farm and working it himself.
“I wish we were home,” said Bertha. “I’m sick of London.”
“I don’t think I should mind much if we’d got to the end of our fortnight,” he replied.
Craddock had arranged with himself to stay in town fourteen days, and he could not alter his mind. It made him uncomfortable to change his plans and think out something new; he prided himself, moreover, on always doing the thing he had determined.
But a letter came from Miss Ley announcing that she had packed her trunks and was starting for the continent.
“Oughtn’t we to ask her to stay on?” said Craddock. “It seems a bit rough to turn her out so quickly.”
“You don’t want to have her live with us, do you?” asked Bertha, in some dismay.
“No, rather not; but I don’t see why you should pack her off like a servant with a month’s notice.”
“Oh, I’ll ask her to stay,” said Bertha, anxious to obey her husband’s smallest wish; and obedience was easy, for she knew that Miss Ley would never dream of accepting the offer.
Bertha wished to see no one just then, least of all her aunt, feeling confusedly that her bliss would be diminished by the intrusion of an actor in her old life. Her emotions also were too intense for concealment, and she would have been ashamed to display them to Miss Ley’s critical instinct. Bertha saw only discomfort in meeting the elder lady, with her calm irony and polite contempt for the things which on her husband’s account Bertha most sincerely cherished.
But Miss Ley’s reply showed perhaps that she guessed her niece’s thoughts better than Bertha had given her credit for.
My dearest Bertha,—I am much obliged to your husband for his politeness in asking me to stay at Court Leys; but I flatter myself you have too high an opinion of me to think me capable of accepting. Newly married people offer much matter for ridicule (which, they say, is the noblest characteristic of man, being the only one that distinguishes him from the brutes); but since I am a peculiarly self-denying creature, I do not avail-myself of the opportunity. Perhaps in a year you will have begun to see one another’s imperfections and then, though less amusing, you will be more interesting. No, I am going to Italy—to hurl myself once more into that sea of pensions and second-rate hotels, wherein it is the fate of single women, with moderate incomes, to spend their lives; and I am taking with me a Baedeker, so that if ever I am inclined to think myself less foolish than the average man I may look upon its red cover and remember that I am but human. By the way, I hope do not show your correspondence to your husband, least of all mine. A man can never understand a woman’s epistolary communications, for he reads them with his own simple alphabet of twenty-six letters, whereas he requires one of at least fifty-two; and even that is little. It is madness for a happy pair to pretend to have no secrets from one another: it leads them into so much deception. If, however, as I suspect, you think it your duty to show Edward this note of mine, he will perhaps find it not unuseful for the elucidation of my character, in the study of which I myself have spent many entertaining years.
I give you no address so that you may not be in want of an excuse to leave this letter unanswered.—Your affectionate Aunt,
Mary Ley.
Bertha impatiently tossed the letter to Edward.
“What does she mean?” he asked, when he had read it.
Bertha shrugged her shoulders. “She believes in nothing but the stupidity of other people.... Poor woman, she has never been in love! But we won’t have any secrets from one another, Eddie. I know that you will never hide anything from me, and I—What can I do that is not at your telling?”
“It’s a funny letter,” he replied, looking at it again.
“But we’re free now, darling,” she said. “The house is ready for us; shall we go at once?”
“But we haven’t been here a fortnight yet,” he objected.
“What does it matter? We’re both sick of London; let us go home and start our life. We’re going to lead it for the rest of our days, so we’d better begin it quickly. Honeymoons are stupid things.”
“Well, I don’t mind. By Jove, fancy if we’d gone to Italy for six weeks.”
“Oh, I didn’t know what a honeymoon was like. I think I imagined something quite different.”
“You see I was right, wasn’t I?”
“Of course you were right,” she answered, flinging her arms round his neck; “you’re always right, my darling.... Ah! you can’t think how I love you.”
THE Kentish coast is bleak and grey between Leanham and Blackstable; through the long winter months the winds of the North Sea sweep down upon it, bowing the trees before them; and from the murky waters perpetually arise the clouds, and roll up in heavy banks. It is a country that offers those who live there, what they give: sometimes the sombre colours and the silent sea express only restfulness and peace; sometimes the chill breezes send the blood racing through the veins; but also the solitude can answer the deepest melancholy, or the cheerless sky a misery which is more terrible than death. The moment’s mood seems always reproduced in the surrounding scenes, and in them may be found, as it were, a synthesis of the emotions. Bertha stood upon the high road which ran past Court Leys, and from the height looked down upon the lands which were hers. Close at hand the only habitations were a pair of humble cottages, from which time and rough weather had almost effaced the obtrusiveness of human handiwork. They stood away from the road, among fruit trees—a part of nature and not a blot upon it, as Court Leys had never ceased to be. All around were fields, great stretches of ploughed earth and meadows of coarse herbage. The trees were few, and stood out here and there in the distance, bent before the wind. Beyond was Blackstable, straggling grey houses with a border of new villas built for the Londoners who came in summer; and the sea was dotted with the smacks of the fishing town.
Bertha looked at the scene with sensations that she had never known; the heavy clouds hung above her, shutting out the whole world, and she felt an invisible barrier between herself and all other things. This was the land of her birth out of which she, and her fathers before her, had arisen; they had their day, and one by one returned whence they came and became again united with the earth. She had withdrawn from the pomps and vanities of life to live as her ancestors had lived, ploughing the land, sowing and reaping; but her children, the sons of the future, would belong to a new stock, stronger and fairer than the old. The Leys had gone down into the darkness of death, and her children would bear another name. All these things she gathered out of the brown fields and the grey sea mist. She was a little tired and the physical sensation caused a mental fatigue so that she felt in her suddenly the weariness of a family that had lived too long; she knew she was right to choose new blood to mix with the old blood of the Leys. It needed freshness and youth, the massive strength of her husband, to bring life to the decayed race. Her thoughts wandered to her father, the dilettante who wandered through Italy in search of beautiful things and emotions which his native country could not give him; of Miss Ley, whose attitude towards life was a shrug of the shoulders and a well-bred smile of contempt. Was not she, the last of them, wise? Feeling herself too weak to stand alone, she had taken a mate whose will and vitality would be a pillar of strength to her defaillance: her husband had still in his sinews the might of his mother, the Earth, a barbaric power which knew not the subtleties of weakness; he was the conqueror, and she was his handmaiden. But an umbrella was being waved at Mrs. Craddock from the bottom of the hill, and she smiled, recognising the masculine walk of Miss Glover.
Even from a distance the maiden’s determination and strength of mind were apparent; she approached, her face redder even than usual after the climb, encased in the braided jacket that fitted her as severely as sardines are fitted in their tin.
“I was coming to see you, Bertha,” she cried. “I heard you were back.”
“We’ve been home several days, getting to rights.”
Miss Clover shook Bertha’s hand with much vigour, and together they walked back to the house, along the avenue bordered with leafless trees.
“Now, do tell me all about your honeymoon, I’m so anxious to hear everything.”
But Bertha was not very communicative, she had an instinctive dislike to telling her private affairs, and never had any overpowering desire for sympathy.
“Oh, I don’t think there’s much to tell,” she answered, when they were in the drawing-room and she was pouring out tea for her guest. “I suppose all honeymoons are more or less alike.”
“You funny girl,” said Miss Glover. “Didn’t you enjoy it?”
“Yes,” said Bertha, with a smile that was almost ecstatic; then after a little pause: “We had a very good time—we went to all the theatres.”
Miss Glover felt that marriage had caused a difference in Bertha, and it made her nervous to realise the change. She looked uneasily at the married woman and occasionally blushed.
“And are you really happy?” she blurted out suddenly. Bertha smiled, and reddening, looked more charming than ever.
“Yes—I think I’m perfectly happy.”
“Aren’t you sure?” asked Miss Glover, who cultivated precision in every part of life and strongly disapproved of persons who did not know their own minds.
Bertha looked at her for a moment, as if considering the question.
“You know,” she answered, at last, “happiness is never quite what one expected it to be. I hardly hoped for so much; but I didn’t imagine it quite like it is.”
“Ah, well, I think it’s better not to go into these things,” replied Miss Glover, a little severely, thinking the suggestion of analysis scarcely suitable in a young married woman. “We ought to take things as they are, and be thankful.”
“Ought we?” said Bertha lightly, “I never do.... I’m never satisfied with what I have.”
They heard the opening of the front door and Bertha jumped up.
“There’s Edward! I must go and see him. You don’t mind, do you?”
She almost skipped out of the room; marriage, curiously enough, had dissipated the gravity of manner which had made people find so little girlishness about her. She seemed younger, lighter of heart.
“What a funny creature she is!” thought Miss Glover. “When she was a girl she had all the ways of a married woman, and now that she’s really married she might be a schoolgirl.”
The parson’s sister was not certain whether the irresponsibility of Bertha was fit to her responsible position, whether her unusual bursts of laughter were proper to a mystic state demanding gravity.
“I hope she’ll turn out all right,” she sighed.
But Bertha impulsively rushed to her husband and kissed him. She helped him off with his coat.
“I’m so glad to see you again,” she cried, laughing a little at her own eagerness; for it was only after luncheon that he had left her.
“Is any one here?” he asked, noticing Miss Glover’s umbrella. He returned his wife’s embrace somewhat mechanically.
“Come and see,” said Bertha, taking his arm and dragging him along. “You must be dying for tea, you poor thing.”
“Miss Glover!” he said, shaking the lady’s hand as energetically as she shook his. “How good of you to come and see us. I am glad to see you. You see we came home sooner than we expected—there’s no place like the country, is there?”
“You’re right there, Mr. Craddock; I can’t bear London.”
“Oh, you don’t know it,” said Bertha; “for you it’s Aerated Bread shops, Exeter Hall, and Church Congresses.”
“Bertha!” cried Edward, in a tone of surprise; he could not understand frivolity with Miss Glover.
That good creature was far to kind-hearted to take offence at any remark of Bertha’s, and smiled grimly: she could smile in no other way.
“Tell me what you did in London. I can’t get anything out of Bertha.”
Craddock’s mind was communicative, nothing pleased him more than to give people information, and he was always ready to share his knowledge with the world at large. He never picked up a fact without rushing to tell it to somebody else. Some persons when they know a thing immediately lose interest and it bores them to discuss it, but Craddock was not of these. Nor could repetition exhaust his eagerness to enlighten his fellows, he would tell an hundred people the news of the day and be as fresh as ever when it came to the hundred and first. Such a characteristic is undoubtedly a gift, useful in the highest degree to schoolmasters and politicians, but slightly tedious to their hearers. Craddock favoured his guest with a detailed account of all their adventures in London, the plays they had seen, the plots thereof and the actors who played them. He gave the complete list of the museums and churches and public buildings they had visited, while Bertha looked at him, smiling happily at his enthusiasm. She cared little what he spoke of, the mere sound of his voice was music in her ears, and she would have listened delightedly while he read aloud from end to end Whitaker’s Almanack: that was a thing, by the way, which he was quite capable of doing. Edward corresponded far more with Miss Glover’s conception of the newly married man than did Bertha with that of the newly married woman.
“He is a nice fellow,” she said to her brother afterwards, when they were eating their supper of cold mutton, solemnly seated at either end of a long table.
“Yes,” answered the Vicar, in his tired, patient voice, “I think he’ll turn out a good husband.”
Mr. Glover was patience itself, which a little irritated Miss Ley, who liked a man of spirit; and of that Mr. Glover had never a grain. He was resigned to everything; he was resigned to his food being badly cooked, to the perversity of human nature, to the existence of dissenters (almost), to his infinitesimal salary; he was resignation driven to death. Miss Ley said he was like those Spanish donkeys that one sees plodding along in a string, listlessly bearing over-heavy loads—patient, patient, patient. But not so patient as Mr. Glover; the donkey sometimes kicked, the Vicar of Leanham never.
“I do hope it will turn out well, Charles,” said Miss Glover.
“I hope it will,” he answered; then after a pause: “Did you ask them if they were coming to church to-morrow?” He helped himself to mashed potatoes, noticing long-sufferingly that they were burnt again; the potatoes were always burnt, but he made no comment.
“Oh, I quite forgot,” said his sister, answering the question. “But I think they’re sure to. Edward Craddock was always a regular attendant.”
Mr. Glover made no reply, and they kept silence for the rest of the meal. Immediately afterwards the parson went into his study to finish the morrow’s sermon, and Miss Glover took out of her basket her brother’s woollen socks and began to darn them. She worked for more than an hour, thinking meanwhile of the Craddocks; she liked Edward better and better each time she saw him, and she felt he was a man who could be trusted. She upbraided herself a little for her disapproval of the marriage; her action was unchristian, and she asked herself whether it was not her duty to apologise to Bertha or to Craddock; the thought of doing something humiliating to her own self-respect attracted her wonderfully. But Bertha was different from other girls; Miss Glover, thinking of her, grew confused.
But a tick of the clock to announce an hour about to strike made her look up, and she saw it wanted but five minutes to ten.
“I had no idea it was so late.”
She got up and tidily put away her work, then taking from the top of the harmonium the Bible and the big prayer-book which were upon it, placed them at the end of the table. She drew forward a chair for her brother, and sat patiently to await his coming. As the clock struck she heard the study door open, and the Vicar walked in. Without a word he went to the books, and sitting down, found his place in the Bible.
“Are you ready?” she asked.
He looked up one moment over his spectacles. “Yes.”
Miss Glover leant forward and rang the bell—the servant appeared with a basket of eggs, which she placed on the table. Mr. Glover looked at her till she was settled on her chair, and began the lesson. Afterwards the servant lit two candles and bade them good-night. Miss Glover counted the eggs.
“How many are there to-day?” asked the parson.
“Seven,” she answered, dating them one by one, and entering the number in a book kept for the purpose.
“Are you ready?” now asked Mr. Glover.
“Yes, Charles,” she said, taking one of the candles.
He put out the lamp, and with the other candle followed her upstairs. She stopped outside her door and bade him good-night; he kissed her coldly on the forehead and they went into their respective rooms.
There is always a certain flurry in a country-house on Sunday morning. There is in the air a feeling peculiar to the day, a state of alertness and expectation; for even when they are repeated for years, week by week, the preparations for church cannot be taken coolly. The odour of clean linen is unmistakable, every one is highly starched and somewhat ill-at-ease; the members of the household ask one another if they’re ready, they hunt for prayer-books; the ladies are never dressed in time and sally out at last, buttoning their gloves; the men stamp and fume and take out their watches. Edward, of course, wore a tail-coat and a top-hat, which is quite the proper costume for the squire to go to church in, and no one gave more thought to the proprieties than Edward. He held himself very upright, cultivating the slightly self-conscious gravity considered fit to the occasion.
“We shall be late, Bertha,” he said. “It will look so bad—the first time we come to church since our marriage, too.”
“My dear,” said Bertha, “you may be quite certain that even if Mr. Glover is so indiscreet as to start, for the congregation the ceremony will not really begin till we appear.”
They drove up in an old-fashioned brougham used only for going to church and to dinner-parties, and the word was immediately passed by the loungers at the porch to the devout within; there was a rustle of attention as Mr. and Mrs. Craddock walked up the aisle to the front pew which was theirs by right.
“He looks at home, don’t he?” murmured the natives, for the behaviour of Edward interested them more than that of his wife, who was sufficiently above them to be almost a stranger.
Bertha sailed up with a royal unconsciousness of the eyes upon her; she was pleased with her personal appearance, and intensely proud of her good-looking husband. Mrs. Branderton, the mother of Craddock’s best man, fixed her eye-glass upon her and stared as is the custom of great ladies in the suburbs. Mrs. Branderton was a woman who cultivated the mode in the depths of the country, a little, giggling, grey-haired creature who talked stupidly in a high, cracked voice and had her too juvenile bonnets straight from Paris. She was a gentlewoman, and this, of course, is a very fine thing to be. She was proud of it (in quite a nice way), and in the habit of saying that gentlefolk were gentlefolk; which, if you come to think of it, is a most profound remark.
“I mean to go and speak to the Craddocks afterwards,” she whispered to her son. “It will have a good effect on the Leanham people; I wonder if poor Bertha feels it yet.”
Mrs. Branderton had a self-importance which was almost sublime; it never occurred to her that there might be persons sufficiently ill-conditioned as to resent her patronage. She did it all in kindness—she showered advice upon all and sundry, besides soups and jellies upon the poor, to whom when they were ill she even sent her cook to read the Bible. She would have gone herself, only she strongly disapproved of familiarity with the lower classes, which made them independent and often rude. Mrs. Branderton knew without possibility of question that she and her equals were made of different clay from common folk; but, being a gentlewoman, did not throw this fact in the latters’ faces, unless, of course, they gave themselves airs, when she thought a straight talking-to did them good. Without any striking advantages of birth, money, or intelligence, Mrs. Branderton never doubted her right to direct the affairs and fashions, even the modes of thought of her neighbours; and by sheer force of self-esteem had caused them to submit for thirty years to her tyranny, hating her and yet looking upon her invitations to a bad dinner, as something quite desirable.
Mrs. Branderton had debated with herself how she should treat the Craddocks.
“I wonder if it’s my duty to cut them,” she said. “Edward Craddock is not the sort of man a Miss Ley ought to marry. But there are so few gentlefolk in the neighbourhood, and of course people do make marriages which they wouldn’t have dreamed of twenty years ago. Even the best society is very mixed nowadays. Perhaps I’d better err on the side of mercy!”
Mrs. Branderton was a little pleased to think that the Leys required her support—as was proved by the request of her son’s services at the wedding.
“The fact is gentlefolk are gentlefolk, and they must stand by one another in these days of pork-butchers and furniture people.”
After the service, when the parishioners were standing about the churchyard, Mrs. Branderton sailed up to the Craddocks followed by Arthur, and in her high, cracked voice began to talk with Edward. She kept an eye on the Leanham people to see that her action was being duly noticed, speaking to Craddock in the manner a gentlewoman should adopt with a man whose gentility was a little doubtful. Of course he was very much pleased and flattered.
SOME days later, after the due preliminaries which Mrs. Branderton would on no account have neglected, the Craddocks received an invitation to dinner. Bertha silently passed it to her husband.
“I wonder who she’ll ask to meet us,” he said.
“D’you want to go?” asked Bertha.
“Why, don’t you? We’ve got no engagement, have we?”
“Have you ever dined there before?” said Bertha.
“No. I’ve been to tennis-parties and that sort of thing, but I’ve hardly set foot inside their house.”
“Well, I think it’s an impertinence of her to ask you now.”
Edward opened his mouth wide: “What on earth d’you mean?”
“Oh, don’t you see?” cried his wife, “they’re merely asking you because you’re my husband. It’s humiliating.”
“Nonsense!” replied Edward, laughing. “And if they are, what do I care?—I’m not so thin-skinned as that. Mrs. Branderton was very nice to me the other Sunday; it would be funny if we didn’t accept.”
“Did you think she was nice? Didn’t you see that she was patronising you as if you were a groom. It made me boil with rage. I could hardly hold my tongue.”
Edward laughed again. “I never noticed anything. It’s just your fancy, Bertha.”
“I’m not going to her horrid dinner-party.”
“Then I shall go by myself,” he replied, laughing.
Bertha turned white; it was as if she had received a sudden blow; but he was laughing, of course he did not mean what he said. She hurriedly agreed to all he asked.
“Of course if you want to go, Eddie, I’ll come too.... It was only for your sake that I did not wish to.”
“We must be neighbourly. I want to be friends with everybody.”
She sat on the side of his chair, putting her arm round his neck. Edward patted her hand and she looked at him with eyes full of eager love, she bent down and kissed his hair. How foolish had been her sudden thought that he did not love her!
But Bertha had another reason for not wishing to go to Mrs. Branderton. She knew Edward would be bitterly criticised, and the thought made her wretched; they would talk of his appearance and manner, and wonder how they got on together. Bertha understood well enough the position Edward occupied in Leanham; the Brandertons and their like, knowing him all his life, had treated him as a mere acquaintance: for them he had been a person to whom you are civil, and that is all. This was the first occasion upon which he had been dealt with entirely as an equal; it was his introduction into what Mrs. Branderton was pleased to call the upper ten of Leanham. It did indeed make Bertha’s blood boil; and it cut her to the heart to think that for years he had been used in so infamous a fashion: he did not seem to mind.
“If I were he,” she said, “I’d rather die than go. They’ve ignored him always, and now they take him up as a favour to me.”
But Edward appeared to have no pride; of course his character was charming, and he could bear ill will to no one. He neither resented the former neglect of the Brandertons nor their present impertinence.
“I wish I could make him understand.”
Bertha passed the intervening week in a tremor of anxiety. She divined who the other guests would be. Would they laugh at him? Of course not openly; Mrs. Branderton, the least charitable of them all, prided herself upon her breeding; but Edward was shy, and among strangers awkward. To Bertha this was a charm rather than a defect; his half-bashful candour touched her, and she compared it favourably with the foolish worldliness of the imaginary man-about-town, whose dissipations she always opposed to her husband’s virtues. But she knew that a spiteful tongue would find another name for what she called a delightful naïveté.
When at last the great day arrived, and they trundled off in the old-fashioned brougham, Bertha was thoroughly prepared to take mortal offence at the merest shadow of a slight offered to her husband. The Lord Chief Justice himself could not have been more careful of a company promoter’s fair name than was Mrs. Craddock of her husband’s susceptibilities; Edward, like the financier, treated the affair with indifference.
Mrs. Branderton had routed out the whole countryside for her show of gentlefolk. They had come from Blackstable and Tercanbury and Faversley, and from the seats and mansions which surrounded those places. Mrs. Mayston Ryle was there in a wonderful jete-black wig, and a voluminous dress of violet silk. Lady Wagget was there.
“Merely the widow of a city knight, my dear,” said the hostess to Bertha, “but if she isn’t distinguished, she’s good; so one mustn’t be too hard upon her.”
General Hancock arrived with two fuzzy-haired daughters, who were dreadfully plain, but pretended not to know it. They had walked; and while the soldier toddled in, blowing like a grampus, the girls (whose united ages made the respectable total of sixty-five years) stayed behind to remove their boots and put on the shoes which they had brought in a bag. Then, in a little while, came the Dean, meek and somewhat talkative; Mr. Glover had been invited for his sake, and of course Charles’ sister could not be omitted. She was looking almost festive in very shiny black satin.
“Poor dear,” said Mrs. Branderton to another guest, “it’s her only dinner dress; I’ve seen it for years. I’d willingly give her one of my old ones, only I’m afraid I should offend her by offering it. People in that class are so ridiculously sensitive.”
Mr. Atthill Bacot was announced; he had once contested the seat, and ever after been regarded as an authority upon the nation’s affairs. Mr. James Lycett and Mr. Molson came next, both red-faced squires with dogmatic opinions; they were alike as two peas, and it had been the local joke for thirty years that no one but their wives could tell them apart. Mrs. Lycett was thin and quiet and staid, wearing two little strips of lace on her hair to represent a cap; Mrs. Molson was so insignificant that no one had ever noticed what she was like. It was one of Mrs. Branderton’s representative gatherings; moral excellence was joined to perfect gentility and the result could not fail to edify. She was herself in high spirits and her cracked voice rang high and shrill. She was conscious of a successful costume; she really had much taste, and her frock would have looked charming on a woman half her age. Thinking also that it was part of woman’s duty to be amiable, Mrs. Branderton smiled and ogled at the old gentlemen in a way that quite alarmed them, and Mr. Atthill Bacot really thought she had designs upon his virtue.
The dinner just missed being eatable. Mrs. Branderton was a woman of fashion and disdained the solid fare of a country dinner-party—thick soup, fried soles, mutton cutlets, roast mutton, pheasant, Charlotte russe, and jellies. (The earlier dishes are variable according to season, but the Charlotte russe and the jelly are inevitable.) No, Mrs. Branderton said she must be a little more “distangay” than that, and provided her guests with clear soup, entrees from the Stores, a fluffy sweet which looked pretty and tasted horrid. The feast was extremely elegant, but it was not filling, which is unpleasant to elderly squires with large appetites.
“I never get enough to eat at the Brandertons,” said Mr. Atthill Bacot, indignantly.
“Well, I know the old woman,” replied Mr. Molson. Mrs. Branderton was the same age as himself, but he was rather a dog, and thought himself quite young enough to flirt with the least plain of the two Miss Hancocks. “I know her well, and I make a point of drinking a glass of sherry with a couple of eggs beaten up in it before I come.”
“The wines are positively immoral,” said Mrs. Mayston Ryle, who prided herself on her palate. “I’m always inclined to bring with me a flask with a little good whisky in it.”
But if the food was not heavy the conversation was. It is an axiom of narration that truth should coincide with probability, and the realist is perpetually hampered by the wild exaggeration of actual facts; a verbatim report of the conversation at Mrs. Branderton’s dinner-party would read like a shrieking caricature. The anecdote reigned supreme. Mrs. Mayston Ryle was a specialist in the clerical anecdote; she successively related the story of Bishop Thorold and his white hands, the story of Bishop Wilberforce and the bloody shovel. (This somewhat shocked the ladies, but Mrs. Mayston Ryle could not spoil her point by the omission of a swear word.) The Dean gave an anecdote about himself, to which Mrs. Mayston Ryle retorted with one about the Archbishop of Canterbury and the tedious curate. Mr. Arthill Bacot gave political anecdotes, Mr. Gladstone and the table of the House of Commons, Dizzy and the agricultural labourer. The climax came when General Hancock gave his celebrated stories about the Duke of Wellington. Edward laughed heartily at them all.
Bertha’s eyes were constantly upon her husband. She detested the thoughts that ran through her head, for that they should come to her at all was disparaging to him; but still she was horribly anxious. Was he not perfect, and handsome, and adorable? Why should she tremble before the opinion of a dozen stupid people? But she could not help it. However much she despised her neighbours, she could not prevent herself from being miserably affected by their judgment. And what did Edward feel? Was he as nervous as she? She could not bear the thought that he should suffer pain. It was an immense relief when Mrs. Branderton rose from the table. Bertha looked at Arthur holding open the door; she would have given anything to ask him to look after Edward, but dared not. She was terrified lest, to his humiliation, those old squires should pointedly ignore him.
On reaching the drawing-room Miss Glover found herself by Bertha’s side, a little separated from the others, and the accident seemed designed by higher powers to give her an opportunity for the amends which she felt it her duty to make Mrs. Craddock for her former disparagement of Edward. She had been thinking the matter over, and considered an apology distinctly needful. But Miss Glover suffered terribly from nervousness, and the idea of broaching so delicate a subject caused her indescribable torture; yet the very unpleasantness of it reassured her, if speech was so disagreeable, it must obviously be her duty. But the words stuck in her throat, and she began talking of the weather. She reproached herself for cowardice; she set her teeth and grew scarlet.
“Bertha, I want to beg your pardon,” she blurted out suddenly.
“What on earth for?” Bertha opened her eyes wide and looked at the poor woman with astonishment.
“I feel I’ve been unjust to your husband. I thought he wasn’t a proper match for you, and I said things about him which I shouldn’t even have thought. I’m very sorry. He’s one of the best and kindest men I’ve ever seen, and I’m very glad you married him, and I’m sure you’ll be very happy.”
Tears came to Bertha’s eyes as she laughed; she felt inclined to throw her arms round the grim Miss Glover’s neck, for such a speech at that moment was very comforting.
“Of course I know you didn’t mean what you said.”
“Oh yes, I did, I’m sorry to say,” replied Miss Glover, who could allow no extenuation to her own crime.
“I’d quite forgotten all about it; and I believe you’ll soon be as madly in love with Edward as I am.”
“My dear Bertha,” replied Miss Glover, who never jested, “with your husband? You must be joking.”
But Mrs. Branderton interrupted them with her high voice.
“Bertha, dear, I want to talk to you.” Bertha, smiling, sat down beside her, and Mrs. Branderton proceeded in undertones.
“I must tell you, every one has been saying you’re the handsomest couple in the county, and we all think your husband is so nice.”
“He laughed at all your jokes,” replied Bertha.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Branderton, looking upwards and sideways like a canary, “he has such a merry disposition. But I’ve always liked him, dear. I was telling Mrs. Mayston Ryle that I’ve known him intimately ever since he was born. I thought it would please you to know that we all think your husband is nice.”
“I’m very much pleased. I hope Edward will be equally satisfied with all of you.”
The Craddock’s carriage came early, and Bertha offered to drive the Glovers home.
“I wonder if that lady has swallowed a poker,” said Mr. Molson, as soon as the drawing-room door was closed.
The two Miss Hancocks went into shrieks of laughter at this sally, and even the Dean smiled gently.
“Where did she get her diamonds from?” said the elder Miss Hancock. “I thought they were as poor as church mice.”
“The diamonds and the pictures are the only things they have left,” said Mrs. Branderton; “her family always refused to sell them; though, of course, it’s absurd for people in that position to have such jewels.”
“He’s a remarkably nice fellow,” said Mrs. Mayston Ryle in her deep, authoritative voice; “but I agree with Mr. Molson, she’s distinctly inclined to give herself airs.”
“The Leys for generations have been as proud as turkey-cocks,” added Mrs. Branderton.
“I shouldn’t have thought Mrs. Craddock had much to be proud of now, at all events,” said the elder Miss Hancock; she had no ancestors herself, and thought people who had were snobs.
“Perhaps she was a little nervous,” said Lady Waggett, who, though not distinguished, was good. “I know when I was a bride I used to be all of a tremble when I went to dinner-parties.”
“Nonsense,” said Mrs. Mayston Ryle. “She was extremely self-possessed; I don’t think it looks well for a young woman to have so much assurance. And I think she ought to be told that it’s hardly well bred for a young married woman to leave a house before anybody else as if she were royalty, when there are present women of a certain age and of a position undoubtedly not inferior to her own.”
“Oh, they’re so newly married they like to be alone, poor things,” said Lady Waggett. “I know I used to when I was first married to Sir Samuel.”
“My dear Lady Waggett,” answered Mrs. Mayston Ryle in tones of thunder, “the cases are not similar; Mrs. Craddock was a Miss Ley, and really should know something of the usages of good society.”
“Well, what do you think she said to me?” said Mrs. Branderton, waving her thin arms. “I was telling her that we were all so pleased with her husband—I thought it would comfort her a little, poor thing—and she said she hoped he would be equally satisfied with us.”
Mrs. Mayston Ryle for a moment was stupefied, but soon recovered.
“How very amusing,” she cried, rising from her chair. “Ha! ha! She hopes Mr. Edward Craddock will be satisfied with Mrs. Mayston Ryle.”
The two Miss Hancocks said “Ha! ha!” in chorus. Then, the great lady’s carriage being announced, she bade the assembly good-night, and swept out with a great rustling of her violet silk. The party might now really be looked upon as concluded, and the others obediently flocked off.
When they had put the Glovers down, Bertha nestled close to her husband.
“I’m so glad it’s all over,” she whispered; “I’m only happy when I’m alone with you.”
“It was a jolly evening, wasn’t it,” he said. “I thought they were all ripping.”
“I’m so glad you enjoyed it, dear; I was afraid you’d be bored.”
“Good heavens, that’s the last thing I should be. It does one good to hear conversation like that now and then—it brightens one up.”
Bertha started a little.
“Old Bacot is a very well informed man, isn’t he? I shouldn’t wonder if he was right in thinking that the government would go out at the end of their six years.”
“He always leads one to believe that he’s in the Prime Minister’s confidence,” said Bertha.
“And the General is a funny old chap,” added Edward. “That was a good story he told about the Duke of Wellington.”
Somehow this remark had a curious effect upon Bertha; she could not restrain herself, but burst suddenly into shrieks of hysterical laughter. Her husband, thinking she was laughing at the anecdote, burst also into peal upon peal.
“And the story about the Bishop’s gaiters!” cried Edward, shouting with merriment.
The more he laughed, the more hysterical became Bertha; and as they drove through the silent night they screamed and yelled and shook with uncontrollable mirth.