BUT the love which had taken such despotic possession of Bertha’s nature could not be overthrown by any sudden means. When she recovered her health and was able to resume her habits, it blazed out again like a fire, momentarily subdued, which has gained new strength in its coercion. It dismayed her to think of her extreme loneliness; Edward was now her only mainstay and her only hope. She no longer sought to deny that his love was unlike hers; but his coldness was not always apparent; vehemently wishing to find a response to her ardour, she closed her eyes to all that did not too readily obtrude itself. She had such a consuming desire to find in Edward the lover of her dreams, that for certain periods she was indeed able to live in a fool’s paradise, which was none the less grateful because at the bottom of her heart she had an aching suspicion of its true character.
But it seemed that the more passionately Bertha yearned for her husband’s love, the more frequent became their differences. As time went on the calm between the storms was shorter, and every quarrel left its mark, and made Bertha more susceptible to affront. Realizing, finally, that Edward could not answer her demonstrations of affection, she became ten times more exacting; even the little tendernesses which at the beginning of her married life would have overjoyed her, now too much resembled alms thrown to an importunate beggar, to be received with anything but irritation. Their altercations proved conclusively that it does not require two persons to make a quarrel. Edward was a model of good-temper, and his equanimity was imperturbable. However cross Bertha was, Edward never lost his serenity. He imagined that she was troubling over the loss of her child, and that her health was not entirely restored: it had been his experience, especially with cows, that a difficult confinement frequently gave rise to some temporary change in disposition, so that the most docile animal in the world would suddenly develop an unexpected viciousness. He never tried to understand Bertha’s varied moods; her passionate desire for love was to him as unreasonable as her outbursts of temper and the succeeding contrition. Now, Edward was always the same—contented equally with the universe at large and with himself; there was no shadow of a doubt about the fact that the world he lived in, the particular spot and period, were the very best possible; and that no existence could be more satisfactory than happily to cultivate one’s garden. Not being analytic, he forbore to think about the matter; and if he had, would not have borrowed the phrases of M. de Voltaire, whom he had never heard of, and would have utterly abhorred as a Frenchman, a philosopher, and a wit. But the fact that Edward ate, drank, slept, and ate again, as regularly as the oxen on his farm, sufficiently proved that he enjoyed a happiness equal to theirs—and what more can a decent man want?
Edward had moreover that magnificent faculty of always doing right and of knowing it, which is said to be the most inestimable gift of the true Christian; but if his infallibility pleased himself and edified his neighbours, it did not fail to cause his wife the utmost annoyance. She would clench her hands and from her eyes shoot arrows of fire, when he stood in front of her, smilingly conscious of the justice of his own standpoint and the unreason of hers. And the worst of it was that in her saner moments Bertha had to confess that Edward’s view was invariably right and she completely in the wrong. Her injustice appalled her, and she took upon her own shoulders the blame of all their unhappiness. Always, after a quarrel from which Edward had come with his usual triumph, Bertha’s rage would be succeeded by a passion of remorse; and she could not find sufficient reproaches with which to castigate herself. She asked frantically how her husband could be expected to love her; and in a transport of agony and fear would take the first opportunity of throwing her arms around his neck and making the most abject apology. Then, having eaten the dust before him, having wept and humiliated herself, she would be for a week absurdly happy, under the impression that henceforward nothing short of an earthquake could disturb their blissful equilibrium. Edward was again the golden idol, clothed in the diaphanous garments of true love, his word was law and his deeds were perfect; Bertha was an humble worshipper, offering incense and devoutly grateful to the deity that forbore to crush her. It required very little for her to forget the slights and the coldness of her husband’s affection: her love was like the tide covering a barren rock; the sea breaks into waves and is dispersed in foam, while the rock remains ever unchanged. This simile, by the way, would not have displeased Edward; when he thought at all, he liked to think how firm and steadfast he was.
At night, before going to sleep, it was Bertha’s greatest pleasure to kiss her husband on the lips, and it mortified her to see how mechanically he replied to this embrace. It was always she who had to make the advance, and when, to try him, she omitted to do so, he promptly went off to sleep without even bidding her good-night. Then she told herself that he must utterly despise her.
“Oh, it drives me mad to think of the devotion I waste on you,” she cried. “I’m a fool! You are all in the world to me, and I, to you, am a sort of accident: you might have married any one but me. If I hadn’t come across your path you would infallibly have married somebody else.”
“Well, so would you,” he answered, laughing.
“I? Never! If I had not met you I should have married no one. My love isn’t a bauble that I am willing to give to whomever chance throws in my way. My heart is one and indivisible; it would be impossible for me to love any one but you.... When I think that to you I’m nothing more than any other woman might be, I’m ashamed.”
“You do talk the most awful rot sometimes.”
“Ah, that summarises your whole opinion. To you I’m merely a fool of a woman. I’m a domestic animal, a little more companionable than a dog, but on the whole, not so useful as a cow.”
“I don’t know what you want me to do more than I actually do. You can’t expect me to be kissing and cuddling all the time. The honeymoon is meant for that, and a man who goes on honeymooning all his life, is an ass.”
“Ah yes, with you love is kept out of sight all day, while you are occupied with the serious affairs of life, such as shearing sheep or hunting foxes; and after dinner it arises in your bosom, especially if you’ve had good things to eat, and is indistinguishable from the process of digestion. But for me love is everything, the cause and reason of life. Without love I should be non-existent.”
“Well, you may love me,” said Edward, “but, by Jove, you’ve got a jolly funny way of showing it.... But as far as I’m concerned, if you’ll tell me what you want me to do, I’ll try and do it.”
“Oh, how can I tell you?” she cried, impatiently. “I do everything I can to make you love me and I can’t. If you’re a stock and a stone, how can I teach you to be the passionate lover? I want you to love me as I love you.”
“Well, if you ask me for my opinion I should say it was rather a good job I don’t. Why, the furniture would be smashed up in a week, if I were as violent as you.”
“I shouldn’t mind if you were violent if you loved me,” replied Bertha, taking his remark with vehement seriousness. “I shouldn’t care if you beat me; I should not mind how much you hurt me, if you did it because you loved me.”
“I think a week of it would about sicken you of that sort of love, my dear.”
“Anything would be preferable to your indifference.”
“But God bless my soul, I’m not indifferent. Any one would think I didn’t care for you—or was gone on some other woman.”
“I almost wish you were,” answered Bertha. “If you loved any one at all, I might have some hope of gaining your affection—but you’re incapable of love.”
“I don’t know about that. I can say truly that after God and my honour, I treasure nothing in the world so much as you.”
“You’ve forgotten your hunter,” cried Bertha, scornfully.
“No, I haven’t,” answered Edward, with a certain gravity.
“What do you think I care for a position like that? You acknowledge that I am third—I would as soon be nowhere.”
“I could not love you half so much, loved I not honour more,” misquoted Edward.
“The man was a prig who wrote that. I want to be placed above your God and above your honour. The love I want is the love of the man who will lose everything, even his own soul, for the sake of a woman.”
Edward shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know where you’ll get that. My idea of love is that it’s a very good thing in its place—but there’s a limit to everything. There are other things in life.”
“Oh yes, I know—there’s duty and honour, and the farm, and fox-hunting, and the opinion of one’s neighbours, and the dogs and the cat, and the new brougham, and a million other things.... What do you suppose you’d do if I had committed some crime and were likely to be imprisoned?”
“I don’t want to suppose anything of the sort. You may be sure I’d do my duty.”
“Oh, I’m sick of your duty. You din it into my ears morning, noon, and night. I wish to God you weren’t so virtuous—you might be more human.”
Edward found his wife’s behaviour so extraordinary that he consulted Dr. Ramsay. The medical man had been for thirty years the recipient of marital confidences, and was sceptical as to the value of medicine in the cure of jealousy, talkativeness, incompatibility of temper, and the like diseases. He assured Edward that time was the only remedy by which all differences were reconciled; but after further pressing consented to send Bertha a bottle of harmless tonic, which it was his habit to give to all and sundry for most of the ills to which the flesh is heir. It would doubtless do Bertha no harm, and that is an important consideration to a general practitioner. Dr. Ramsay likewise advised Edward to keep calm and be confident that Bertha would eventually become the dutiful and submissive spouse whom it is every man’s ideal to see by his fireside, when he wakes up from his after-dinner snooze.
Bertha’s moods were certainly trying. No one could tell one day, how she would be the next; and this was peculiarly uncomfortable to a man who was willing to make the best of everything, but on the condition that he had time to get used to it. Sometimes she would be seized with melancholy, in the twilight of winter afternoons, for instance, when the mind is naturally led to a contemplation of the vanity of existence and the futility of all human endeavour. Edward, noticing she was pensive, a state which he detested, asked what were her thoughts; and half dreamily she tried to express them.
“Good Lord deliver us!” he cried cheerily, “what rum things you do get into your little noddle. You must be out of sorts.”
“It isn’t that,” she answered, smiling sadly.
“It’s not natural for a woman to brood in that way. I think you ought to start taking that tonic again—but I dare say you’re only tired and you’ll think quite different in the morning.”
Bertha made no answer. She suffered from the nameless pain of existence and he offered her—Iron and Quinine: when she required sympathy because her heart ached for the woes of her fellow-men, he poured Tincture of Nux Vomica down her throat. He could not understand, it was no use explaining that she found a savour in the tender contemplation of the evils of mankind. But the worst of it was that Edward was quite right—the brute, he always was! When the morning came, the melancholy had vanished, Bertha was left without a care, and the world did not even need rose-coloured spectacles to seem attractive. It was humiliating to find that her most beautiful thoughts, the ennobling emotions which brought home to her the charming fiction that all men are brothers, were due to mere physical exhaustion.
Some people have extraordinarily literal minds, they never allow for the play of imagination: life for them has no beer and skittles, and, far from being an empty dream, is a matter of extreme seriousness. Of such is the man who, when a woman tells him she feels dreadfully old, instead of answering that she looks absurdly young, replies that youth has its drawbacks and age its compensations! And of such was Edward. He could never realise that people did not mean exactly what they said. At first he had always consulted Bertha on the conduct of the estate; but she, pleased to be a nonentity in her own house, had consented to everything he suggested, and even begged him not to ask her. When she informed him that he was absolute lord not only of herself, but of all her worldly goods, it was not surprising that he should at last take her at her word.
“Women know nothing about farming,” he said, “and it’s best that I should have a free hand.”
The result of his stewardship was all that could be desired; the estate was put into apple-pie order, and the farms paid rent for the first time since twenty years. The wandering winds, even the sun and the rain, seemed to conspire in favour of so clever and hard working a man; and fortune for once went hand in hand with virtue. Bertha constantly received congratulations from the surrounding squires on the admirable way in which Edward managed the place, and he, on his side, never failed to recount his triumphs and the compliments they occasioned.
But not only was Edward looked upon as master by his farm-hands and labourers; even the servants of Court Leys treated Bertha as a minor personage whose orders were only to be conditionally obeyed. Long generations of servitude have made the countryman peculiarly subtle in hierarchical distinctions; and there was a marked difference between his manner with Edward, on whom his livelihood depended, and his manner with Bertha, who shone only with a reflected light as the squire’s missus.
At first this had only amused Bertha, but the most brilliant jest, constantly repeated, may lose its savour. More than once she had to speak sharply to a gardener who hesitated to do as he was bid, because his orders were not from the master. Her pride reviving with the decline of love, Bertha began to find the position intolerable; her mind was now very susceptible to affront, and she was desirous of an opportunity to show that after all she was still the mistress of Court Leys.
It soon came. For it chanced that some ancient lover of trees, unpractical as the Leys had ever been, had planted six beeches in a hedgerow, and these in course of time had grown into stately trees, the admiration of all beholders. But one day as Bertha walked along, a hideous gap caught her eye—one of the six beeches had disappeared. There had been no storm, it could not have fallen of itself. She went up, and found it cut down, and the men who had done the deed were already starting on another: a ladder was leaning against it, upon which stood a labourer attaching a line. No sight is more pathetic than an old tree levelled with the ground; and the space which it filled suddenly stands out with an unsightly emptiness. But Bertha was more angry than pained.
“What are you doing, Hodgkins? Who gave you orders to cut down this tree?”
“The squire, mum.”
“Oh, it must be a mistake. Mr. Craddock never meant anything of the sort.”
“‘E told us positive to take down this one and them others yonder. You can see his mark, mum.”
“Nonsense. I’ll talk to Mr. Craddock about it. Take that rope off and come down from the ladder. I forbid you to touch another tree.”
The man on the ladder looked at her, but made no attempt to do as he was bid.
“The squire said most particular that we was to cut that tree down to-day.”
“Will you have the goodness to do as I tell you?” said Bertha, reddening with anger. “Tell that man to unfasten the rope and come down. I forbid you to touch the tree.”
The man Hodgkins repeated Bertha’s order in a surly voice, and they all looked at her suspiciously, wishing to disobey but not daring—in case the squire should be angry.
“Well, I’ll take no responsibility for it.”
“Please hold your tongue and do what I tell you as quickly as possible.”
She waited till the men had gathered up their various belongings and trooped off.
BERTHA went home, fuming, knowing perfectly well that Edward had really given the orders which she had countermanded, but glad of the chance to have a final settlement of rights. She did not see him for several hours.
“I say, Bertha,” he said, when he came in, “why on earth did you stop those men cutting down the beeches on Carter’s field? You’ve lost a whole half-day’s work. I wanted to set them on something else to-morrow, now I shall have to leave it over till Thursday.”
“I stopped them because I refuse to have the beeches cut down. They’re the only ones in the place. I’m very much annoyed that even one should have gone without my knowing about it. You should have asked me before you did such a thing.”
“My good girl, I can’t come and ask you each time I want a thing done.”
“Is the land mine or yours?”
“It’s yours,” answered Edward, laughing, “but I know better than you what ought to be done, and it’s silly of you to interfere.”
Bertha flushed. “In future, I wish to be consulted.”
“You’ve told me fifty thousand times to do always as I think fit.”
“Well, I’ve changed my mind.”
“It’s too late now,” he laughed. “You made me take the reins in my own hands and I’m going to keep them.”
Bertha in her anger hardly restrained herself from telling him she could send him away like a hired servant.
“I want you to understand, Edward, that I’m not going to have those trees cut down. You must tell the men you made a mistake.”
“I shall tell them nothing of the sort. I’m not going to cut them all down—only three. We don’t want them there—for one thing the shade damages the crops, and otherwise Carter’s is one of our best fields. And then I want the wood.”
“I care nothing about the crops, and if you want wood you can buy it. Those trees were planted nearly a hundred years ago, and I would sooner die than cut them down.”
“The man who planted beeches in a hedgerow was about the silliest jackass I’ve ever heard of. Any tree’s bad enough, but a beech of all things—why, it’s drip, drip, drip, all the time, and not a thing will grow under them. That’s the sort of thing that has been done all over the estate for years. It’ll take me a lifetime to repair the blunders of your—of the former owners.”
It is one of the curiosities of sentiment that its most abject slave rarely permits it to interfere with his temporal concerns; it appears as unusual for a man to sentimentalise in his own walk of life as for him to pick his own pocket. Edward, having passed all his days in contact with the earth, might have been expected to cherish a certain love of nature. The pathos of transpontine melodrama made him cough, and blow his nose; and in literature he affected the titled and consumptive heroine, and the soft-hearted, burly hero. But when it came to business, it was another matter—the sort of sentiment which asks a farmer to spare a sylvan glade for æsthetic reasons is absurd. Edward would have willingly allowed advertisement-mongers to put up boards on the most beautiful part of the estate, if thereby he could surreptitiously increase the profits of his farm.
“Whatever you may think of my people,” said Bertha, “you will kindly pay attention to me. The land is mine, and I refuse to let you spoil it.”
“It isn’t spoiling it. It’s the proper thing to do. You’ll soon get used to not seeing the wretched trees—and I tell you I’m only going to take three down. I’ve given orders to cut the others to-morrow.”
“D’you mean to say you’re going to ignore me absolutely?”
“I’m going to do what’s right; and if you don’t approve of it, I’m very sorry, but I shall do it all the same.”
“I shall give the men orders to do nothing of the kind.”
Edward laughed. “Then you’ll make an ass of yourself. You try giving them orders contrary to mine, and see what they do.”
Bertha gave a cry. In her fury she looked round for something to throw; she would have liked to hit him; but he stood there, calm and self-possessed, quite amused.
“I think you must be mad,” she said. “You do all you can to destroy my love for you.”
She was in too great a passion for words. This was the measure of his affection; he must, indeed, utterly despise her; and this was the only result of the love she had humbly laid at his feet. She asked herself what she could do; she could do nothing—but submit. She knew as well as he that her orders would be disobeyed if they did not agree with his; and that he would keep his word she did not for a moment doubt. To do so was his pride. She did not speak for the rest of the day, but next morning when he was going out, asked what was his intention with regard to the trees.
“Oh, I thought you’d forgotten all about them,” he replied. “I mean to do as I said.”
“If you have the trees cut down, I shall leave you; I shall go to Aunt Polly’s.”
“And tell her that you wanted the moon, and I was so unkind as not to give it you?” he replied, smiling. “She’ll laugh at you.”
“You will find me as careful to keep my word as you.”
Before luncheon she went out and walked to Carter’s field. The men were still at work, but a second tree had gone, the third would doubtless fall in the afternoon. The men glanced at Bertha, and she thought they laughed; she stood looking at them for some while so that she might thoroughly digest the humiliation. Then she went home, and wrote to her aunt the following veracious letter:—
My dear Aunt Polly,—I have been so seedy these last few weeks that Edward, poor dear, has been quite alarmed; and has been bothering me to come up to town to see a specialist. He’s as urgent as if he wanted to get me out of the way, and I’m already half-jealous of my new parlour-maid, who has pink cheeks and golden hair—which is just the type that Edward really admires. I also think that Dr. Ramsay hasn’t the ghost of an idea what is the matter with me, and not being particularly desirous to depart this life just yet, I think it will be discreet to see somebody who will at least change my medicine. I have taken gallons of iron and quinine, and I’m frightfully afraid that my teeth will go black. My own opinion, coinciding so exactly with Edward’s (that horrid Mrs. Ryle calls us the humming-birds, meaning the turtledoves, her knowledge of natural history arouses dear Edward’s contempt); I have gracefully acceded to his desire, and if you can put me up, will come at your earliest convenience.—Yours affectionately, B. C.
P.S.—I shall take the opportunity of getting clothes (I am positively in rags), so you will have to keep me some little time.
Edward came in shortly afterwards, looking very much pleased. He glanced slily at Bertha, thinking himself so clever that he could scarcely help laughing: it was his habit to be most particular in his behaviour, or he would undoubtedly have put his tongue in his cheek.
“With women, my dear sir, you must be firm. When you’re putting them to a fence, close your legs and don’t check them; but mind you keep ’em under control or they’ll lose their little heads. A man should always let a woman see that he’s got her well in hand.”
Bertha was silent, able to eat nothing for luncheon; she sat opposite her husband, wondering how he could gorge so disgracefully when she was angry and miserable. But in the afternoon her appetite returned, and, going to the kitchen, she ate so many sandwiches that at dinner she could again touch nothing. She hoped Edward would notice that she refused all food, and be properly alarmed and sorry. But he demolished enough for two, and never saw that his wife fasted.
At night Bertha went to bed and bolted herself in the room. Presently Edward came up and tried the door. Finding it closed, he knocked and cried to her to open. She did not answer. He knocked again more loudly and shook the handle.
“I want to have my room to myself,” she cried out; “I’m ill. Please don’t try to come in.”
“What? Where am I to sleep?”
“Oh, you can sleep in one of the spare rooms.”
“Nonsense!” he cried; and without further ado put his shoulder to the door: he was a strong man; one heave and the old hinges cracked. He entered, laughing.
“If you wanted to keep me out, you ought to have barricaded yourself up with the furniture.”
Bertha was disinclined to treat the matter lightly. “If you come in,” she said, “I shall go out.”
“Oh no, you won’t!” he said, dragging a big chest of drawers in front of the door.
Bertha got up and put on a yellow silk dressing-gown, which was really most becoming.
“I’ll spend the night on the sofa then,” she said. “I don’t want to quarrel with you any more or to make a scene. I have written to Aunt Polly, and the day after to-morrow I shall go to London.”
“I was going to suggest that a change of air would do you good. I think your nerves are a bit groggy.”
“It’s very good of you to take an interest in my nerves,” she replied, with a scornful glance, settling herself on the sofa.
“Are you really going to sleep there?” he said, getting into bed.
“It looks like it.”
“You’ll find it awfully cold. But I dare say you’ll think better of it in an hour. I’m going to turn the light out. Good-night!”
Bertha did not answer, and in a few minutes she was angrily listening to his snores. Could he really be asleep? It was infamous that he slept so calmly.
“Edward,” she called.
There was no answer, but she could not bring herself to believe that he was sleeping. She could never even close her eyes. He must be pretending—to annoy her. She wanted to touch him, but feared that he would burst out laughing. She felt indeed horribly cold, and piled rugs and dresses over her. It required great fortitude not to sneak back to bed. She was unhappy and thirsty. Nothing is so disagreeable as the water in toilet-bottles, with the glass tasting of tooth-wash; but she gulped some down, though it almost made her sick, and then walked about the room, turning over her manifold wrongs. Edward slept on insufferably. She made a noise to wake him, but he did not stir; she knocked down a table with a clatter sufficient to disturb the dead, but her husband was insensible. Then she looked at the bed, wondering whether she dared lie down for an hour, and trust to waking before him. She was so cold that she determined to risk it, feeling certain that she would not sleep long; she walked to the bed.
“Coming to bed after all?” said Edward, in a sleepy voice.
She stopped, and her heart rose to her mouth. “I was coming for my pillow,” she replied indignantly, thanking her stars that he had not spoken a minute later.
She returned to the sofa, and eventually making herself very comfortable, fell asleep. In this blissful condition she continued till the morning, and when she awoke Edward was drawing up the blinds.
“Slept well?” he asked.
“I haven’t slept a wink.”
“Oh, what a crammer. I’ve been looking at you for the last hour!”
“I’ve had my eyes closed for about ten minutes, if that’s what you mean.”
Bertha was quite justly annoyed that her husband should have caught her napping soundly—it robbed her proceeding of half its effect. Moreover, Edward was as fresh as a bird, while she felt old and haggard, and hardly dared look at herself in the glass.
In the middle of the morning came a telegram from Miss Ley, telling Bertha to come whenever she liked—hoping Edward would come too! Bertha left it in a conspicuous place so that he could not fail to see it.
“So you’re really going?” he said.
“I told you I was as able to keep my word as you.”
“Well, I think it’ll do you no end of good. How long will you stay?”
“How do I know! Perhaps for ever.”
“That’s a big word—though it has only two syllables.”
It cut Bertha to the heart that Edward should be so indifferent—he could not care for her at all. He seemed to think it natural that she should leave him, pretending it was good for her health. Oh, what did she care about her health! As she made the needful preparations her courage failed her, and she felt it impossible to go. Tears came as she thought of the difference between their present state and the ardent love of a year before. She would have welcomed the poorest excuse that forced her to stay, and yet saved her self-respect. If Edward would only express grief at the parting, it might not be too late. But her boxes were packed and her train fixed; he told Miss Glover that his wife was going away for a change of air, and regretted that his farm prevented him from accompanying her. The trap was brought to the door, and Edward jumped up, taking his seat. Now there was no hope, and go she must. She wished for courage to tell Edward that she could not leave him, but was afraid. They drove along in silence; Bertha waited for her husband to speak, daring to say nothing herself, lest he should hear the tears in her voice. At last she made an effort.
“Are you sorry I’m going?”
“I think it’s for your good—and I don’t want to stand in the way of that.”
Bertha asked herself what love a man had for his wife, who could bear her out of his sight, no matter what the necessity. She stifled a sigh.
They reached the station and he took her ticket. They waited in silence for the train, and Edward bought Punch and The Sketch from a newspaper boy. The horrible train steamed up; Edward helped her into a carriage, and the tears in her eyes now could not be concealed. She put out her lips.
“Perhaps for the last time,” she whispered.
72 Eliot Mansions, Chelsea, S.W.
April 18.
Dear Edward,—I think we were wise to part. We were too unsuited to one another, and our difficulties could only have increased. The knot of marriage between two persons of differing temperaments is so intricate that it can only be cut: you may try to unravel it, and think you are succeeding, but another turn shows you that the tangle is only worse than ever. Even time is powerless. Some things are impossible; you cannot heap water up like stones, you cannot measure one man by another man’s rule. I am certain we were wise to separate. I see that if we had continued to live together our quarrels would have perpetually increased. It is horrible to look back upon those vulgar brawls—we wrangled like fishwives. I cannot understand how my mouth could have uttered such things.
It is very bitter to look back and compare my anticipations with what has really happened. Did I expect too much from life? Ah me, I only expected that my husband would love me. It is because I asked so little that I have received nothing. In this world you must ask much, you must spread your praises abroad, you must trample under-foot those who stand in your path, you must take up all the room you can or you will be elbowed away; you must be irredeemably selfish, or you will be a thing of no account, a frippery that man plays with and flings aside.
Of course I expected the impossible, I was not satisfied with the conventional unity of marriage; I wanted to be really one with you. Oneself is the whole world, and all other people are merely strangers. At first in my vehement desire, I used to despair because I knew you so little; I was heartbroken at the impossibility of really understanding you, of getting right down into your heart of hearts. Never, to the best of my knowledge, have I seen your veritable self; you are nearly as much a stranger to me as if I had known you but an hour. I bared my soul to you, concealing nothing—there is in you a man I do not know and have never seen. We are so absolutely different, I don’t know a single thing that we have in common; often when we have been talking and fallen into silence, our thoughts, starting from the same standpoint, have travelled in contrary directions, and on speaking again, we found how widely they had diverged. I hoped to know you to the bottom of your soul. Oh, I hoped that we should be united, so as to have but one soul between us; and yet on the most commonplace occasion, I can never know your thoughts. Perhaps it might have been different if we had had children; they might have formed between us a truer link, and perhaps in the delight of them I should have forgotten my impracticable dreams. But fate was against us, I come from a rotten stock. It is written in the book that the Leys should depart from the sight of men, and return to their mother the earth, to be incorporated with her; and who knows in the future what may be our lot! I like to think that in the course of ages I may be the wheat on a fertile plain, or the smoke from a fire of brambles on the common. I wish I could be buried in the open fields, rather than in the grim coldness of a churchyard, so that I might anticipate the change, and return more quickly to the life of nature.
Believe me, separation was the only possible outcome. I loved you too passionately to be content with the cold regard which you gave me. Oh, of course I was exacting, and tyrannical, and unkind; I can confess all my faults now; my only excuse is that I was very unhappy. For all the pain I have caused you, I beg you to forgive me. We may as well part friends, and I freely forgive you for all you have made me suffer. Now I can afford also to tell you how near I was to not carrying out my intention. Yesterday and this morning I scarcely held back my tears; the parting seemed too hard, I felt I could not leave you. If you had asked me not to go, if you had even shown the smallest sign of regretting my departure, I think I should have broken down. Yes, I can tell you now, that I would have given anything to stay. Alas! I am so weak. In the train I cried bitterly. It is the first time we have been apart since our marriage, the first time that we have slept under different roofs. But now the worst is over. I have taken the step, and I shall adhere to what I have done. I am sure I have acted for the best. I see no harm in our writing to one another occasionally if it pleases you to receive letters from me. I think I had better not see you, at all events for some time. Perhaps when we are both a good deal older we may, without danger, see one another now and then; but not yet. I should be afraid to see your face.
Aunt Polly has no suspicion. I can assure you it has been an effort to laugh and talk during the evening, and I was glad to get to my room. Now it is past midnight and I am still writing to you. I felt I ought to let you know my thoughts, and I can tell them more easily by letter than by word of mouth. Does it not show how separated in heart we have become, that I should hesitate to say to you what I think—and I had hoped to have my heart always open to you. I fancied that I need never conceal a thing, nor hesitate to show you every emotion and every thought.—Good-bye.
BERTHA.
72 Eliot Mansions, Chelsea, S.W.
April 23.
My poor Edward,—You say you hope I shall soon get better and come back to Court Leys. You misunderstand my meaning so completely that I almost laughed. It is true I was out of spirits and tired when I wrote—but that was not the reason of my letter. Cannot you conceive emotions not entirely due to one’s physical condition? You cannot understand me, you never have; and yet I would not take up the vulgar and hackneyed position of a femme incomprise. There is nothing to understand about me. I am very simple and unmysterious. I only wanted love, and you could not give it me. No, our parting is final and irrevocable. What can you want me back for? You have Court Leys and your farms. Every one likes you in the neighbourhood; I was the only bar to your complete happiness. Court Leys I freely give you for my life; until you came it brought in nothing, and the income now arising from it is entirely due to your efforts; you earn it and I beg you to keep it. For me the small income I have from my mother is sufficient.
Aunt Polly still thinks I am on a visit, and constantly speaks of you. I throw dust in her eyes, but I cannot hope to keep her in ignorance for long. At present I am engaged in periodically seeing the doctor for an imaginary ill, and getting one or two new things.
Shall we write to one another once a week? I know writing is a trouble to you; but I do not wish you to forget me altogether. If you like, I will write to you every Sunday, and you may answer or not as you please.
BERTHA.
P.S.—Please do not think of any rapprochement. I am
sure you will eventually see that we are both much happier
apart.
72 Eliot Mansions, Chelsea, S.W.
May 15.
My dear Eddie,—I was pleased to get your letter. I am a little touched at your wanting to see me. You suggest coming to town—perhaps it is fortunate that I shall be no longer here. If you had expressed such a wish before, much might have gone differently.
Aunt Polly having let her flat to friends, goes to Paris for the rest of the season. She starts to-night, and I have offered to accompany her. I am sick of London. I do not know whether she suspects anything, but I notice that now she never mentions your name. She looked a little sceptical the other day when I explained that I had long wished to go to Paris, and that you were having the inside of Court Leys painted. Fortunately, however, she makes it a practice not to inquire into other people’s business, and I can rest assured that she will never ask me a single question.
Forgive the shortness of this letter, but I am very busy, packing.—Your affectionate wife,
BERTHA.
41 Rue des Ecoliers, Paris,
May 16.
My dearest Eddie,—I have been unkind to you. It is nice of you to want to see me, and my repugnance to it was perhaps unnatural. On thinking it over, I cannot think it will do any harm if we should see one another. Of course, I can never come back to Court Leys—there are some chains that having broken you can never weld together; and no fetters are so intolerable as the fetters of love. But if you want to see me I will put no obstacle in your way; I will not deny that I also should like to see you. I am farther away now, but if you care for me at all you will not hesitate to make the short journey.
We have here a very nice apartment, in the Latin Quarter, away from the rich people and the tourists. I do not know which is more vulgar, the average tripper or the part of Paris which he infests: I must say they become one another to a nicety. I loathe the shoddiness of the boulevards, with their gaudy cafés over-gilt and over-sumptuous, and their crowds of ill-dressed foreigners. But if you come I can show you a different Paris—a restful and old-fashioned Paris, theatres to which tourists do not go; gardens full of pretty children and nursemaids with long ribbons to their caps. I can take you down innumerable gray streets with funny shops, in old churches where you see people actually praying; and it is all very quiet and calming to the nerves. And I can take you to the Louvre at hours when there are few visitors, and show you beautiful pictures and statues that have come from Italy and Greece, where the gods have their home to this day. Come, Eddie.—Your ever loving wife,
BERTHA.
41 Rue des Ecoliers, Paris,
May 25.
My dearest Eddie,—I am disappointed that you will not come. I should have thought, if you wanted to see me, you could have found time to leave the farms for a few days. But perhaps it is really better that we should not meet. I cannot conceal from you that sometimes I long for you dreadfully. I forget all that has happened, and desire with all my heart to be with you once more. What a fool I am! I know that we can never meet again, and you are never absent from my thoughts. I look forward to your letters almost madly, and your handwriting makes my heart beat as if I were a schoolgirl. Oh, you don’t know how your letters disappoint me, they are so cold; you never say what I want you to say. It would be madness if we came together—I can only preserve my love to you by not seeing you. Does that sound horrible? And yet I would give anything to see you once more. I cannot help asking you to come here. It is not so very often I have asked you anything. Do come. I will meet you at the station, and you will have no trouble or bother—everything is perfectly simple, and Cook’s Interpreters are everywhere. I’m sure you would enjoy yourself so much.—If you love me, come.
BERTHA.
Court Leys, Blackstable, Kent,
May 30.
My dearest Bertha,—Sorry I haven’t answered yours of 25th inst. before, but I’ve been up to my eyes in work. You wouldn’t think there could be so much to do on a farm at this time of year, unless you saw it with your own eyes. I can’t possibly get away to Paris, and besides I can’t stomach the French. I don’t want to see their capital, and when I want a holiday, London’s good enough for me. You’d better come back here, people are asking after you, and the place seems all topsy-turvy without you. Love to Aunt P.—In haste, your affectionate husband,
E. CRADDOCK.
41 Rue des Ecoliers, Paris,
June 1.
My dearest, dearest Eddie,—You don’t know how disappointed I was to get your letter and how I longed for it. Whatever you do, don’t keep me waiting so long for an answer. I imagined all sorts of things—that you were ill or dying. I was on the point of wiring. I want you to promise me that if you are ever ill, you will let me know. If you want me urgently I shall be pleased to come. But do not think that I can ever come back to Court Leys for good. Sometimes I feel ill and weak and I long for you, but I know I must not give way. I’m sure, for your good as well as for mine, I must never risk the unhappiness of our old life again. It was too degrading. With firm mind and the utmost resolution I swear that I will never, never return to Court Leys.—Your affectionate and loving wife,
BERTHA.
Telegram
Gare du Nord, 9.50 a.m., June 2.
Craddock, Court Leys, Blackstable.
Arriving 7.25 to-night.—BERTHA.
41 Rue des Ecoliers, Paris.
My dear young Friend,—I am perturbed. Bertha, as you know, has for the last six weeks lived with me, for reasons the naturalness of which aroused my strongest suspicions. No one, I thought, would need so many absolutely conclusive motives to do so very simple a thing. I resisted the temptation to write to Edward (her husband—a nice man, but stupid!) to ask for an explanation, fearing that the reasons given me were the right ones (although I could not believe it); in which case I should have made myself ridiculous. Bertha in London pretended to go to a physician, but never was seen to take medicine, and I am certain no well-established specialist would venture to take two guineas from a malade imaginaire and not administer copious drugs. She accompanied me to Paris, ostensibly to get dresses, but has behaved as if their fit were of no more consequence than a change of ministry. She has taken great pains to conceal her emotions and thereby made them the more conspicuous. I cannot tell you how often she has gone through the various stages from an almost hysterical elation to an equal despondency. She has mused as profoundly as was fashionable for the young ladies of fifty years ago (we were all young ladies then—not girls!); she has played Tristan and Isolde to the distraction of myself; she has snubbed an amorous French artist to the distraction of his wife; finally she has wept, and after weeping over-powdered her eyes, which in a pretty woman is an infallible sign of extreme mental prostration.
This morning when I got up I found at my door the following message: “Don’t think me an utter fool, but I couldn’t stand another day away from Edward. Leaving by the 10 o’clock train.—B.” Now at 10.30 she had an appointment at Paquin’s to try on the most ravishing dinner-dress you could imagine.
I will not insult you by drawing inferences from all these facts: I know you would much sooner draw them yourself, and I have a sufficiently good opinion of you to be certain that they will coincide with mine.—Yours very sincerely,
MARY LEY.
P.S.—I am sending this to await you at Seville. Remember
me to Mrs. J.
BERTHA’S relief was unmistakable when she landed on English soil; at last she was near Edward, and she had been extremely sea-sick. Though it was less than thirty miles from Dover to Blackstable the communications were so bad that it was necessary to wait for hours at the port, or take the boat-train to London and then come sixty miles down again. Bertha was exasperated at the delay, forgetting that she was now (thank Heaven!) in a free country, where the railways were not run for the convenience of passengers, but the passengers necessary evils to create dividends for an ill-managed company. Bertha’s impatience was so great that she felt it impossible to wait at Dover; she preferred to go the extra hundred miles and save herself ten minutes rather than spend the afternoon in the dreary waiting-room, or wandering about the town. The train seemed to crawl; and her restlessness became quite painful as she recognized the Kentish country, the fat meadows with trim hedges, the portly trees, and the general air of prosperity.
Bertha’s thoughts were full of Edward, and he was the whole cause of her impatience. She had hoped, against her knowledge of him, that he would meet her at Dover, and it had been a disappointment not to see him. Then she thought he might have come to London, though not explaining to herself how he could possibly have divined that she would be there. Her heart beat absurdly when she saw a back which might have been Edward’s. Still later, she comforted herself with the idea that he would certainly be at Faversley, which was the next station to Blackstable. When they reached that place she put her head out of window, looking along the platform—but he was nowhere.
“He might have come as far this,” she thought.
Now, the train steaming on, she recognised the country more precisely, the desolate marsh and the sea—the line ran almost at the water’s edge; the tide was out, leaving a broad expanse of shining mud, over which the seagulls flew, screeching. Then the houses were familiar, cottages beaten by wind and weather, the Jolly Sailor, where in the old days many a smuggled keg of brandy had been hidden on its way to the cathedral city of Tercanbury. The coastguard station was passed, a long building, trim and low. Finally they rattled across the bridge over the High Street; and the porters with their Kentish drawl, called out, “Blackstable, Blackstable.”
Bertha’s emotions were always uncontrolled, and so powerful as sometimes to unfit her for action: now she had hardly strength to open the carriage door.
“At last!” she cried, with a gasp of relief.
She had never adored her husband so passionately as then, and her love was a physical sensation that turned her faint. The arrival of the moment so anxiously awaited left her half-frightened; she was of those who eagerly look for an opportunity and then can scarcely seize it.
Bertha’s heart was so full that she was afraid of bursting into tears when she at last she should see Edward walking towards her; she had pictured the scene so often, her husband advancing with his swinging stride, waving his stick, the dogs in front, rushing towards her and barking furiously. The two porters waddled with their seaman’s walk to the van to get out the luggage; people were stepping from the carriages. Next to her a pasty-faced clerk descended, in a dingy black, with a baby in his arms; and he was followed by a haggard wife with another baby and innumerable parcels. A labourer sauntered down the platform, three or four sailors, and a couple of infantry-men. They all surged for the wicket, at which stood the ticket-collector. The porters got out the boxes, and the train steamed off; an irascible city man was swearing volubly because his luggage had gone to Margate. (It’s a free country, thank Heaven!) The station-master, in a decorated hat and a self-satisfied air, strolled up to see what was the matter. Bertha looked along the platform wildly. Edward was not there.
The station-master passed, and nodded patronisingly.
“Have you seen Mr. Craddock?” she asked.
“No, I can’t say I have. But I think there’s a carriage below for you.”
Bertha began to tremble. A porter asked whether he should take her boxes; she nodded, unable to speak. She went down and found the brougham at the station door; the coachman touched his hat and gave her a note.
Dear Bertha,—Awfully sorry I can’t come to meet you. I never expected you, so accepted an invitation of Lord Philip Dirk to a tennis tournament, and a ball afterwards. He’s going to sleep me, so I shan’t be back till to-morrow. Don’t get in a wax. See you in the morning.
E. C.
Bertha got into the carriage and huddled herself into one corner so that none should see her. At first she scarcely understood; she had spent the last hours at such a height of excitement that the disappointment deprived her of the power of thinking. She never took things reasonably, and was now stunned; what had happened seemed impossible. It was so callous that Edward should go to a tennis-tournament when she was coming home—looking forward eagerly to seeing him. And it was no ordinary home-coming; it was the first time she had ever left him; and then she had gone, hating him, as she thought, for good. But her absence having revived her love, she had returned, yearning for reconciliation. And he was not there; he acted as though she had been to town for a day’s shopping.
“Oh, God, what a fool I was to come!”
Suddenly she thought of going away there and then—would it not be easier? She felt she could not see him. But there were no trains: the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway has perhaps saved many an elopement. But he must have known how bitterly disappointed she would be, and the idea flashed through her that he would leave the tournament and come home. Perhaps he was already at Court Leys, waiting; she took fresh courage, and looked at the well-remembered scene. He might be at the gate. Oh, what joy it would be, what a relief! But they came to the gate, and he was not there; they drove to the portico, and he was not there. Bertha went into the house expecting to find him in the hall or in the drawing-room, not having heard the carriage, but he was nowhere to be found. And the servants corroborated his letter.
The house was empty, chill, and inhospitable; the rooms had an uninhabited air, the furniture was primly rearranged, and Edward had caused antimacassars to be placed on the chairs. These Bertha, to the housemaids’ surprise, took off one by one, and, without a word, threw into the empty fireplace. And still she thought it incredible that Edward should stay away. She sat down to dinner, expecting him every moment; she sat up very late, feeling sure that eventually he would come. But still he came not.
“I wish to God I’d stayed away.”
Her thoughts went back to the struggle of the last few weeks. Pride, anger, reason, everything had been on one side, and only love on the other; and love had conquered. The recollection of Edward had been seldom absent from her, and her dreams had been filled with his image. His letters had caused her an indescribable thrill, the mere sight of his handwriting had made her tremble, and she wanted to see him; she woke up at night with his kisses on her lips. She begged him to come, and he would not or could not. At last the yearning grew beyond control; and that very morning, not having received the letter she awaited, she had resolved to throw off all pretence of resentment, and come. What did she care if Miss Ley laughed, or if Edward scored a victory in the struggle—she could not live without him. He still was her life and her love.
“Oh, God, I wish I hadn’t come.”
She remembered how she had prayed that Edward might love her as she wished to be loved, beseeching God to grant her happiness. The passionate rebellion after her child’s death had ceased insensibly, and in her misery, in her loneliness, she had found a new faith. Belief with some comes and goes without reason: with them it is a matter not of conviction, but rather of sensibility; and Bertha found prayer easier in Catholic churches than in the cheerless meeting-houses she had been used to. She could not utter stated words at stated hours in a meaningless chorus; the crowd caused her to shut away her emotions, and her heart could expand only in solitude. In Paris she had found quiet chapels, open at all hours, to which she could go for rest when the sun without was over-dazzling; and in the evening, the dimness, the fragrance of old incense, and the silence, were very restful. Then the only light came from the tapers, burning in gratitude or in hope, throwing a fitful, mysterious glimmer; and Bertha prayed earnestly for Edward and for herself.
But Edward would not let himself be loved, and her efforts all were useless. Her love was a jewel that he valued not at all, that he flung aside and cared not if he lost. But she was too unhappy, too broken in spirit, to be angry. What was the use of anger? She knew that Edward would see nothing extraordinary in what he had done. He would return, confident, well-pleased with himself after a good night’s rest, and entirely unaware that she had been grievously hurt.
“I suppose the injustice is on my side. I am too exacting. I can’t help it.”
She only knew one way to love, and that, it appeared was a foolish way. “Oh, I wish I could go away again now—for ever.”
She got up and ate a solitary breakfast, busying herself afterwards in the house. Edward had left word that he would be in to luncheon, and was it not his pride to keep his word? But all her impatience had gone; Bertha felt now no particular anxiety to see him. She was on the point of going out—the air was warm and balmy—but did not, in case Edward should return and be disappointed at her absence.
“What a fool I am to think of his feelings! If I’m not in, he’ll just go about his work and think nothing more of me till I appear.”
But, notwithstanding, she stayed. He arrived at last, and she did not hurry to meet him; she was putting things away in her bedroom, and continued though she heard his voice below. The difference was curious between her intense and almost painful expectation of the previous day and this present unconcern. She turned as he came in, but did not move towards him.
“So you’ve come back? Did you enjoy yourself?”
“Yes, rather. But I say, it’s ripping to have you home. You weren’t in a wax at my not being here?”
“Oh no,” she said, smiling. “I didn’t mind at all.”
“That’s all right. Of course I’d never been to Lord Philip’s before, and I couldn’t wire the last minute to say that my wife was coming home and I had to meet her.”
“Of course not; it would have made you appear too absurd.”
“But I was jolly sick, I can tell you. If you’d only let me know a week ago that you were coming, I should have refused the invitation.”
“My dear Edward, I’m so unpractical, I never know my own mind, and I’m always doing things on the spur of the moment, to my own inconvenience and other people’s. And I should never have expected you to deny yourself anything for my sake.”
Bertha, perplexed, almost dismayed, looked at her husband with astonishment. She scarcely recognised him. In the three years of their common life Bertha had noticed no change in him, and with her great faculty for idealisation, had carried in her mind always his image, as he appeared when first she saw him, the slender, manly youth of eight-and-twenty. Miss Ley had discerned alterations, and spiteful feminine tongues had said that he was going off dreadfully. But his wife had seen nothing. And the separation had given further opportunities to her fantasy. In absence she had thought of him as the handsomest of men, delighting over his clear features, his fair hair, his inexhaustible youth and strength. The plain facts would have disappointed her even if Edward had retained the looks of his youth, but seeing now as well the other changes, the shock was extreme. It was a different man she saw, almost a stranger. Craddock did not wear well; though but thirty-one, he looked much older. He had broadened and put on flesh, his features had lost their delicacy, and the red of his cheeks was growing coarse. He wore his clothes in a slovenly fashion, and had fallen into a lumbering walk as if his boots were always heavy with clay; and there was in him, besides, the heartiness and intolerant joviality of the prosperous farmer. Edward’s good looks had given Bertha the keenest pleasure, and now, rushing, as was her habit, to the other extreme, she found him almost ugly. This was an exaggeration, for though he was no longer the slim youth of her first acquaintance, he was still, in a heavy, massive way, better looking than the majority of men.
Edward kissed her with marital calm, and the propinquity wafted to Bertha’s nostrils the strong scents of the farmyard, which, no matter what his clothes, hung perpetually about him. She turned away, hardly concealing a little shiver of disgust. Yet they were the same masculine odours as once had made her nearly faint with desire.
BERTHA’S relief was unmistakable when she landed on English soil; at last she was near Edward, and she had been extremely sea-sick. Though it was less than thirty miles from Dover to Blackstable the communications were so bad that it was necessary to wait for hours at the port, or take the boat-train to London and then come sixty miles down again. Bertha was exasperated at the delay, forgetting that she was now (thank Heaven!) in a free country, where the railways were not run for the convenience of passengers, but the passengers necessary evils to create dividends for an ill-managed company. Bertha’s impatience was so great that she felt it impossible to wait at Dover; she preferred to go the extra hundred miles and save herself ten minutes rather than spend the afternoon in the dreary waiting-room, or wandering about the town. The train seemed to crawl; and her restlessness became quite painful as she recognized the Kentish country, the fat meadows with trim hedges, the portly trees, and the general air of prosperity.
Bertha’s thoughts were full of Edward, and he was the whole cause of her impatience. She had hoped, against her knowledge of him, that he would meet her at Dover, and it had been a disappointment not to see him. Then she thought he might have come to London, though not explaining to herself how he could possibly have divined that she would be there. Her heart beat absurdly when she saw a back which might have been Edward’s. Still later, she comforted herself with the idea that he would certainly be at Faversley, which was the next station to Blackstable. When they reached that place she put her head out of window, looking along the platform—but he was nowhere.
“He might have come as far this,” she thought.
Now, the train steaming on, she recognised the country more precisely, the desolate marsh and the sea—the line ran almost at the water’s edge; the tide was out, leaving a broad expanse of shining mud, over which the seagulls flew, screeching. Then the houses were familiar, cottages beaten by wind and weather, the Jolly Sailor, where in the old days many a smuggled keg of brandy had been hidden on its way to the cathedral city of Tercanbury. The coastguard station was passed, a long building, trim and low. Finally they rattled across the bridge over the High Street; and the porters with their Kentish drawl, called out, “Blackstable, Blackstable.”
Bertha’s emotions were always uncontrolled, and so powerful as sometimes to unfit her for action: now she had hardly strength to open the carriage door.
“At last!” she cried, with a gasp of relief.
She had never adored her husband so passionately as then, and her love was a physical sensation that turned her faint. The arrival of the moment so anxiously awaited left her half-frightened; she was of those who eagerly look for an opportunity and then can scarcely seize it.
Bertha’s heart was so full that she was afraid of bursting into tears when she at last she should see Edward walking towards her; she had pictured the scene so often, her husband advancing with his swinging stride, waving his stick, the dogs in front, rushing towards her and barking furiously. The two porters waddled with their seaman’s walk to the van to get out the luggage; people were stepping from the carriages. Next to her a pasty-faced clerk descended, in a dingy black, with a baby in his arms; and he was followed by a haggard wife with another baby and innumerable parcels. A labourer sauntered down the platform, three or four sailors, and a couple of infantry-men. They all surged for the wicket, at which stood the ticket-collector. The porters got out the boxes, and the train steamed off; an irascible city man was swearing volubly because his luggage had gone to Margate. (It’s a free country, thank Heaven!) The station-master, in a decorated hat and a self-satisfied air, strolled up to see what was the matter. Bertha looked along the platform wildly. Edward was not there.
The station-master passed, and nodded patronisingly.
“Have you seen Mr. Craddock?” she asked.
“No, I can’t say I have. But I think there’s a carriage below for you.”
Bertha began to tremble. A porter asked whether he should take her boxes; she nodded, unable to speak. She went down and found the brougham at the station door; the coachman touched his hat and gave her a note.
Dear Bertha,—Awfully sorry I can’t come to meet you. I never expected you, so accepted an invitation of Lord Philip Dirk to a tennis tournament, and a ball afterwards. He’s going to sleep me, so I shan’t be back till to-morrow. Don’t get in a wax. See you in the morning.
E. C.
Bertha got into the carriage and huddled herself into one corner so that none should see her. At first she scarcely understood; she had spent the last hours at such a height of excitement that the disappointment deprived her of the power of thinking. She never took things reasonably, and was now stunned; what had happened seemed impossible. It was so callous that Edward should go to a tennis-tournament when she was coming home—looking forward eagerly to seeing him. And it was no ordinary home-coming; it was the first time she had ever left him; and then she had gone, hating him, as she thought, for good. But her absence having revived her love, she had returned, yearning for reconciliation. And he was not there; he acted as though she had been to town for a day’s shopping.
“Oh, God, what a fool I was to come!”
Suddenly she thought of going away there and then—would it not be easier? She felt she could not see him. But there were no trains: the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway has perhaps saved many an elopement. But he must have known how bitterly disappointed she would be, and the idea flashed through her that he would leave the tournament and come home. Perhaps he was already at Court Leys, waiting; she took fresh courage, and looked at the well-remembered scene. He might be at the gate. Oh, what joy it would be, what a relief! But they came to the gate, and he was not there; they drove to the portico, and he was not there. Bertha went into the house expecting to find him in the hall or in the drawing-room, not having heard the carriage, but he was nowhere to be found. And the servants corroborated his letter.
The house was empty, chill, and inhospitable; the rooms had an uninhabited air, the furniture was primly rearranged, and Edward had caused antimacassars to be placed on the chairs. These Bertha, to the housemaids’ surprise, took off one by one, and, without a word, threw into the empty fireplace. And still she thought it incredible that Edward should stay away. She sat down to dinner, expecting him every moment; she sat up very late, feeling sure that eventually he would come. But still he came not.
“I wish to God I’d stayed away.”
Her thoughts went back to the struggle of the last few weeks. Pride, anger, reason, everything had been on one side, and only love on the other; and love had conquered. The recollection of Edward had been seldom absent from her, and her dreams had been filled with his image. His letters had caused her an indescribable thrill, the mere sight of his handwriting had made her tremble, and she wanted to see him; she woke up at night with his kisses on her lips. She begged him to come, and he would not or could not. At last the yearning grew beyond control; and that very morning, not having received the letter she awaited, she had resolved to throw off all pretence of resentment, and come. What did she care if Miss Ley laughed, or if Edward scored a victory in the struggle—she could not live without him. He still was her life and her love.
“Oh, God, I wish I hadn’t come.”
She remembered how she had prayed that Edward might love her as she wished to be loved, beseeching God to grant her happiness. The passionate rebellion after her child’s death had ceased insensibly, and in her misery, in her loneliness, she had found a new faith. Belief with some comes and goes without reason: with them it is a matter not of conviction, but rather of sensibility; and Bertha found prayer easier in Catholic churches than in the cheerless meeting-houses she had been used to. She could not utter stated words at stated hours in a meaningless chorus; the crowd caused her to shut away her emotions, and her heart could expand only in solitude. In Paris she had found quiet chapels, open at all hours, to which she could go for rest when the sun without was over-dazzling; and in the evening, the dimness, the fragrance of old incense, and the silence, were very restful. Then the only light came from the tapers, burning in gratitude or in hope, throwing a fitful, mysterious glimmer; and Bertha prayed earnestly for Edward and for herself.
But Edward would not let himself be loved, and her efforts all were useless. Her love was a jewel that he valued not at all, that he flung aside and cared not if he lost. But she was too unhappy, too broken in spirit, to be angry. What was the use of anger? She knew that Edward would see nothing extraordinary in what he had done. He would return, confident, well-pleased with himself after a good night’s rest, and entirely unaware that she had been grievously hurt.
“I suppose the injustice is on my side. I am too exacting. I can’t help it.”
She only knew one way to love, and that, it appeared was a foolish way. “Oh, I wish I could go away again now—for ever.”
She got up and ate a solitary breakfast, busying herself afterwards in the house. Edward had left word that he would be in to luncheon, and was it not his pride to keep his word? But all her impatience had gone; Bertha felt now no particular anxiety to see him. She was on the point of going out—the air was warm and balmy—but did not, in case Edward should return and be disappointed at her absence.
“What a fool I am to think of his feelings! If I’m not in, he’ll just go about his work and think nothing more of me till I appear.”
But, notwithstanding, she stayed. He arrived at last, and she did not hurry to meet him; she was putting things away in her bedroom, and continued though she heard his voice below. The difference was curious between her intense and almost painful expectation of the previous day and this present unconcern. She turned as he came in, but did not move towards him.
“So you’ve come back? Did you enjoy yourself?”
“Yes, rather. But I say, it’s ripping to have you home. You weren’t in a wax at my not being here?”
“Oh no,” she said, smiling. “I didn’t mind at all.”
“That’s all right. Of course I’d never been to Lord Philip’s before, and I couldn’t wire the last minute to say that my wife was coming home and I had to meet her.”
“Of course not; it would have made you appear too absurd.”
“But I was jolly sick, I can tell you. If you’d only let me know a week ago that you were coming, I should have refused the invitation.”
“My dear Edward, I’m so unpractical, I never know my own mind, and I’m always doing things on the spur of the moment, to my own inconvenience and other people’s. And I should never have expected you to deny yourself anything for my sake.”
Bertha, perplexed, almost dismayed, looked at her husband with astonishment. She scarcely recognised him. In the three years of their common life Bertha had noticed no change in him, and with her great faculty for idealisation, had carried in her mind always his image, as he appeared when first she saw him, the slender, manly youth of eight-and-twenty. Miss Ley had discerned alterations, and spiteful feminine tongues had said that he was going off dreadfully. But his wife had seen nothing. And the separation had given further opportunities to her fantasy. In absence she had thought of him as the handsomest of men, delighting over his clear features, his fair hair, his inexhaustible youth and strength. The plain facts would have disappointed her even if Edward had retained the looks of his youth, but seeing now as well the other changes, the shock was extreme. It was a different man she saw, almost a stranger. Craddock did not wear well; though but thirty-one, he looked much older. He had broadened and put on flesh, his features had lost their delicacy, and the red of his cheeks was growing coarse. He wore his clothes in a slovenly fashion, and had fallen into a lumbering walk as if his boots were always heavy with clay; and there was in him, besides, the heartiness and intolerant joviality of the prosperous farmer. Edward’s good looks had given Bertha the keenest pleasure, and now, rushing, as was her habit, to the other extreme, she found him almost ugly. This was an exaggeration, for though he was no longer the slim youth of her first acquaintance, he was still, in a heavy, massive way, better looking than the majority of men.
Edward kissed her with marital calm, and the propinquity wafted to Bertha’s nostrils the strong scents of the farmyard, which, no matter what his clothes, hung perpetually about him. She turned away, hardly concealing a little shiver of disgust. Yet they were the same masculine odours as once had made her nearly faint with desire.
IF the gods, who scatter wit in sundry unexpected places, so that it is sometimes found beneath the bishop’s mitre and, once in a thousand years, beneath a king’s crown, had given Edward two-pennyworth of that commodity, he would undoubtedly have been a great as well as a good man. Fortune smiled upon him uninterruptedly; he enjoyed the envy of his neighbours; he farmed with profit, and, having tamed the rebellious spirit of his wife, he rejoiced in domestic felicity. And it must be noticed that he was rewarded only according to his deserts. He walked with upright spirit and contented mind along the path which it had pleased a merciful Providence to set before him. He was lighted on the way by a strong Sense of Duty, by the Principles which he had acquired at his Mother’s Knee, and by a Conviction of his own Merit. Finally, a deputation waited on him to propose that he should stand for the County Council election which was shortly to be held. He had been unofficially informed of the project, and received Mr. Atthill Bacot with seven committee men, in his frock-coat and a manner full of responsibility. He told them he could do nothing rashly, must consider the matter, and would inform them of his decision. But Edward had already made up his mind to accept, and having shown the deputation to the door, went to Bertha.
“Things are looking up,” he said, having given her the details. The Blackstable district for which Edward was invited to stand, being composed chiefly of fishermen, was intensely Radical. “Old Bacot said I was the only Moderate candidate who’d have a chance.”
Bertha was too much astonished to reply. She had so poor an opinion of her husband that she could not understand why on earth they should make him such an offer. She turned over in her mind possible reasons.
“It’s a ripping thing for me, isn’t it?”
“But you’re not thinking of accepting?”
“Not? Of course I am. What do you think!” This was not an inquiry, but an exclamation.
“You’ve never gone in for politics; you’ve never made a speech in your life.”
She thought he would make an abject fool of himself, and for her sake, as well as for his, decided to prevent him from standing. “He’s too ignorant!” she thought.
“What! I’ve made speeches at cricket dinners; you set me on my legs and I’ll say something.”
“But this is different—you know nothing about the County Council.”
“All you have to do is to look after steam-rollers and get glandered horses killed. I know all about it.”
There is nothing so difficult as to persuade men that they are not omniscient. Bertha, exaggerating the seriousness of the affair, thought it charlantry to undertake a post without knowledge and without capacity. Fortunately that is not the opinion of the majority, or the government of this enlightened country could not proceed.
“I should have thought you’d be glad to see me get a lift in the world,” said Edward, somewhat offended that his wife did not fall down and worship.
“I don’t want you to make a fool of yourself, Edward. You’ve told me often that you don’t go in for book-learning; and it can’t hurt your feelings when I say that you’re utterly ignorant. I don’t think its honest to take a position you’re not competent to fill.”
“Me—not competent?” cried Edward, with surprise. “That’s a good one! Upon my word, I’m not given to boasting, but I must say I think myself competent to do most things.... You just ask old Bacot what he thinks of me, and that’ll open your eyes. The fact is, every one appreciates me but you: but they say a man’s never a hero to his valet.”
“Your proverb is most apt, dear Edward.... But I have no intention of thwarting you in any of your plans. I only thought you did not know what you were going in for, and that I might save you from some humiliation.”
“Humiliation, where? Pooh, you think I shan’t get elected. Well, look here, I bet you any money you like that I shall come out top of the poll.”
Next day Edward wrote to Mr. Bacot expressing pleasure that he was able to fall in with the views of the Conservative Association; and Bertha, who knew that no argument could turn him from his purpose, determined to coach him, so that he should not make too arrant a fool of himself. Her fears were proportionate to her estimate of Edward’s ability! She sent to London for pamphlets and blue-books on the rights and duties of the County Council, and begged Edward to read them. But in his self-confident manner he pooh-poohed her, and laughed when she read them herself so as to be able to teach him.
“I don’t want to know all that rot,” he cried. “All a man wants is gumption. Why, d’you suppose a man who goes in for parliament knows anything about politics? Of course he doesn’t.”
Bertha was indignant that her husband should be so well satisfied in his illiteracy, and that he stoutly refused to learn. It is only when a man knows a good deal that he discovers how unfathomable is his ignorance. Edward, knowing so little, was convinced that there was little to know, and consequently felt quite assured that he knew all which was necessary. He might more easily have been persuaded that the moon was made of green cheese than that he lacked the very rudiments of knowledge.
The County Council elections in London were also being held at that time, and Bertha, hoping to give Edward useful hints, diligently read the oratory which they occasioned. But he refused to listen.
“I don’t want to crib other men’s stuff. I’m going to talk on my own.”
“Why don’t you write out a speech and get it by heart?”
Bertha fancied that so she might influence him a little and spare herself and him the humiliation of utter ridicule.
“Old Bacot says when he makes a speech, he always trusts to the spur of the moment. He says that Fox made his best speeches when he was blind drunk.”
“D’you know who Fox was?” asked Bertha.
“Some old buffer or other who made speeches.”
The day arrived when Edward for the first time was to address his constituents, in the Blackstable town-hall; and for a week past placards had been pasted on every wall and displayed in every shop, announcing the glad news. Mr. Bacot came to Court Leys, rubbing his hands.
“We shall have a full house. It’ll be a big success. The hall will hold four hundred people and I think there won’t be standing room. I dare say you’ll have to address an overflow meeting at the Forresters Hall afterwards.”
“I’ll address any number of meetings you like,” replied Edward.
Bertha grew more and more nervous. She anticipated a horrible collapse; they did not know—as she did—how limited was Edward’s intelligence! She wanted to stay at home so as to avoid the ordeal, but Mr. Bacot had reserved for her a prominent seat on the platform.
“Are you nervous, Eddie?” she said, feeling more kindly disposed to him from his approaching trial.
“Me, nervous? What have I got to be nervous about?”
The hall was indeed crammed with the most eager, smelly, enthusiastic crowd Bertha had ever seen. The gas-jets flared noisily, throwing crude lights on the people, sailors, tradesmen, labourers, and boys. On the platform, in a semi-circle like the immortal gods, sat the notabilities of the neighborhood, Conservatives to the backbone. Bertha looked round with apprehension, but tried to calm herself with the thought that they were stupid people and she had no cause to tremble before them.
Presently the Vicar took the chair and in a few well-chosen words introduced Mr. Craddock.
“Mr. Craddock, like good wine, needs no bush. You all know him, and an introduction is superfluous. Still it is customary on such an occasion to say a few words on behalf of the candidate, and I have great pleasure, &c., &c....”
Now Edward rose to his feet, and Bertha’s blood ran cold. She dared not look at the audience. He advanced with his hands in his pockets—he had insisted on dressing himself up in a frock-coat and the most dismal pepper-and-salt trousers.
“Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen—Unaccustomed to public speaking as I am....”
Bertha looked up with a start. Could a man at the end of the nineteenth century, seriously begin an oration with those words! But he was not joking; he went on gravely, and, looking around, Bertha caught not the shadow of a smile. Edward was not in the least nervous, he quickly got into the swing of his speech—and it was terrible! He introduced every hackneyed phrase he knew, he mingled slang incongruously with pompous language; and his silly jokes, chestnuts of great antiquity, made Bertha writhe and shudder. She wondered that he could go on with such self-possession. Did he not see that he was making himself perfectly absurd! She dared not look up for fear of catching the sniggers of Mrs. Branderton and of the Hancocks: “One sees what he was before he married Miss Ley. Of course he’s a quite uneducated man.... I wonder his wife did not prevent him from making such an exhibition of himself. The grammar of it, my dear; and the jokes, and the stories!!!”
Bertha clenched her hands, furious because the flush of shame would not leave her cheeks. The speech was even worse than she had expected. He used the longest words, and, getting entangled in his own verbosity, was obliged to leave his sentence unfinished. He began a period with an elaborate flourish and waddled in confusion to the tamest commonplace: he was like a man who set out to explore the Andes and then, changing his mind, took a stroll in the Burlington Arcade. How long would it be, asked Bertha, before the audience broke into jeers and hisses? She blessed them for their patience. And what would happen afterwards? Would Mr. Bacot ask Edward to withdraw from the candidature? And supposing Edward refused, would it be necessary to tell him that he was really too great a fool? Bertha saw already the covert sneers of her neighbours.
“Oh, I wish he’d finish!” she muttered between her teeth. The agony, the humiliation of it, were unendurable.
But Edward was still talking, and gave no signs of an approaching termination. Bertha thought miserably that he had always been long-winded: if he would only sit down quickly the failure might not be irreparable. He made a vile pun and every one cried, Oh! Oh! Bertha shivered and set her teeth; she must bear it to the end now—why wouldn’t he sit down? Then Edward told an agricultural story, and the audience shouted with laughter. A ray of hope came to Bertha: perhaps his absolute vulgarity might save him with the vulgar people who formed the great body of the audience. But what must the Brandertons, and the Molsons, and the Hancocks, and all the rest of them, be saying? They must utterly despise him.
But worse was to follow. Edward came to his peroration, and a few remarks on current politics (of which he was entirely ignorant) brought him to his Country, England, Home and Beauty. He turned the tap of patriotism full on; it gurgled in a stream. He blew the penny trumpets of English purity, and the tin whistles of the British Empire, and he beat the big drum of the Great Anglo-Saxon Race. He thanked God he was an Englishman, and not as others are. Tommy Atkins, and Jack Tar, and Mr. Rudyard Kipling, danced a jig to the strains of the British Grenadiers; and Mr. Joseph Chamberlain executed a pas seul to the air of Yankee Doodle. Lastly, he waved the union Jack.
The hideous sentimentality, and the bad taste and the commonness made Bertha ashamed: it was horrible to think how ignoble must be the mind of a man who could foul his mouth with the expression of such sentiments.
Finally Edward sat down. For one moment the audience were silent—for the shortest instant; and then with one throat, broke into thunderous applause. It was no perfunctory clapping of hands; they rose as one man, and shouted and yelled with enthusiasm.
“Good old Teddy,” cried a voice. And then the air was filled with: For he’s a jolly good fellow. Mrs. Branderton stood on a chair and waved her handkerchief; Miss Glover clapped her hands as if she were no longer an automaton.
“Wasn’t it perfectly splendid?” she whispered to Bertha.
Every one on the platform was in a frenzy of delight. Mr. Bacot warmly shook Edward’s hand. Mrs. Mayston Ryle fanned herself desperately. The scene may well be described, in the language of journalists, as one of unparalleled enthusiasm. Bertha was dumbfounded.
Mr. Bacot jumped to his feet.
“I must congratulate Mr. Craddock on his excellent speech. I am sure it comes as a surprise to all of us that he should prove such a fluent speaker, with such a fund of humour and—er—and common sense. And what is more valuable than these, his last words have proved to us that his heart—his heart, gentlemen—is in the right place, and that is saying a great deal. In fact I know nothing better to be said of a man than that his heart is in the right place. You know me, ladies and gentlemen, I have made many speeches to you since I had the honour of standing for the constituency in ’85, but I must confess I couldn’t make a better speech myself than the one you have just heard.”
“You could—you could!” cried Edward, modestly.
“No, Mr. Craddock, no; I assert deliberately, and I mean it, that I could not do better myself. From my shoulders I let fall the mantle, and give it——“
Here Mr. Bacot was interrupted by the stentorian voice of the landlord of the Pig and Whistle (a rabid Conservative).
“Three cheers for good old Teddie!”
“That’s right, my boys,” repeated Mr. Bacot, for once taking an interruption in good part, “Three cheers for good old Teddy!”
The audience opened its mighty mouth and roared, then burst again into, For he’s a jolly good fellow! Arthur Branderton, when the tumult was subsiding, rose from his chair and called for more cheers. The object of all this enthusiasm sat calmly, with a well-satisfied look on his face, taking it all with his usual modest complacency. At last the meeting broke up, with cheers, and God save the Queen, and He’s a jolly good fellow. The committee and the personal friends of the Craddocks retired to the side-room for light refreshment.
The ladies clustered round Edward, congratulating him. Arthur Branderton came to Bertha.
“Ripping speech, wasn’t it?” he said. “I had no idea he could jaw like that. By Jove, it simply stirred me right through.”
Before Bertha could answer, Mrs. Mayston Ryle sailed in.
“Where’s the man?” she cried, in her loud tones. “Where is he? Show him to me.... My dear Mr. Craddock, your speech was perfect. I say it.”
“And in such good taste,” said Miss Hancock, her eyes glowing. “How proud you must be of your husband, Mrs. Craddock!”
“There’s no chance for the Radicals now,” said the Vicar, rubbing his hands.
“Oh, Mr. Craddock, let me come near you,” cried Mrs. Branderton. “I’ve been trying to get at you for twenty minutes.... You’ve simply extinguished the horrid Radicals; I couldn’t help crying, you were so pathetic.”
“One may say what one likes,” whispered Miss Glover to her brother, “but there’s nothing in the world so beautiful as sentiment. I felt my heart simply bursting.”
“Mr. Craddock,” added Mrs. Mayston Ryle, “you’ve pleased me! Where’s your wife, that I may tell her so?”
“It’s the best speech we’ve ever had down here,” cried Mrs. Branderton.
“That’s the only true thing I’ve heard you say for twenty years, Mrs. Branderton,” replied Mrs. Mayston Ryle, looking very hard at Mr. Atthill Bacot.
WHEN Lord Roseberry makes a speech, even the journals of his own party report him in the first person and at full length; and this is said to be the politician’s supreme ambition. Having reached such distinction, there is nothing left him but an honourable death and a public funeral in Westminster Abbey. Now, the Blackstable Times accorded this honour to Edward’s first effort; it was printed with numberless I’s peppered boldly over it; the grammar was corrected, and the stops inserted, just as for the most important orators. Edward bought a dozen copies and read the speech right through in each, to see that his sentiments were correctly expressed, and that there were no misprints. He gave it to Bertha, and stood over her while she read.
“Looks well, don’t it?” he said.
“Splendid!”
“By the way, is Aunt Polly’s address 72 Eliot Mansions?”
“Yes. Why?”
Her jaw fell as she saw him roll up half-a-dozen copies of the Blackstable Times and address the wrapper.
“I’m sure she’d like to read my speech. And it might hurt her feelings if she heard about it and I’d not sent her the report.”
“Oh, I’m sure she’d like to see it very much. But if you send six copies you’ll have none left—for other people.”
“Oh, I can easily get more. The editor chap told me I could have a thousand if I liked. I’m sending her six, because I dare say she’d like to forward some to her friends.”
By return of post came Miss Ley’s reply.
My dear Edward,—I perused all six copies of your speech with the greatest interest; and I think you will agree with me that it is high proof of its merit that I was able to read it the sixth time with as unflagging attention as the first. The peroration, indeed, I am convinced that no acquaintance could stale. It is so true that “every Englishman has a mother” (supposing, of course, that an untimely death has not robbed him of her). It is curious how one does not realise the truth of some things till they are pointed out; when one’s only surprise is at not having seen them before. I hope it will not offend you if I suggest that Bertha’s handiwork seems to me not invisible in some of the sentiments (especially in that passage about the union Jack). Did you really write the whole speech yourself? Come, now, confess that Bertha helped you.—Yours very sincerely,
MARY LEY.
Edward read the letter and tossed it, laughing, to Bertha. “What cheek her suggesting that you helped me! I like that.”
“I’ll write at once and tell her that it was all your own.”
Bertha still could hardly believe genuine the admiration which her husband excited. Knowing his extreme incapacity, she was astounded that the rest of the world should think him an uncommonly clever fellow. To her his pretensions were merely ridiculous; she marvelled that he should venture to discuss, with dogmatic glibness, subjects of which he knew nothing; but she marvelled still more that people should be impressed thereby: he had an astonishing faculty of concealing his ignorance.
At last the polling-day arrived, and Bertha waited anxiously at Court Leys for the result. Edward eventually appeared, radiant.
“What did I tell you?” said he.
“I see you’ve got in.”
“Got in isn’t the word for it! What did I tell you, eh? My dear girl, I’ve simply knocked ’em all into a cocked hat. I got double the number of votes that the other chap did, and it’s the biggest poll they’ve ever had.... Aren’t you proud that your hubby should be a County Councillor? I tell you I shall be an M.P. before I die.”
“I congratulate you—with all my heart,” said Bertha drily; but trying to be enthusiastic.
Edward in his excitement did not observe her coolness. He was walking up and down the room concocting schemes—asking himself how long it would be before Miles Campbell, the member, was confronted by the inevitable dilemma of the unopposed M.P., one horn of which is the Kingdom of Heaven, and the other—the House of Lords.
Presently he stopped. “I’m not a vain man,” he remarked, “but I must say I don’t think I’ve done badly.”
Edward, for a while, was somewhat overwhelmed by his own greatness, but the opinion came to his rescue that the rewards were only according to his deserts; and presently he entered energetically into the not very arduous duties of the County Councillor.
Bertha continually expected to hear something to his disadvantage; but, on the contrary, everything seemed to proceed very satisfactorily; and Edward’s aptitude for business, his keenness in making a bargain, his common sense, were heralded abroad in a manner that should have been most gratifying to his wife.
But as a matter of fact these constant praises exceedingly disquieted Bertha. She asked herself uneasily whether she was doing him an injustice. Was he really so clever; had he indeed the virtues which common report ascribed to him? Perhaps she was prejudiced; or perhaps—he was cleverer than she. This thought came like a blow, for she had never doubted that her intellect was superior to Edward’s. Their respective knowledge was not comparable: she occupied herself with ideas that Edward did not conceive; his mind was ever engaged in the utterest trivialities. He never interested himself in abstract things, and his conversation was tedious, as only the absence of speculation could make it. It was extraordinary that every one but herself should so highly estimate his intelligence. Bertha knew that his mind was paltry and his ignorance phenomenal: his pretentiousness made him a charlatan. One day he came to her, his head full of a new idea.
“I say, Bertha, I’ve been thinking it over and it seems a pity that your name should be dropped entirely. And it sounds funny that people called Craddock should live at Court Leys.”
“D’you think so? I don’t know how you can remedy it—unless you think of advertising for tenants with a more suitable name.”
“Well, I was thinking it wouldn’t be a bad idea, and it would have a good effect on the county, if we took your name again.”
He looked at Bertha, who stared at him icily, but answered nothing.
“I’ve talked to old Bacot about it and he thinks it would be just the thing; so I think we’d better do it.”
“I suppose you’re going to consult me on the subject.”
“That’s what I’m doing now.”
“Do you think of calling yourself Ley-Craddock or Craddock-Ley, or dropping the Craddock altogether?”
“Well, to tell you the truth, I hadn’t gone so far as that yet.”
Bertha gave a little scornful laugh. “I think the idea is perfectly ridiculous.”
“I don’t see that; I think it would be rather an improvement.”
“Really, Edward, if I was not ashamed to take your name, I don’t think that you need be ashamed to keep it.”
“I say, I think you might be reasonable—you’re always standing in my way.”
“I have no wish to do that. If you think my name will add to your importance, use it by all means.... You may call yourself Tompkins for all I care.”
“What about you?”
“Oh I—I shall continue to call myself Craddock.”
“I do think it’s rough. You never do anything to help me.”
“I am sorry you’re dissatisfied. But you forget that you have impressed one ideal on me for years: you have always given me to understand that your pattern female animal was the common or domestic cow.”
Edward did not understand what Bertha meant, and it occurred to him dimly that it was perhaps not altogether proper.
“You know, Edward, I always regret that you didn’t marry Fanny Glover. You would have suited one another admirably. And I think she would have worshipped you as you desire to be worshipped. I’m sure she would not have objected to your calling yourself Glover.”
“I shouldn’t have wanted to take her name. That’s no better than Craddock. The only thing in Ley is that it’s an old county name, and has belonged to your people.”
“That is why I don’t choose that you should use it.”
TIME passed slowly, slowly. Bertha wrapped her pride about her like a cloak, but sometimes it seemed too heavy to bear and she nearly fainted. The restraint which she imposed upon herself was often intolerable; anger and hatred seethed within her, but she forced herself to preserve the smiling face which people had always seen. She suffered intensely from her loneliness of spirit, she had not a soul to whom she could tell her unhappiness. It is terrible to have no means of expressing oneself, to keep imprisoned always the anguish that gnaws at one’s heart-strings. It is well enough for the writer, he can find solace in his words, he can tell his secret and yet not betray it: but the woman has only silence.
Bertha loathed Edward now with such angry, physical repulsion that she could not bear his touch; and every one she knew, was his admiring friend. How could she tell Fanny Glover that Edward was a fool who bored her to death, when Fanny Glover thought him the best and most virtuous of mankind? She was annoyed that in the universal estimation Edward should have eclipsed her so entirely: once his only importance lay in the fact that he was her husband, but now the positions were reversed. She found it very irksome thus to shine with reflected light, and at the same time despised herself for the petty jealousy. She could not help remembering that Court Leys was hers, and that if she chose she could send Edward away like a hired servant.
At last she felt it impossible longer to endure his company; he made her stupid and vulgar; she was ill and weak, and she utterly despaired. She made up her mind to go away again, this time for ever.
“If I stay, I shall kill myself.”
For two days Edward had been utterly miserable; a favourite dog had died, and he was brought to the verge of tears. Bertha watched him contemptuously.
“You are more affected over the death of a wretched poodle than you have ever been over a pain of mine.”
“Oh, don’t rag me now, there’s a good girl. I can’t bear it.”
“Fool!” muttered Bertha, under her breath.
He went about with hanging head and melancholy face, telling every one the particulars of the beast’s demise, in a voice quivering with emotion.
“Poor fellow!” said Miss Glover. “He has such a good heart.”
Bertha could hardly repress the bitter invective that rose to her lips. If people knew the coldness with which he had met her love, the indifference he had shown to her tears and to her despair! She despised herself when she remembered the utter self-abasement of the past.
“He made me drink the cup of humiliation to the very dregs.”
From the height of her disdain she summed him up for the thousandth time. It was inexplicable that she had been subject to a man so paltry in mind, so despicable in character. It made her blush with shame to think how servile had been her love.
Dr. Ramsay, who was visiting Bertha for some trivial ill, happened to come in when she was engaged with such thoughts.
“Well,” he said, as soon as he had taken breath. “And how is Edward to-day?”
“Good heavens, how should I know?” she cried, beside herself, the words slipping out unawares after the long constraint.
“Hulloa, what’s this? Have the turtle-doves had a tiff at last?”
“Oh, I’m sick of continually hearing Edward’s praises. I’m sick of being treated as an appendage to him.”
“What’s the matter with you, Bertha?” said the doctor, bursting into a shout of laughter. “I always thought nothing pleased you more than to hear how much we all liked your husband.”
“Oh, my good doctor, you must be blind or an utter fool. I thought every one knew by now that I loathe my husband.”
“What?” shouted Dr. Ramsay; then thinking Bertha was unwell: “Come, come, I see you want a little medicine, my dear. You’re out of sorts, and like all women you think the world is consequently coming to an end.”
Bertha sprang from the sofa. “D’you think I should speak like this if I hadn’t good cause? Don’t you think I’d conceal my humiliation if I could? Oh, I’ve hidden it long enough; now I must speak. Oh God, I can hardly help screaming with pain when I think of all I’ve suffered and hidden. I’ve never said a word to any one but you, and now I can’t help it. I tell you I loathe and abhor my husband and I utterly despise him. I can’t live with him any more, and I want to go away.”
Dr. Ramsay opened his mouth and fell back in his chair; he looked at Bertha as if he expected her to have a fit. “You’re not serious?”
Bertha stamped her foot impatiently. “Of course I’m serious. Do you think I’m a fool too? We’ve been miserable for years, and it can’t go on. If you knew what I’ve had to suffer when every one has congratulated me, and said how pleased they were to see me so happy. Sometimes I’ve had to dig my nails in my hands to prevent myself from crying out the truth.”
Bertha walked up and down the room, letting herself go at last. The tears were streaming down her cheeks, but she took no notice of them. She was giving full vent to her passionate hatred.
“Oh, I’ve tried to love him. You know how I loved him once—how I adored him. I would have laid down my life for him with pleasure. I would have done anything he asked me; I used to search for the smallest indication of his wishes so that I might carry them out. It overjoyed me to think that I was his abject slave. But he’s destroyed every vestige of my love, and now I only despise him, I utterly despise him. Oh, I’ve tried to love him, but he’s too great a fool.”
The last words Bertha said with such force that Dr. Ramsay was startled.
“My dear Bertha!”
“Oh, I know you all think him wonderful. I’ve had his praises thrown at me for years. But you don’t know what a man really is till you’ve lived with him, till you’ve seen him in every mood and in every circumstance. I know him through and through, and he’s a fool. You can’t conceive how stupid, how utterly brainless he is.... He bores me to death!”
“Come now, you don’t mean what you say. You’re exaggerating as usual. You must expect to have little quarrels now and then; upon my word, I think it took me twenty years to get used to my wife.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, don’t be sententious,” Bertha interrupted, fiercely. “I’ve had enough moralising in these five years. I might have loved Edward better if he hadn’t been so moral. He’s thrown his virtues in my face till I’m sick of them. He’s made every goodness ugly to me, till I sigh for vice just for a change. Oh, you can’t imagine how frightfully dull is a really good man. Now I want to be free, I tell you I can’t stand it any more.”
Bertha again walked up and down the room excitedly.
“Upon my word,” cried Dr. Ramsay, “I can’t make head or tail of it.”
“I didn’t expect you would. I knew you’d only moralise.”
“What d’you want me to do? Shall I speak to him?”
“No! No! I’ve spoken to him endlessly. It’s no good. D’you suppose your speaking to him will make him love me? He’s incapable of it; all he can give me is esteem and affection—good God, what do I want with esteem! It requires a certain intelligence to love, and he hasn’t got it. I tell you he’s a fool. Oh, when I think that I’m shackled to him for the rest of my life, I feel I could kill myself.”
“Come now, he’s not such a fool as all that. Every one agrees that he’s a very smart man of business. And I can’t help saying that I’ve always thought you did uncommonly well when you insisted on marrying him.”
“It was all your fault,” cried Bertha. “If you hadn’t opposed me, I might not have married so quickly. Oh, you don’t know how I’ve regretted it.... I wish I could see him dead at my feet.”
Dr. Ramsay whistled. His mind worked somewhat slowly, and he was becoming confused with the overthrow of his cherished opinions, and the vehemence with which the unpleasant operation was conducted.
“I didn’t know things were like this.”
“Of course you didn’t!” said Bertha, scornfully. “Because I smiled and hid my sorrow, you thought I was happy. When I look back on the wretchedness I’ve gone through, I wonder that I can ever have borne it.”
“I can’t believe that this is very serious. You’ll be of a different mind to-morrow, and wonder that such things ever entered your head. You mustn’t mind an old chap like me telling you that you’re very headstrong and impulsive. After all, Edward is a fine fellow, and I can’t believe that he would willingly hurt your feelings.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake don’t give me more of Edward’s praises.”
“I wonder if you’re a little jealous of the way he’s got on?” asked the doctor, looking at her sharply.
Bertha blushed, for she had asked herself the same question, and much scorn was needed to refute it.
“I? My dear doctor, you forget! Oh, don’t you understand that it isn’t a passing whim? It’s dreadfully serious to me—I’ve borne the misery till I can bear it no longer. You must help me to get away. If you have any of your old affection for me, do what you can. I want to go away; but I don’t want to have any more rows with Edward; I just want to leave him quietly. It’s no good trying to make him understand that we’re incompatible. He thinks that it’s enough for my happiness just to be his wife. He’s of iron, and I am pitifully weak.... I used to think myself so strong!”
“Am I to take it that you’re absolutely serious? Do you want to take the extreme step of separating from your husband?”
“It’s an extreme step that I’ve taken before. Last time I went with a flourish of trumpets, but now I want to go without any fuss at all. I still loved Edward then, but I have even ceased to hate him. Oh, I knew I was a fool to come back, but I couldn’t help it. He asked me to return, and I did.”
“Well, I don’t know what I can do for you. I can’t help thinking that if you wait a little things will get better.”
“I can’t wait any longer. I’ve waited too long. I’m losing my whole life.”
“Why don’t you go away for a few months, and then you can see? Miss Ley is going to Italy for the winter as usual, isn’t she? Upon my word, I think it would do you good to go too.”
“I don’t mind what I do so long as I can get away. I’m suffering too much.”
“Have you thought that Edward will miss you?” asked Dr. Ramsay, gravely.
“No, he won’t. Good heavens, don’t you think I know him by now? I know him through and through. And he’s callous, and selfish, and stupid. And he’s making me like himself.... Oh, Dr. Ramsay, please help me.”
“Does Miss Ley know?” asked the doctor, remembering what she had told him on her visit to Court Leys.
“No, I’m sure she doesn’t. She thinks we adore one another. And I don’t want her to know. I’m such a coward now. Years ago I never cared a straw for what any one in the world thought of me; but my spirit is utterly broken. Oh, get me away from here, Dr. Ramsay, get me away.”
She burst into tears, weeping as she had been long unaccustomed to do; she was utterly exhausted after the outburst of all that for years she had kept hid.
“I’m still so young, and I almost feel an old woman. Sometimes I should like to lie down and die, and have done with it all.”
A month later Bertha was in Rome. But at first she was hardly able to realise the change in her condition. Her life at Court Leys had impressed itself upon her with such ghastly distinctness that she could not imagine its cessation. She was like a prisoner so long immured that freedom dazes him, and he looks for his chains, and cannot understand that he is free.
The relief was so great that Bertha could not believe it true, and she lived in fear that her vision would be disturbed, and that she would find herself again within the prison walls of Court Leys. It was a dream that she wandered in sunlit places, where the air was scented with violets and with roses. The people were unreal, the models lounging on the steps of the Piazza di Spagna, the ragged urchins, quaintly costumed and importunate, the silver speech that caressed the air. How could she believe that life was true when it gave blue sky and sunshine, so that the heart thrilled with joy; when it gave rest, and peace, and the most delightful idleness? Real life was gloomy and strenuous; its setting a Georgian mansion, surrounded by desolate, wind-swept fields. In real life every one was very virtuous and very dull; the ten commandments hedged one round with the menace of hell-fire and eternal damnation, a dungeon more terrible because it had not walls, nor bars and bolts.
But beyond these gloomy stones with their harsh Thou shalt not is a land of fragrance and of light, where the sunbeams send the blood running gaily through the veins; where the flowers give their perfume freely to the air, in token that riches must be spent and virtue must be squandered; where the amorets flutter here and there on the spring breezes, unknowing whither they go, uncaring. It is a land of olive trees and of pleasant shade, and the sea kisses the shore gently to show the youths how they must kiss the maidens. There dark eyes flash lambently, telling the traveller he need not fear, since love may be had for the asking. Blood is warm, and hands linger with grateful pressure in hands, and red lips ask for the kisses that are so sweet to give. There the flesh and the spirit walk side by side, and each is well satisfied with the other. Ah, give me the sunshine of this blissful country, and a garden of roses, and the murmur of a pleasant brook; give me a shady bank, and wine, and books, and the coral lips of Amaryllis, and I will live in complete felicity—for at least ten days.
To Bertha the life in Rome seemed like a play. Miss Leys left her much freedom, and she wandered alone in strange places. She went often to the market and spent the morning among the booths, looking at a thousand things she did not want to buy; she fingered rich silks and antique bits of silver, smiling at the compliments of a friendly dealer. The people bustled around her, talking volubly, intensely alive, and yet, in her inability to understand that what she saw was true, they seemed but puppets. She went to the galleries, to the Sistine Chapel or to the Stanze of Raphael; and, lacking the hurry of the tourist and his sense of duty, she would spend a whole morning in front of one picture, or in a corner of some old church, weaving with the sight before her the fantasies of her imagination.
And when she felt the need of her fellow-men, Bertha went to the Pincio and mingled with the throng that listened to the band. But the Franciscan monk in his brown cowl, standing apart, was a figure of some romantic play; and the soldiers in gay uniforms, the Bersaglieri with the bold cock’s feathers in their hats, were the chorus of a comic opera. And there were black-robed priests, some old and fat, taking the sun and smoking cigarettes, at peace with themselves and with the world; others young and restless, the flesh unsubdued shining out of their dark eyes. And every one seemed as happy as the children who romped and scampered with merry cries.
But gradually the shadows of the past fell away and Bertha was able more consciously to appreciate the beauty and the life that surrounded her. And knowing it transitory she set herself to enjoy it as best she could. Care and youth are with difficulty yoked together, and merciful time wraps in oblivion the most gruesome misery. Bertha stretched out her arms to embrace the wonders of the living world, and she put away the dreadful thought that it must end so quickly. In the spring she spent long hours in the gardens that surround the city, where the remains of ancient Rome mingled exotically with the half tropical luxuriance, and called forth new and subtle emotions. The flowers grew in the sarcophagi with a wild exuberance, wantoning, it seemed, in mockery of the tomb from which they sprang. Death is hideous, but life is always triumphant; the rose and the hyacinth arise from man’s decay; and the dissolution of man is but the signal of other birth: and the world goes on, beautiful and ever new, revelling in its vigour.
Bertha went to the Villa Medici and sat where she could watch the light glowing on the mellow façade of the old palace, and Syrinx peeping between the reeds: the students saw her and asked who was the beautiful woman who sat so long and so unconscious of the eyes that looked at her. She went to the Villa Doria-Pamphili, majestic and pompous, the fitting summer-house of princes in gorgeous clothes, of bishops and of cardinals. And the ruins of the Palatine with its cypress trees sent her thought back and back, and she pictured to herself the glory of bygone power.
But the wildest garden of all, the garden of the Mattei, pleased her best. Here were a greater fertility and a greater abandonment; the distance and the difficulty of access kept strangers away, and Bertha could wander through it as if it were her own. She thought she had never enjoyed such exquisite moments as were given her by its solitude and its silence. Sometimes a troop of scarlet seminarists sauntered along the grass-grown avenues, vivid colour against the verdure.
Then she went home, tired and happy, and sat at her open window and watched the dying sun. The sun set over St. Peter’s, and the mighty cathedral was transfigured into a temple of fire and gold; the dome was radiant, formed no longer of solid stones, but of light and sunshine—it was the crown of a palace of Hyperion. Then, as the sun fell to the horizon, St. Peter’s stood out in darkness, stood out in majestic profile against the splendour of heaven.
BUT after Easter Miss Ley proposed that they should travel slowly back to England. Bertha had dreaded the suggestion, not only because she regretted to leave Rome, but still more because it rendered necessary some explanation. The winter had passed comfortably enough with the excuse of indifferent health, but now some other reason must be found to account for the continued absence from her husband’s side; and Bertha’s racked imagination gave her nothing. She was determined, however, under no circumstances, to return to Court Leys: after such happy freedom the confinement of body and soul would be doubly intolerable.
Edward had been satisfied with the pretext and had let Bertha go without a word. As he said, he was not the man to stand in his wife’s way when her health required her to leave him; and he could peg along all right by himself. Their letters had been fairly frequent, but on Bertha’s side a constant effort. She was always telling herself that the only rational course was to make Edward a final statement of her intentions, and then break off all communication. But the dread of fuss and bother, and of endless explanation, restrained her; and she compromised by writing as seldom as possible and adhering to the merest trivialities. She was surprised once or twice, when she had delayed her answer, to receive from him a second letter, asking with some show of anxiety why she did not write.
Miss Ley had never mentioned Edward’s name and Bertha surmised that she knew much of the truth. But she kept her own counsel: blessed are they who mind their own business and hold their tongues! Miss Ley, indeed, was convinced that some catastrophe had occurred, but true to her habit of allowing people to work out their lives in their own way, without interference, took care to seem unobservant; which was really very noble, for she prided herself on nothing more than on her talent for observation.
“The most difficult thing for a wise woman to do,” she said, “is to pretend to be a foolish one!”
Finally, she guessed Bertha’s present difficulty; and it seemed easily surmountable.
“I wish you’d come back to London with me instead of going to Court Leys,” she said. “You’ve never had a London season, have you? On the whole I think it’s amusing: the opera is very good and sometimes you see people who are quite well dressed.”
Bertha did not answer, and Miss Ley, seeing her wish to accept and at the same time her hesitation, suggested that she should come for a few weeks, well knowing that a woman’s visit is apt to spin itself out for an indeterminate time.
“I’m sorry I shan’t have room for Edward too,” said Miss Ley, smiling drily, “but my flat is very small, you know.”
They had been settled a few days in the flat at Eliot Mansions, when Bertha, coming in to breakfast one morning, found Miss Ley in a great state of suppressed amusement. She was quivering like an uncoiled spring; and she pecked at her toast and at her egg in a birdlike manner, which Bertha knew could only mean that some one had made a fool of himself, to the great entertainment of her aunt. Bertha began to laugh.
“Good Heavens,” she cried, “what has happened?”
“My dear—a terrible catastrophe.” Miss Ley repressed a smile, but her eyes gleamed and danced as though she were a young woman. “You don’t know Gerald Vaudrey, do you? But you know who he is.”
“I believe he’s a cousin of mine.”
Bertha’s father, who made a practice of quarrelling with all his relations, had found in General Vaudrey a brother-in-law as irascible as himself; so that the two families had never been on speaking term.
“I’ve just had a letter from his mother to say that he’s been—er, philandering rather violently with her maid, and they’re all in despair. The maid has been sent away in hysterics, his mother and his sister are in tears, and the General’s in a passion and says he won’t have the boy in his house another day. And the little wretch is only nineteen. Disgraceful, isn’t it?”
“Disgraceful!” said Bertha, smiling. “I wonder what there is in a French maid that small boys should invariably make love to her.”
“Oh, my dear, if you only saw my sister’s maid. She’s forty if she’s a day, and her complexion is like parchment very much the worse for wear.... But the awful part of it is that your Aunt Betty beseeches me to look after the boy. He’s going to Florida in a month, and meanwhile he’s to stay in London. Now, what I want to know, is how am I to keep a dissolute infant out of mischief. Is it the sort of thing that one would expect of me?”
Miss Ley waved her arms with comic desperation.
“Oh, but it’ll be great fun. We’ll reform him together. We’ll lead him on a path where French maids are not to be met at every turn and corner.”
“My dear, you don’t know what he is. He’s an utter young scamp. He was expelled from Rugby. He’s been to half-a-dozen crammers, because they wanted him to go to Sandhurst, but he utterly refused to work; and he’s been ploughed in every exam he’s gone in for—even for the militia. So now his father has given him five hundred pounds and told him to go to the devil.”
“How rude! But why should the poor boy go to Florida?”
“I suggested that. I know some people who’ve got an orange plantation there. And I dare say that the view of several miles of orange blossom will suggest to him that promiscuous flirtation may have unpleasant results.”
“I think I shall like him,” said Bertha.
“I have no doubt you will; he’s an utter scamp and rather pretty.”
Next day, when Bertha was in the drawing-room, reading, Gerald Vaudrey was shown in. She smiled to reassure him and put out her hand in the friendliest manner; she thought he must be a little confused at meeting a stranger instead of Miss Ley, and unhappy in his disgrace.
“You don’t know who I am?” she said.
“Oh yes, I do,” he replied, with a very pleasant smile. “The slavey told me Aunt Polly was out, but that you were here.”
“I’m glad you didn’t go away.”
“I thought I shouldn’t frighten you, you know.”
Bertha opened her eyes. He was certainly not at all shy, though he looked even younger than nineteen. He was a nice boy, very slight and not so tall as Bertha, with a small, quite girlish face. He had a tiny, pretty nose, and a pink and white freckled complexion. His hair was dark and curly, he wore it somewhat long, evidently aware that it was beautiful; and his handsome green eyes had a charming expression. His sensual mouth was always smiling.
“What a nice boy!” thought Bertha. “I’m sure I shall like him.”
He began to talk as if he had known her all his life, and she was entertained by the contrast between his innocent appearance and his disreputable past. He looked about the room with boyish ease and stretched himself comfortably in a big arm-chair.
“Hulloa, that’s new since I was here last!” he said, pointing to an Italian bronze.
“Have you been here often?”
“Rather! I used to come here whenever it got too hot for me at home. It’s no good scrapping with your governor, because he’s got the ooftish—it’s a jolly unfair advantage that fathers have, but they always take it. So when the old chap flew into a passion, I used to say, ‘I won’t argue with you. If you can’t treat me like a gentleman, I shall go away for a week.’ And I used to come here. Aunt Polly always gave me five quid, and said, ‘Don’t tell me how you spend it, because I shouldn’t approve; but come again when you want some more.’ She’s is a ripper, ain’t she!”
“I’m sorry she’s not in.”
“I’m rather glad, because I can have a long talk with you till she comes. I’ve never seen you before, so I have such a lot to say.”
“Have you?” said Bertha, laughing. “That’s rather unusual in young men.”
He looked so absurdly young that Bertha could not help treating him as a schoolboy; and she was amused at his communicativeness. She wanted him to tell her his escapades, but was afraid to ask.
“Are you very hungry?” She thought that boys always had appetites. “Would you like some tea?”
“I’m starving.”
She poured him out a cup, and taking it and three jam sandwiches, he sat on a footstool at her feet. He made himself quite at home.
“You’ve never seen my Vaudrey cousins, have you?” he asked, with his mouth full. “I can’t stick ’em at any price, they’re such frumps. I’ll tell ’em all about you; it’ll make them beastly sick.”
Bertha raised her eyebrows. “And do you object to frumps?”
“I simply loathe them. At the last tutor’s I was at, the old chap’s wife was the most awful old geezer you ever saw. So I wrote and told my mater that I was afraid my morals were being corrupted.”
“And did she take you away?”
“Well, by a curious coincidence, the old chap wrote the very same day, and told the pater if he didn’t remove me he’d give me the shoot. So I sent in my resignation, and told him his cigars were poisonous, and cleared out.”
“Don’t you think you’d better sit on a chair?” said Bertha. “You must be very uncomfortable on that footstool.”
“Oh no, not at all. After a Turkey carpet and a dining-room table, there’s nothing so comfy as a footstool. A chair always makes me feel respectable—and dull.”
Bertha thought Gerald rather a nice name.
“How long are you staying in London?”
“Oh, only a month, worse luck. Then I’ve got to go to the States to make my fortune and reform.”
“I hope you will.”
“Which? One can’t do both at once, you know. You make your money first, and you reform afterwards, if you’ve got time. But whatever happens, it’ll be a good sight better than sweating away at an everlasting crammer’s. If there is one man I can’t stick at any price it’s the army crammer.”
“You have a large experience of them, I understand.”
“I wish you didn’t know all my past history. Now I shan’t have the sport of telling you.”
“I don’t think it would be edifying.”
“Oh yes, it would. It would show you how virtue is downtrodden (that’s me), and how vice is triumphant. I’m awfully unlucky; people sort of conspire together to look at my actions from the wrong point of view. I’ve had jolly rough luck all through. First I was bunked from Rugby. Well, that wasn’t my fault. I was quite willing to stay, and I’m blowed if I was worse than anybody else. The pater blackguarded me for six weeks, and said I was bringing his grey hairs with sorrow to the grave. Well, you know, he’s simply awfully bald; so at last I couldn’t help saying that I didn’t know where his grey hairs were going to, but it didn’t much look as if he meant to accompany them. So, after that, he sent me to a crammer who played poker. Well, he skinned me of every shilling I’d got, and then wrote and told the pater I was an immoral young dog, and corrupting his house.”
“I think we’d better change the subject, Gerald,” said Bertha.
“Oh, but you must have the sequel. The next place I went to, I found none of the other fellows knew poker; so of course I thought it a sort of merciful interposition of Providence to help me to recoup myself. I told ’em not to lay up treasures in this world, and walloped in thirty quid in four days; then the old thingamygig (I forget his name, but he was a parson) told me I was making his place into a gambling-hell, and that he wouldn’t have me another day in his house. So off I toddled, and I stayed at home for six months. That gave me the fair hump, I can tell you.”
The conversation was disturbed by the entrance of Miss Ley.
“You see we’ve made friends,” said Bertha.
“Gerald always does that with everybody. He’s the most gregarious person. How are you, Lothario?”
“Flourishing, my Belinda,” he replied, flinging his arms round Miss Ley’s neck to her great delight and pretended indignation.
“You’re irrepressible,” she said. “I expected to find you in sackcloth and ashes, penitent and silent.”
“My dear Aunt Polly, ask me to do anything you like, except to repent and to hold my tongue.”
“You know your mother has asked me to look after you.”
“I like being looked after—and is Bertha going to help?”
“I’ve been thinking it over,” added Miss Ley. “And the only way I can think to keep you out of mischief is to make you spend your evenings with me. So you’d better go home now and dress. I know there’s nothing you like better than changing your clothes.”
Meanwhile Bertha observed with astonishment that Gerald was simply devouring her with his eyes. It was impossible not to see his evident admiration.
“The boy must be mad,” she thought, but could not help feeling a little flattered.
“He’s been telling me some dreadful stories,” she said to Miss Ley, when he had gone. “I hope they’re not true.”
“Oh, I think you must take all Gerald says with a grain of salt. He exaggerates dreadfully, and all boys like to seem Byronic. So do most men, for the matter of that!”
“He looks so young. I can’t believe that he’s really very naughty.”
“Well, my dear, there’s no doubt about his mother’s maid. The evidence is of the—most conclusive order. I know I should be dreadfully angry with him, but every one is so virtuous now-a-days that a change is quite refreshing. And he’s so young, he may reform. Englishmen start galloping to the devil, but as they grow older they nearly always change horses and amble along gently to respectability, a wife, and seventeen children.”
“I like the contrast of his green eyes and his dark hair.”
“My dear, it can’t be denied that he’s made to capture the feminine heart. I never try to resist him myself. He’s so extremely convincing when he tells you some outrageous fib.”
Bertha went to her room and looked at herself in the glass, then put on her most becoming dinner-dress.
“Good gracious,” said Miss Ley. “You’ve not put that on for Gerald? You’ll turn the boy’s head, he’s dreadfully susceptible.”
“It’s the first one I came across,” replied Bertha, innocently.
“You’ve quite captured Gerald’s heart,” said Miss Ley to Bertha a day or two later. “He’s confided to me that he thinks you ‘perfectly stunning.’”
“He’s a very nice boy,” said Bertha, laughing.
The youth’s outspoken admiration could not fail to increase her liking; and she was amused by the stare of his green eyes, which, with a woman’s peculiar sense, she felt even when her back was turned. They followed her; they rested on her hair and on her beautiful hands; when she wore a low dress they burnt themselves on her neck and breast; she felt them travel along her arms, and embrace her figure. They were the most caressing, smiling eyes, but with a certain mystery in their emerald depths. Bertha did not neglect to put herself in positions wherein Gerald could see her to advantage; and when he looked at her hands she could not be expected to withdraw them as though she were ashamed. Few Englishmen see anything in a woman, but her face; and it seldom occurs to them that her hand has the most delicate outlines, all grace and gentleness, with tapering fingers and rosy nails; they never look for the thousand things it has to say.
“Don’t you know it’s very rude to stare like that,” said Bertha, with a smile, turning round suddenly.
“I beg your pardon, I didn’t know you were looking.”
“I wasn’t, but I saw you all the same.”
She smiled at him most engagingly and she saw a sudden flame leap into his eyes. A married woman is always gratified by the capture of a youth’s fickle heart: it is an unsolicited testimonial to her charms, and has the great advantage of being completely free from danger. She tells herself that there is no better training for a boy than to fall in love with a really nice woman a good deal older than himself. It teaches him how to behave and keeps him from getting into mischief: how often have callow youths been know to ruin their lives by falling into the clutches of some horrid adventuress with yellow hair and painted cheeks! Since she is old enough to be his mother, the really nice woman thinks there can be no harm in flirting with the poor boy, and it seems to please him: so she makes him fetch and carry, and dazzles him, and drives him quite distracted, till his youthful fickleness comes to the rescue and he falls passionately enamoured of a barmaid—when, of course, she calls him an ungrateful and low-minded wretch, regrets she was so mistaken in his character, and tells him never to come near her again.
This of course only refers to the women that men fall in love with; it is well known that the others have the strictest views on the subject, and would sooner die than trifle with any one’s affections.
Gerald had the charming gift of becoming intimate with people at the shortest notice, and a cousin is an agreeable relation (especially when she’s pretty), with whom it is easy to get on. The relationship is not so close as to warrant chronic disagreeableness, and close enough to permit personalities, which are the most amusing part of conversation.
Within a week Gerald took to spending his whole day with Bertha, and she found the London season much more amusing than she had expected. She looked back with distaste to her only two visits to town. One had been her honeymoon, and the other the first separation from her husband: it was odd that in retrospect both seem equally dreary. Edward had almost disappeared from her thoughts, and she exulted like a captive free from chains. Her only annoyance was his often-expressed desire to see her. Why could he not leave her alone, as she left him? He was perpetually asking when she would return to Court Leys; and she had to invent excuses to prevent his coming to London. She loathed the idea of seeing him again.
But she put aside these thoughts when Gerald came to fetch her, sometimes for a bicycle ride in Battersea Park, sometimes to spend an hour in one of the museums. It is no wonder that the English are a populous race when one observes how many are the resorts supplied by the munificence of governing bodies for the express purpose of philandering. On a hot day what spot can be more enchanting than the British Museum, cool, silent, and roomy, with harmless statues which tell no tales, and afford matter for conversation to break an awkward pause?
The parks also are eminently suited for those whose fancy turns to thoughts of Platonic love. Hyde Park is the fitting scene for an idyll in which Corydon wears patent-leather boots and a top-hat, while Phyllis has an exquisite frock which suits her perfectly. The well-kept lawns, the artificial water and the trim paths, give a mock rurality which is infinitely amusing to persons who do not wish to take things too seriously. Here, in the summer mornings, Gerald and Bertha spent much time. It pleased her to listen to his chatter, and to look into his green eyes; he was such a very nice boy, and seemed so much attached to her! Besides, he was only in London for a month, and, quite secure in his departure, she could afford to let him fall a little in love.
“Are you sorry you’re going away so soon?” she asked.
“I shall be miserable at leaving you.”
“It’s nice of you to say so.”
Bit by bit she extracted from him his discreditable history. Bertha was possessed by a curiosity to know details, which she elicited artfully, making him confess his iniquities that she might pretend to be angry. It gave her a curious thrill, partly of admiration, to think that he was such a depraved young person, and she looked at him with a sort of amused wonder. He was very different from the virtuous Edward. A childlike innocence shone out of his handsome eyes, and yet he had already tasted the wine of many emotions. Bertha felt somewhat envious of the sex which gave opportunity, and the spirit which gave power, to seize life boldly, and wring from it all it had to offer.
“I ought to refuse to speak to you any more,” she said. “I ought to be ashamed of you.”
“But you’re not. That’s why you’re such a ripper.”
How could she be angry with a boy who adored her? His very perversity fascinated her. Here was a man who would never hesitate to go to the devil for a woman, and Bertha was pleased at the compliment to her sex.
One evening Miss Ley was dining out, and Gerald asked Bertha to come to dinner with him, and then to the opera. She refused, thinking of the expense; but he was so eager, and she really so anxious to go, that finally she consented.
“Poor boy, he’s going away so soon, I may as well be nice to him.”
Gerald arrived in high spirits, looking even more boyish than usual.
“I’m really afraid to go out with you,” said Bertha. “People will think you’re my son. ‘Dear me, who’d have thought she was forty!’”
“What rot!” He looked at her beautiful gown. Like all really nice women, Bertha was extremely careful to be always well dressed. “By Jove, you are a stunner!”
“My dear child, I’m old enough to be your mother.”
They drove off—to a restaurant which Gerald, boylike, had chosen, because common report pronounced it the dearest in London. Bertha was much amused by the bustle, the glitter of women in diamonds, the busy waiters gliding to and fro, the glare of the electric light: and her eyes rested with approval on the handsome boy in front of her. She could not keep in check the recklessness with which he insisted on ordering the most expensive things; and when they arrived at the opera, she found he had a box.
“Oh, you wretch,” she cried. “You must be utterly ruined.”
“Oh, I’ve got five hundred quid,” he replied, laughing. “I must blue some of it.”
“But why on earth did you get a box?”
“I remembered that you hated any other part of the theatre.”
“But you promised to get cheap seats.”
“And I wanted to be alone with you.”
He was by nature a flatterer; and few women could withstand the cajolery of his green eyes, and of his charming smile.
“He must be very fond of me,” thought Bertha, as they drove home, and she put her arm in his to express her thanks and her appreciation.
“It’s very nice of you to have been so good to me. I always thought you were a nice boy.”
“I’d do more than that for you.”
He would have given the rest of his five hundred pounds for one kiss. She knew it, and was pleased, but gave him no encouragement, and for once he was bashful. They separated at her doorstep with the quietest handshake.
“It’s awfully kind of you to have come.”
He appeared immensely grateful to her. Her conscience pricked her now that he had spent so much money; but she liked him all the more.
Gerald’s month was nearly over, and Bertha was astonished that he occupied her thoughts so much. She did not know that she was so fond of him.
“I wish he weren’t going,” she said, and then quickly: “but of course it’s much better that he should!”
At that moment the boy appeared.
“This day week you’ll be on the sea, Gerald,” she said. “Then you’ll be sorry for all your iniquities.”
“No!” he answered, sitting in the position he most affected, at Bertha’s feet.
“No—which?”
“I shan’t be sorry,” he replied, with a smile, “and I’m not going away.”
“What d’you mean?”
“I’ve altered my plans. The man I’m going to said I could start at the beginning of the month or a fortnight later.”
“But why?” It was a foolish question, because she knew.
“I had nothing to stay for. Now I have, that’s all.”
Bertha looked at him, and caught his shining eyes fixed intently upon her. She became grave.
“You’re not angry?” he asked, changing his tone. “I thought you wouldn’t mind. I don’t want to leave you.”
He looked at her so earnestly and tears came to his eyes, Bertha could not help being touched.
“I’m very glad that you should stay, dear. I didn’t want you to go so soon. We’ve been such good friends.”
She passed her fingers through his curly hair and over his ears; but he started, and shivered.
“Don’t do that,” he said, pushing her hand away.
“Why not?” she cried, laughing. “Are you frightened of me?”
And caressingly she passed her hand over his ears again.
“Oh, you don’t know what pain that gives me.”
He sprang up, and to her astonishment Bertha saw that he was pale and trembling.
“I feel I shall go mad when you touch me.”
Suddenly she saw the burning passion in his eyes; it was love that made him tremble. Bertha gave a little cry, and a curious sensation pressed her heart. Then without warning, the boy seized her hands and falling on his knees before her, kissed them repeatedly. His hot breath made Bertha tremble too, and the kisses burnt themselves into her flesh. She snatched her hands away.
“I’ve wanted to do that so long,” he whispered.
She was too deeply moved to answer, but stood looking at him.
“You must be mad, Gerald.” She pretended to laugh.
“Bertha!”
They stood very close together; he was about to put his arms round her. And for an instant she had an insane desire to let him do what he would, to let him kiss her lips as he had kissed her hands; and she wanted to kiss his mouth, and the curly hair, and his cheeks soft as a girl’s. But she recovered herself.
“Oh, it’s absurd! Don’t be silly, Gerald.”
He could not speak; he looked at her, his green eyes sparkling with desire.
“I love you.”
“My dear boy, do you want me to succeed your mother’s maid?”
“Oh!” he gave a groan and turned red.
“I’m glad you’re staying on. You’ll be able to see Edward, who’s coming to town. You’ve never met my husband, have you?”
His lips twitched, and he seemed to struggle to compose himself. Then he threw himself on a chair and buried his face in his hands. He seemed so little, so young—and he loved her. Bertha looked at him for a moment, and tears came to her eyes. She called herself brutal, and put her hand on his shoulder.
“Gerald!” He did not look up. “Gerald, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I’m sorry for what I said.”
She bent down and drew his hands away from his face.
“Are you cross with me?” he asked, almost tearfully.
“No,” she answered, caressingly. “But you mustn’t be silly, dearest. You know I’m old enough to be your mother.”
He did not seem consoled, and she felt still that she had been horrid. She took his face between her hands and kissed his lips. And, as if he were a little child, she kissed away the tear-drops that shone in his eyes.