BERTHA still felt on her hands Gerald’s passionate kisses, like little patches of fire; and on her lips was still the touch of his boyish mouth. What magic current had passed from him to her that she should feel this sudden happiness? It was enchanting to think that Gerald loved her; she remembered how his eyes had sparkled, how his voice had grown hoarse so that he could hardly speak: ah, those were the signs of real love, of the love that is mighty and triumphant. Bertha put her hands to her heart with a rippling laugh of pure joy—for she was beloved. The kisses tingled on her fingers so that she looked at them with surprise, she seemed almost to see a mark of burning. She was very grateful to him, she wanted to take his head in her hands and kiss his hair and his boyish eyes and again the soft lips. She told herself that she would be a mother to him.
The day following he had come to her almost shyly, afraid that she would be angry, and the bashfulness contrasting with his usual happy audacity, had charmed her. It flattered her extremely to think that he was her humble slave, to see the pleasure he took in doing as she bade; but she could hardly believe it true that he loved her, and she wished to reassure herself. It gave her a queer thrill to see him turn white when she held his hand, to see him tremble when she leaned on his arm. She stroked his hair and was delighted with the anguish in his eyes.
“Don’t do that,” he cried. “Please. You don’t know how it hurts.”
“I was hardly touching you,” she replied, laughing.
She saw in his eyes glistening tears—they were tears of passion, and she could scarcely restrain a cry of triumph. At last she was loved as she wished, she gloried in her power: here at last was one who would not hesitate to lose his soul for her sake. She was intensely grateful. But her heart grew cold when she thought it was too late, that it was no good: he was only a boy, and she was married and—nearly thirty.
But even then, why should she attempt to stop him? If it was the love she dreamt of, nothing could destroy it. And there was no harm; Gerald said nothing to which she might not listen, and he was so much younger than she, he was going in less than a month and it would all be over. Why should she not enjoy the modest crumbs that the gods let fall from their table—it was little enough, in all conscience! How foolish is he who will not bask in the sun of St. Martin’s summer, because it heralds the winter as surely as the east wind!
They spent the whole day together to Miss Ley’s amusement, who for once did not use her sharp eyes to much effect.
“I’m so thankful to you, Bertha, for looking after the lad. His mother ought to be eternally grateful to you for keeping him out of mischief.”
“I’m very glad if I have,” said Bertha, “he’s such a nice boy, and I’m so fond of him. I should be very sorry if he got into trouble.... I’m rather anxious about him afterwards.”
“My dear, don’t be; because he’s certain to get into scrapes—it’s his nature—but it’s likewise his nature to get out of them. He’ll swear eternal devotion to half-a-dozen fair damsels, and ride away rejoicing, while they are left to weep upon one another’s bosoms. It’s some men’s nature to break women’s hearts.”
“I think he’s only a little wild: he means no harm.”
“These sort of people never do; that’s what makes their wrong-doing so much more fatal.”
“And he’s so affectionate.”
“My dear, I shall really believe that you’re in love with him.”
“I am,” said Bertha. “Madly!”
The plain truth is often the surest way to hoodwink people, more especially when it is told unconsciously. Women of fifty have an irritating habit of treating as contemporaries all persons of their own sex who are over twenty-five, and it never struck Miss Ley that Bertha might look upon Gerald as anything but a little boy.
But Edward could no longer be kept in the country. Bertha was astonished that he should wish to see her, and a little annoyed, for now of all times his presence would be importunate. She did not wish to have her dream disturbed, she knew it was nothing else; it was a mere spring day of happiness in the long winter of life. She looked at Gerald now with a heavy heart and could not bear to think of the future. How empty would existence be without that joyous smile; above all, without that ardent passion! This love was wonderful; it surrounded her like a mystic fire and lifted her up so that she seemed to walk on air. But things always come too late or come by halves. Why should all her passion have been squandered and flung to the winds, so that now when a beautiful youth offered her his virgin heart, she had nothing to give in exchange? Bertha told herself that though she was extremely fond of Gerald, of course she did not love him; he was a mere boy!
She was a little nervous at the meeting between him and Edward; she wondered what they would think of one another, and she watched—Gerald! Edward came in like a country breeze, obstreperously healthy, jovial, large, and somewhat bald. Miss Ley trembled lest he should knock her china over as he went round the room. He kissed her on one cheek, and Bertha on the other.
“Well, how are you all?—And this is my young cousin, eh? How are you? Pleased to meet you.”
He wrung Gerald’s hand, towering over him, beaming good-naturedly; then sat in a chair much too small for him, which creaked and grumbled at his weight. There are few sensations more amusing for a woman than to look at the husband she has once adored and think how very unnecessary he is; but it is apt to make conversation a little difficult. Miss Ley soon carried Gerald off, thinking that husband and wife should enjoy a little of that isolation to which marriage had indissolubly doomed them. Bertha had been awaiting, with great discomfort, the necessary ordeal. She had nothing to tell Edward, and was much afraid that he would be sentimental.
“Where are you staying?” she asked.
“Oh, I’m putting up at the Inns of Court—I always go there.”
“I thought you might care to go to the theatre to-night. I’ve got a box, so that Aunt Polly and Gerald can come too.”
“I’m game for anything you like.”
“You always were the best-tempered man,” said Bertha, smiling gently.
“You don’t seem to care very much for my society, all the same.”
Bertha looked up quickly. “What makes you think that?”
“Well, you’re a precious long time coming back to Court Leys,” he replied, laughing.
Bertha was relieved, for evidently he was not taking the matter seriously. She had not the courage to say that she meant never to return: the endless explanation, his wonder, the impossibility of making him understand, were more than she could bear.
“When are you coming back? We all miss you, like anything.”
“Do you?” she said. “I really don’t know. We’ll see after the season.”
“What? Aren’t you coming for another couple of months?”
“I don’t think Blackstable suits me very well. I’m always ill there.”
“Oh, nonsense. It’s the finest air in England. Deathrate practically nil.”
“D’you think our life was very happy, Edward?”
She looked at him anxiously to see how he would take the tentative remark: but he was only astonished.
“Happy? Yes, rather. Of course we had our little tiffs. All people do. But they were chiefly at first, the road was a bit rough and we hadn’t got our tyres properly blown out. I’m sure I’ve got nothing to complain about.”
“That of course is the chief thing,” said Bertha.
“You look as well as anything now. I don’t see why you shouldn’t come back.”
“Well, we’ll see later. We shall have plenty of time to talk it over.”
She was afraid to speak the words on the tip of her tongue; it would be easier by correspondence.
“I wish you’d give some fixed date—so that I could have things ready, and tell people.”
“It depends upon Aunt Polly; I really can’t say for certain. I’ll write to you.”
They kept silence for a moment and then an idea seized Bertha.
“What d’you say to going to the Natural History Museum? Don’t you remember, we went there on our honeymoon? I’m sure it would amuse you to see it again.”
“Would you like to go?” asked Edward.
“I’m sure it would amuse you,” she replied.
Next day while Bertha was shopping with her husband, Gerald and Miss Ley sat alone.
“Are you very disconsolate without Bertha?” she asked.
“Utterly miserable!”
“That’s very rude to me, dear boy.”
“I’m awfully sorry, but I can never be polite to more than one person at a time: and I’ve been using up all my good manners on—Mr. Craddock.”
“I’m glad you like him,” replied Miss Ley, smiling.
“I don’t!”
“He’s a very worthy man.”
“If I hadn’t seen Bertha for six months, I shouldn’t take her off at once to see bugs.”
“Perhaps it was Bertha’s suggestion.”
“She must find Mr. Craddock precious dull if she prefers blackbeetles and stuffed kangaroos.”
“You shouldn’t draw such rapid conclusions, my friend.”
“D’you think she’s fond of him?”
“My dear Gerald, what a question! Is it not her duty to love, honour, and obey him?”
“If I were a woman I could never honour a man who was bald.”
“His locks are somewhat scanty; but he has a strong sense of duty.”
“I know that,” shouted Gerald. “It oozes out of him whenever he gets hot, just like gum.”
“He’s a County Councillor, and he makes speeches about the union Jack, and he’s virtuous.”
“I know that too. He simply reeks of the ten commandments: they stick out all over him, like almonds in a tipsy cake.”
“My dear Gerald, Edward is a model; he is the typical Englishman as he flourishes in the country, upright and honest, healthy, dogmatic, moral—rather stupid. I esteem him enormously, and I ought to like him much better than you, who are a disgraceful scamp.”
“I wonder why you don’t.”
“Because I’m a wicked old woman; and I’ve learnt by long experience that people generally keep their vices to themselves, but insist on throwing their virtues in your face. And if you don’t happen to have any of your own, you get the worst of the encounter.”
“I think that’s what is so comfortable in you, Aunt Polly, that you’re not obstreperously good. You’re charity itself.”
“My dear Gerald,” said Miss Ley, putting up an admonishing forefinger, “women are by nature spiteful and intolerant; when you find one who exercises charity, it proves that she wants it very badly herself.”
Miss Ley was glad that Edward could not stay more than two days, for she was always afraid of surprising him. Nothing is more tedious than to talk with persons who treat your most obvious remarks as startling paradoxes; and Edward suffered likewise from that passion for argument, which is the bad talker’s substitute for conversation. People who cannot talk are always proud of their dialectic: they want to modify your tritest observations, and even if you suggest that the day is fine insist on arguing it out.
Bertha, in her husband’s presence, had suffered singular discomfort; it had been such a constraint that she found it an effort to talk with him, and she had to rack her brain for subjects of conversation. Her heart was perceptibly lightened when she returned from Victoria after seeing him off, and it gave her a thrill of pleasure to hear Gerald jump up when she came in. He ran towards her with glowing eyes.
“Oh, I’m so glad. I’ve hardly had a chance of speaking to you these last two days.”
“We have the whole afternoon before us.”
“Let’s go for a walk, shall we?”
Bertha agreed, and like two schoolfellows they sallied out. The day was sunny and warm, and they wandered by the river. The banks of the Thames about Chelsea have a pleasing trimness, a levity which is infinitely grateful after the sedateness of the rest of London. The embankments, in spite of their novelty, recall the days when the huge city was a great, straggling village, when the sedan-chair was a means of locomotion, and ladies wore patches and hoops; when epigram was the fashion and propriety was not.
Presently, as they watched the gleaming water, a penny steamboat approached the adjoining stage, and gave Bertha an idea.
“Would you like to take me to Greenwich?” she cried. “Aunt Polly’s dining out; we can have dinner at the Ship and come back by train.”
“By Jove, it will be ripping.”
They bolted down the gangway and took their tickets; the boat started, and Bertha, panting, sank on a seat. She felt a little reckless, pleased with herself, and amused to see Gerald’s unmeasured delight.
“I feel as if we were eloping,” she said, with a laugh; “I’m sure Aunt Polly will be dreadfully shocked.”
The boat went on, stopping every now and then to take in passengers. They came to the tottering wharves of Millbank, and then to the footstool turrets of St. John’s, the eight red blocks of St. Thomas’s Hospital, and the Houses of Parliament. They passed Westminster Bridge, and the massive strength of New Scotland Yard, the hotels and public buildings which line the Victoria Embankment, the Temple Gardens; and opposite this grandeur, on the Surrey side, were the dingy warehouses and factories of Lambeth. At London Bridge Bertha found new interest in the varying scene; she stood in the bows with Gerald by her side, not speaking; they were happy in being near one another. The traffic became denser and the boat more crowded—with artisans, clerks, noisy girls, going eastwards to Rotherhithe and Deptford. Great merchantmen lay by the river-side, or slowly made their way downstream under the Tower Bridge; and then the broad waters were crowded with every imaginable craft, with lazy barges as picturesque with their red sails as the fishing-boats of Venice, with little tugs, puffing and blowing, with ocean tramps, and with huge packets. And as they passed in the penny steamer they had swift pictures of groups of naked boys wallowing in the Thames mud or diving from the side of an anchored coal-barge. A new atmosphere enveloped them now. Gray warehouses which lined the river, and the factories, announced the commerce of a mighty nation; and the spirit of Charles Dickens gave to the passing scenes a fresh delight. How could they be prosaic when the great master had described them? An amiable stranger put names to the various places.
“Look, there’s Wapping Old Stairs.”
And the words thrilled Bertha like poetry. They passed innumerable wharves and docks, London Dock, John Cooper’s wharves, and William Gibbs’s wharves (who are John Cooper and William Gibbs?), Limehouse Basin, and West India Dock. Then with a great turn of the river they entered Limehouse Reach; and soon the noble lines of the hospital, the immortal monument of Inigo Jones, came into view, and they landed at Greenwich Pier.
THEY stood for a while on a terrace overlooking the river by the side of the hospital. Immediately below, a crowd of boys were bathing, animated and noisy, chasing and ducking one another, running to and fro with many cries, and splashing in the mud.
The river was stretched more widely before them. The sun played on its yellow wavelets so that they shone with a glitter of gold. A tug grunted past with a long tail of barges, and a huge East Indiaman glided noiselessly by. In the late afternoon there was over the scene an old-time air of ease and spaciousness. The stately flood carried the mind away, so that the onlooker followed it in thought, and went down, as it broadened, with its crowd of traffic, till presently a sea-smell reached the nostrils, and the river, ever majestic, flowed into the sea. And the ships went east and west and south, bearing their merchandise to the uttermost parts of the earth, to southern, summer lands of palm-trees and dark-skinned peoples, bearing the name and wealth of England. The Thames became an emblem of the power of the mighty empire, and those who watched felt stronger in its strength, and proud of their name and of the undiminished glory of their race.
But Gerald looked sadly.
“In a very little while it must take me away from you, Bertha.”
“But think of the freedom and the vastness. Sometimes in England one seems oppressed by the lack of room; one can hardly breathe.”
“It’s the thought of leaving you.”
She put her hand on his arm caressingly; and then, to take him from his sadness, suggested that they should walk.
Greenwich is half London, half country town; and the unexpected union gives it a peculiar fascination. If the wharves and docks of London still preserve the spirit of Charles Dickens, here it is the happy breeziness of Captain Marryat which fills the imagination. Those tales of a freer life and of the sea-breezes come back amid the gray streets, still peopled with the vivid characters of Poor Jack. In the park, by the side of the labourers, navvies from the neighboring docks, asleep on the grass, or watching the boys play a primitive cricket, may be seen fantastic old persons who would have delighted the grotesque pen of the seaman-novelist.
Bertha and Gerald sat beneath the trees, looking at the people, till it grew late, and then wandered back to the Ship for dinner. It amused them immensely to sit in the old coffee-room and be waited on by a black waiter, who extolled absurdly the various dishes.
“We won’t be economical to-day,” cried Bertha. “I feel utterly reckless.”
“It takes all the fun away if one counts the cost.”
“Well, for once let us be foolish and forget the morrow.”
And they drank champagne, which to women and boys is the acme of dissipation and magnificence. Presently Gerald’s green eyes flashed more brightly, and Bertha reddened before their ardent gaze.
“I shall never forget to-day, Bertha,” said Gerald. “As long as I live I shall look back upon it with regret.”
“Oh, don’t think that it must come to an end, or we shall both be miserable.”
“You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
Bertha laughed, showing her exquisite teeth, and was glad that her own knowledge told her she looked her best.
“But come on the terrace again and smoke there. We’ll watch the sunset.”
They sat alone, and the sun was already sinking. The heavy western clouds were a rich and vivid red, and over the river the bricks and mortar stood out in ink-black masses. It was a sunset that singularly fitted the scene, combining in audacious colour with the river’s strength. The murky wavelets danced like little flames of fire.
Bertha and the youth sat silently, very happy, but with the regret gnawing at their hearts that their hour of joy would have no morrow. The night fell, and one by one the stars shone out. The river flowed noiselessly, restfully; and around them twinkled the lights of the riverside towns. They did not speak, but Bertha knew the boy thought of her, and desired to hear him say so.
“What are you thinking of, Gerald?”
“What should I be thinking of, but you—and that I must leave you.”
Bertha could not help the exquisite pleasure that his words gave: it was so delicious to be really loved, and she knew his love was real. She turned her face, so that he saw her dark eyes, darker in the night.
“I wish I hadn’t made a fool of myself before,” he whispered. “I feel it was all horrible; you’ve made me so ashamed.”
“Oh, Gerald, you’re not remembering what I said the other day? I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’ve been so sorry ever since.”
“I wish you loved me. Oh, Bertha, don’t stop me now. I’ve kept it in so long, and I can’t any more. I don’t want to go away without telling you.”
“Oh, my dear Gerald, don’t,” said Bertha, her voice almost breaking. “It’s no good, and we shall both be dreadfully unhappy. My dear, you don’t know how much older I am than you. Even if I wasn’t married, it would be impossible for us to love one another.”
“But I love you with all my heart.”
He seized her hands and pressed them, and she made no effort to resist.
“Don’t you love me at all?” he asked.
Bertha did not answer, and he bent nearer to look into her eyes. Then leaving her hands, he flung his arms about her and pressed her to his heart.
“Bertha, Bertha!” He kissed her passionately. “Oh, Bertha, say you love me. It would make me so happy.”
“My dearest,” she whispered, and taking his head in her hand, she kissed him.
But the kiss that she had received fired her blood and she could not resist now from doing as she had wished. She kissed him on the lips, and on the eyes, and she kissed his curly hair. But at last she tore herself away, and sprang to her feet.
“What fools we are! Let’s go to the station, Gerald; it’s growing late.”
“Oh, Bertha, don’t go yet.”
“We must. I daren’t stay.”
He tried to take her in his arms, begging her eagerly to remain.
“Please don’t, Gerald,” she said. “Don’t ask me, you make me too unhappy. Don’t you see how hopeless it is? What is the use of our loving one another? You’re going away in a week and we shall never meet again. And even if you were staying, I’m married and I’m twenty-six and you’re only nineteen. My dearest, we should only make ourselves ridiculous.”
“But I can’t go away. What do I care if you’re older than I? And it’s nothing if you’re married: you don’t care for your husband and he doesn’t care two straws for you.”
“How do you know?”
“Oh, I saw it. I felt so sorry for you.”
“You dear boy!” murmured Bertha, almost crying. “I’ve been dreadfully unhappy. It’s true, Edward never loved me—and he didn’t treat me very well. Oh, I can’t understand how I ever cared for him.”
“I’m glad.”
“I would never allow myself to fall in love again. I suffered too much.”
“But I love you with all my heart, Bertha; don’t you see it? Oh, this isn’t like what I’ve felt before; it’s something quite new and different. I can’t live without you, Bertha. Oh, let me stay.”
“It’s impossible. Come away now, dearest; we’ve been here too long.”
“Kiss me again.”
Bertha, half smiling, half in tears, put her arms round his neck and kissed the soft, boyish lips.
“You are good to me,” he whispered.
Then they walked to the station in silence; and eventually reached Chelsea. At the flat-door Bertha held out her hand and Gerald looked at her with a sadness that almost broke her heart, then he just touched her fingers and turned away.
But when Bertha was alone in her room, she threw herself down and burst into tears. For she knew at last that she loved him; Gerald’s kisses still burned on her lips and the touch of his hands was tremulous on her arms. Suddenly she knew that she had deceived herself; it was more than friendship that held her heart as in a vice; it was more than affection; it was eager, vehement love.
For a moment she was overjoyed, but quickly remembered that she was married, that she was years older than he—to a boy nineteen a women of twenty-six must appear almost middle-aged. She seized a glass and looked at herself; she took it to the light so that the test might be more searching, and scrutinised her face for wrinkles and for crow’s feet, the signs of departing youth.
“It’s absurd,” she said. “I’m making an utter fool of myself.”
Gerald only thought he loved her, in a week he would be enamoured of some girl he met on the steamer. But thinking of his love, Bertha could not doubt that now at all events it was real; she knew better than any one what love was. She exulted to think that his was the real love, and compared it with her husband’s pallid flame. Gerald loved her with all his heart, with all his soul; he trembled with desire at her touch and his passion was an agony that blanched his cheek. She could not mistake the eager longing of his eyes. Ah, that was the love she wanted—the love that kills and the love that engenders. How could she regret that he loved her? She stood up, stretching out her arms in triumph, and in the empty room, her lips formed the words—
“Come, my beloved, come—for I love you!”
But the morning brought an intolerable depression. Bertha saw then the utter futility of her love: her marriage, his departure, made it impossible; the disparity of age made it even grotesque. But she could not dull the aching of her heart, she could not stop her tears.
Gerald arrived at midday and found her alone. He approached almost timidly.
“You’ve been crying, Bertha.”
“I’ve been very unhappy,” she said. “Oh, please, Gerald, forget our idiocy of yesterday. Don’t say anything to me that I mustn’t hear.”
“I can’t help loving you.”
“Don’t you see that it’s all utter madness!”
She was angry with herself for loving him, angry with Gerald because he had aroused in her a passion that made her despise herself. It seemed horrible and unnatural that she should be willing to throw herself into the arms of a dissolute boy, and it lowered her in her own estimation. He caught the expression of her eyes, and something of its meaning.
“Oh, don’t look at me like that, Bertha. You look as if you almost hated me.”
She answered gravely, “I love you with all my heart, Gerald; and I’m ashamed.”
“How can you!” he cried, with such pain in his voice that Bertha could not bear it.
“The whole thing is awful,” she groaned. “For God’s sake let us try to forget it. I’ve only succeeded in making you entirely wretched. The only remedy is to part quickly.”
“I can’t leave you, Bertha. Let me stay.”
“It’s impossible. You must go, now more than ever.”
They were interrupted by the appearance of Miss Ley, who began to talk; but to her surprise neither Bertha nor Gerald showed their usual vivacity.
“What is the matter with you both to-day?” she asked. “You’re unusually attentive to my observations.”
“I’m rather tired,” said Bertha, “and I have a headache.”
Miss Ley looked at Bertha more closely, and fancied that she had been crying; Gerald also seemed profoundly miserable. Surely.... Then the truth dawned upon her, and she could hardly repress her astonishment.
“Good Heavens!” she thought, “I must have been blind. How lucky he’s going in a week!”
Miss Ley now remembered a dozen occurrences which had escaped her notice, and was absolutely confounded.
“Upon my word,” she thought, “I don’t believe you can put a woman of seventy for five minutes in company of a boy of fourteen without their getting into mischief.”
The week to Gerald and to Bertha passed with terrible quickness. They scarcely had a moment alone, for Miss Ley, under pretence of making much of her nephew, arranged little pleasure parties, so that all three might be continually together.
“We must spoil you a little before you go; and the harm it does you will be put right by the rocking of the boat.”
And though Bertha was in a torment, she had strength to avoid any further encounter with Gerald. She dared not see him alone, and was grateful to Miss Ley for putting obstacles in the way. She knew that her love was impossible, but also that it was beyond control. It made her completely despise herself. Bertha had been a little proud of her uprightness, of her liberty from any degrading emotion. And that other love to her husband had been such an intolerable slavery, that when it died away the sense of freedom seemed the most delicious thing in life. She had vowed that never under any circumstance would she expose herself to the suffering that she had once endured. But this new passion had taken her unawares, and before she knew the danger Bertha found herself bound and imprisoned. She tried to reason away the infatuation, but without advantage; Gerald was never absent from her thoughts. Love had come upon her like the sudden madness with which the gods of old afflicted those that had incensed them. It was an insane fire in the blood, irresistible for all the horror it aroused, as that passion which distracted Phædra for Theseus’ son.
The temptation came to bid Gerald stay. If he remained in England they might give rein to their passion and let it die of itself; and that might be the only way to kill it. Yet Bertha dared not. And it was terrible to think that he loved her, and she must continually distress him. She looked into his eyes, fancying she saw there the grief of a breaking heart; and his sorrow was more than she could bear. Then a greater temptation beset her. There is one way in which a woman can bind a man to her for ever, there is one tie that is indissoluble; her very flesh cried out, and she trembled at the thought that she could give Gerald the inestimable gift of her person. Then he might go, but that would have passed between them which could not be undone; they might be separated by ten thousand miles, but they would always be joined together. How else could she prove to him her wonderful love, how else could she show her immeasurable gratitude? The temptation was mighty, incessantly recurring; and she was very weak. It assailed her with all the violence of her fervid imagination. She drove it away with anger, she loathed it with all her heart—but she could not stifle the appalling hope that it might prove too strong.
AT last Gerald had but one day more. A long-standing engagement of Bertha and Miss Ley forced him to take leave of them early, for he started from London at seven in the morning.
“I’m dreadfully sorry that you can’t spend your last evening with us,” said Miss Ley. “But the Trevor-Jones will never forgive us if we don’t go to their dinner-party.”
“Of course it was my fault for not finding out before, when I sailed.”
“What are you going to do with yourself this evening, you wretch?”
“Oh, I’m going to have one last unholy bust.”
“I’m afraid you’re very glad that for one night we can’t look after you.”
In a little while Miss Ley, looking at her watch, told Bertha that it was time to dress. Gerald got up, and kissing Miss Ley, thanked her for her kindness.
“My dear boy, please don’t sentimentalise. And you’re not going for ever. You’re sure to make a mess of things and come back—the Leys always do.”
Then Gerald turned to Bertha and held out his hand.
“You’ve been awfully good to me,” he said, smiling; but there was in his eyes a steadfast look, which seemed trying to make her understand something. “We’ve had some ripping times together.”
“I hope you won’t forget me entirely. We’ve certainly kept you out of mischief.”
Miss Ley watched them, admiring their composure. She thought they took the parting very well.
“I dare say it was nothing but a little flirtation and not very serious. Bertha’s so much older than he and so sensible that she’s most unlikely to have made a fool of herself.”
But she had to fetch the gift which she had prepared for Gerald.
“Wait just one moment, Gerald,” she said. “I want to get something.”
She left the room and immediately the boy bent forward.
“Don’t go out to-night, Bertha. I must see you again.”
Before Bertha could reply, Miss Ley called from the hall.
“Good-bye,” said Gerald, aloud.
“Good-bye, I hope you’ll have a nice journey.”
“Here’s a little present for you, Gerald,” said Miss Ley, when he was outside. “You’re dreadfully extravagant, and as that’s the only virtue you have, I feel I ought to encourage it. And if you want money at any time, I can always scrape together a few guineas, you know.”
She put into his hand two fifty-pound notes and then, as if she were ashamed of herself, bundled him out of doors. She went to her room; and having rather seriously inconvenienced herself for the next six months, for an entirely unworthy object, she began to feel remarkably pleased. In an hour Miss Ley returned to the drawing-room to wait for Bertha, who presently came in, dressed—but ghastly pale.
“Oh, Aunt Polly, I simply can’t come to-night. I’ve got a racking headache; I can scarcely see. You must tell them that I’m sorry, but I’m too ill.”
She sank on a chair and put her hand to her forehead, groaning with pain. Miss Ley lifted her eyebrows; the affair was evidently more serious that she thought. However, the danger now was over; it would ease Bertha to stay at home and cry it out. She thought it brave of her even to have dressed.
“You’ll get no dinner,” she said. “There’s nothing in the place.”
“Oh, I want nothing to eat.”
Miss Ley expressed her concern, and promising to make the excuses, went away. Bertha started up when she heard the door close and went to the window. She looked round for Gerald, fearing he might be already there; he was incautious and eager: but if Miss Ley saw him, it would be fatal. The hansom drove away and Bertha breathed more freely. She could not help it; she too felt that she must see him. If they had to part, it could not be under Miss Ley’s cold eyes.
She waited at the window, but he did not come. Why did he delay? He was wasting their few precious minutes; it was already past eight. She walked up and down the room and looked again, but still he was not in sight. She fancied that while she watched he would not come, and forced herself to read. But how could she! Again she looked out of window; and this time Gerald was there. He stood in the porch of the opposite house, looking up; and immediately he saw her, crossed the street. She went to the door and opened it gently, as he came upstairs.
He slipped in as if he were a thief, and on tiptoe they entered the drawing-room.
“Oh, it’s so good of you,” he said. “I couldn’t leave you like that. I knew you’d stay.”
“Why have you been so long? I thought you were never coming.”
“I dared not risk it before. I was afraid something might happen to stop Aunt Polly.”
“I said I had a headache. I dressed so that she might suspect nothing.”
The night was falling and they sat together in the dimness. Gerald took her hands and kissed them.
“This week has been awful. I’ve never had the chance of saying a word to you. My heart has been breaking.”
“My dearest.”
“I wondered if you were sorry I was going.”
She looked at him and tried to smile; already she could not trust herself to speak.
“Every day I thought you would tell me to stop and you never did—and now it’s too late. Oh, Bertha, if you loved me you wouldn’t send me away.”
“I think I love you too much. Don’t you see it’s better that we should part?”
“I daren’t think of to-morrow.”
“You are so young; in a little while you’ll fall in love with some one else. Don’t you see that I’m old?”
“But I love you. Oh, I wish I could make you believe me. Bertha, Bertha, I can’t leave you. I love you too much.”
“For God’s sake don’t talk like that. It’s hard enough to bear already—don’t make it harder.”
The night had fallen, and through the open window the summer breeze came in, and the softness of the air was like a kiss. They sat side by side in silence, the boy holding Bertha’s hand; they could not speak, for words were powerless to express what was in their hearts. But presently a strange intoxication seized them, and the mystery of passion wrapped them about invisibly. Bertha felt the trembling of Gerald’s hand, and it passed to hers. She shuddered and tried to withdraw, but he would not let it go. The silence now became suddenly intolerable: Bertha tried to speak, but her throat was dry, and she could utter no word.
A weakness came to her limbs and her heart beat painfully. Her eye crossed with Gerald’s, and they both looked instantly aside, as if caught in some crime. Bertha began to breathe more quickly. Gerald’s intense desire burned itself into her soul; she dared not move. She tried to implore God’s help, but she could not. The temptation which all the week had terrified her returned with double force—the temptation which she abhorred, but to which she had a horrible longing not to resist.
And now she asked what it mattered. Her strength was dwindling, and Gerald had but to say a word. And now she wished him to say the word; he loved her, and she loved him passionately. She gave way; she no longer wished to resist. She turned her face to Gerald; she leant towards him with parted lips.
“Bertha,” he whispered, and they were nearly in one another’s arms.
But a fine sound pierced the silence; they started back and listened. They heard a key put into the front-door, and the door was opened.
“Take care,” whispered Bertha, and pushed Gerald away.
“It’s Aunt Polly.”
Bertha pointed to the electric switch, and understanding, Gerald turned on the light. He looked round instinctively for some way of escape, but Bertha, with a woman’s quick invention, sprang to the door and flung it open.
“Is that you, Aunt Polly?” she cried. “How fortunate you came back; Gerald is here to bid us definitely good-bye.”
“He makes as many farewells as a prima donna,” said Miss Ley.
She came in, somewhat breathless, with two spots of red upon her cheeks.
“I thought you wouldn’t mind if I came here to wait till you returned,” said Gerald. “And I found Bertha.”
“How funny that our thoughts should have been identical,” said Miss Ley. “It occurred to me that you might come, and so I hurried home as quickly as I could.”
“You’re quite out of breath,” said Bertha.
Miss Ley sank on a chair, exhausted. As she was eating her fish and talking to a neighbour, it suddenly dawned upon her that Bertha’s indisposition was assumed.
“Oh, what a fool I am! They’ve hoodwinked me as if I were a child.... Good heavens, what are they doing now?”
The dinner seemed interminable, but immediately afterwards she took leave of her astonished hostess and gave the cabman orders to drive furiously. She arrived, inveighing against the deceitfulness of the human race. She had never run up the stairs so quickly.
“How is your headache, Bertha?”
“Thanks, it’s much better. Gerald has driven it away.”
This time Miss Ley’s good-bye to the precocious youth was rather chilly; she was devoutly thankful that his boat sailed next morning.
“I’ll show you out, Gerald,” said Bertha. “Don’t trouble, Aunt Polly—you must be dreadfully tired.”
They went into the hall and Gerald put on his coat. He stretched out his hand to Bertha without speaking, but she, with a glance at the drawing-room, beckoned to him to follow her, and slid out of the front-door. There was no one on the stairs. She flung her arms round his neck and pressed her lips to his. She did not try to hide her passion now; she clasped him to her heart, and their very souls flew to their lips and mingled. Their kiss was rapture, madness; it was an ecstasy beyond description, their senses were powerless to contain their pleasure. Bertha felt herself about to die. In the bliss, in the agony, her spirit failed and she tottered; Gerald pressed her more closely to him.
But there was a sound of some one climbing the stairs. She tore herself away.
“Good-bye, for ever,” she whispered, and slipping in, closed the door between them.
She sank down half fainting, but, in fear, struggled to her feet and dragged herself to her room. Her cheeks were glowing and her limbs trembled, the kiss still thrilled her whole being. Oh, now it was too late for prudence! What did she care for her marriage; what did she care that Gerald was younger that she! She loved him, she loved him insanely; the present was there with its infinite joy, and if the future brought misery, it was worth suffering. She could not let him go; he was hers—she stretched out her arms to take him in her embrace. She would surrender everything. She would bid him stay; she would follow him to the end of the earth. It was too late now for reason.
She walked up and down her room excitedly. She looked at the door; she had a mad desire to go to him now—to abandon everything for his sake. Her honour, her happiness, her station, were only precious because she could sacrifice them for him. He was her life and her love, he was her body and her soul. She listened at the door; Miss Ley would be watching, and she dared not go.
“I’ll wait,” said Bertha.
She tried to sleep, but could not. The thought of Gerald distracted her. She dozed, and his presence became more distinct. He seemed to be in the room and she cried: “At last, my dearest, at last!” She awoke and stretched out her hands to him; she could not realise that she had dreamed, that nothing was there.
Then the day came, dim and gray at first, but brightening with the brilliant summer morning; the sun shone in her window, and the sunbeams danced in the room. Now the moments were very few, she must make up her mind quickly—and the sunbeams spoke of life, and happiness, and the glory of the unknown. Oh, what a fool she was to waste her life, to throw away her chance of happiness—how weak not to grasp the love thrown in her way! She thought of Gerald packing his things, getting off, of the train speeding through the summer country. Her love was irresistible. She sprang up, and bathed, and dressed. It was past six when she slipped out of the room and made her way downstairs. The street was empty as in the night; but the sky was blue and the air fresh and sweet, she took a long breath and felt curiously elated. She walked till she found a cab, and told the driver to go quickly to Euston. The cab crawled along, and she was in an agony of impatience. Supposing she arrived too late? She told the man to hurry.
The Liverpool train was fairly full; but Bertha walking up the crowded platform quickly saw Gerald. He sprang towards her.
“Bertha you’ve come. I felt certain you wouldn’t let me go without seeing you.”
He took her hands and looked at her with eyes full of love.
“I’m so glad you’ve come,” he said at last. “I want—I want to beg your pardon.”
“What do you mean?” whispered Bertha, and suddenly she felt a dreadful fear which gripped her heart with unendurable pain.
“I’ve been thinking of you all night, and I’m dreadfully ashamed of myself. I must tell you how sorry I am that I’ve caused you unhappiness. I was selfish and brutal; I only thought of myself. I forgot how much you had to lose. Please forgive me, Bertha.”
“Oh, Gerald, Gerald.”
“I shall always be grateful to you, Bertha. I know I’ve been a beast, but now I’m going to turn over a new leaf. You see, you have reformed me after all.”
He tried to smile in his old, light-hearted manner; but it was a very poor attempt. Bertha looked at him. She wished to say that she loved him with all her heart, and was ready to accompany him to the world’s end; but the words stuck in her throat.
“I don’t know what has happened to me,” he said, “but I seem to see everything now so differently. Of course it is much better that I’m going away; but it’s dreadfully hard.”
An inspector came to look at the tickets. “Is the lady going?”
“No,” said Gerald; and then, when the man had passed: “You won’t forget me, Bertha, will you? You won’t think badly of me; I lost my head. I didn’t realise till last night that I wanted to do you the most frightful wrong. I didn’t understand that I should have ruined you and your whole life.”
At last Bertha forced herself to speak. The time was flying, and she could not understand what was passing in Gerald’s mind.
“If you only knew how much I love you!” she cried.
He had but to ask her to go and she would go. But he did not ask. Was he repenting already? Was his love already on the wane? Bertha tried to make herself speak again, but could not. Why did he not repeat that he could not live without her!
“Take your seats, please! Take your seats, please!”
A guard ran along the platform. “Jump in, sir. Right behind!”
“Good-bye,” said Gerald. “May I write to you?”
She shook her head. It was too late now.
“Jump in, sir. Jump in.”
Gerald kissed her quickly and got into the carriage.
“Right away!”
The guard blew his whistle and waved a flag, and the train puffed slowly out of the station.
MISS Ley was much alarmed when she got up and found that Bertha had flown.
“Upon my word, I think that Providence is behaving scandalously. Am I not a harmless middle-aged woman who mind my own business; what have I done to deserve these shocks?”
She suspected that her niece had gone to the station; but the train started at seven, and it was ten o’clock. She positively jumped when it occurred to her that Bertha might have—eloped: and like a swarm of abominable little demons came thoughts of the scenes she must undergo if such were the case, the writing of the news to Edward, his consternation, the comfort which she must administer, the fury of Gerald’s father, the hysterics of his mother.
“She can’t have done anything so stupid,” she cried in distraction. “But if women can make fools of themselves, they always do!”
Miss Ley was extraordinarily relieved when at last she heard Bertha come in and go to her room.
Bertha for a long time had stood motionless on the platform, staring haggardly before her, stupefied. The excitement of the previous hours was followed by utter blankness; Gerald was speeding to Liverpool, and she was still in London. She walked out of the station, and turned towards Chelsea. The streets were endless, and she was already tired; almost fainting, she dragged herself along. She did not know the way, and wandered hopelessly, barely conscious. In Hyde Park she sat down to rest, feeling utterly exhausted; but the weariness of her body relieved the terrible aching of her heart. She walked on after a while; it never occurred to her to take a cab, and eventually she came to Eliot Mansions. The sun had grown hot, and burned the crown of her head with ghastly torture. Bertha crawled upstairs to her room, and throwing herself on the bed, burst into tears of bitter anguish. She wept desperately, and clenched her hands.
“Oh,” she cried at last, “I dare say he was as worthless as the other.”
Miss Ley sent to inquire if she would eat, but Bertha now really had a bad headache, and could touch nothing. All day she spent in agony, hardly able to think—despairing. Sometimes she reproached herself for denying Gerald when he asked her to let him stay, she had wilfully lost the happiness that was within her reach: and then, with a revulsion of feeling, she repeated that he was worthless. The dreary hours passed, and when night came Bertha scarcely had strength to undress; and not till the morning did she get rest. But the early post brought a letter from Edward, repeating his wish that she should return to Court Leys. She read it listlessly.
“Perhaps it’s the best thing to do,” she groaned.
She hated London now and the flat; the rooms must be horribly bare without the joyous presence of Gerald. To return to Court Leys seemed the only course left to her, and there at least she would have quiet and solitude. She thought almost with longing of the desolate shore, the marshes and the dreary sea; she wanted rest and silence. But if she went, she had better go at once; to stay in London was only to prolong her woe.
Bertha rose, and dressed, and went to Miss Ley; her face was deathly pale, and her eyes heavy and red with weeping. In exhaustion she made no attempt to hide her condition.
“I’m going down to Court Leys to-day, Aunt Polly. I think it’s the best thing I can do.”
“Edward will be very pleased to see you.”
“I think he will.”
Miss Ley hesitated, looking at Bertha.
“You know, Bertha,” she said, after a pause, “in this world it’s very difficult to know what to do. One struggles to know good from evil—but really they’re often so very much alike.... I always think those people fortunate who are content to stand, without question, by the ten commandments, knowing exactly how to conduct themselves, and propped up by the hope of Paradise on the one hand, and by the fear of a cloven-footed devil with pincers, on the other.... But we who answer Why to the crude Thou Shalt Not, are like sailors on a wintry sea without a compass. Reason and instinct say one thing, and convention says another. But the worst of it is that one’s conscience has been reared on the Decalogue, and fostered on hell-fire—and one’s conscience has the last word. I dare say it’s cowardly, but it’s certainly discreet, to take it into consideration. It’s like lobster salad; it’s not actually immoral to eat it, but it will very likely give you indigestion.... One has to be very sure of oneself to go against the ordinary view of things; and if one isn’t, perhaps it’s better not to run any risks, but just to walk along the same secure old road as the common herd. It’s not exhilarating, it’s not brave, and it’s rather dull; but it’s eminently safe.”
Bertha sighed, but did not answer.
“You’d better tell Jane to pack your boxes,” said Miss Ley. “Shall I wire to Edward?”
When Bertha had at last started, Miss Ley began to think.
“I wonder if I’ve done right,” she murmured, uncertain as ever.
She was sitting on the piano-stool, and as she meditated, her fingers passed idly over the keys. Presently her ear detected the beginning of a well-known melody, and almost unconsciously she began to play the air of Rigoletto.
La Donna è mobile
Qual piuma al vento.
Miss Ley smiled. “The fact is that few women can be happy with only one husband. I believe that the only solution of the marriage question is legalised polyandry.”
In the train at Victoria, Bertha remembered with relief that the cattle-market was held at Tercanbury that day, and Edward would not come home till the evening. She would have opportunity to settle herself in Court Leys without fuss or bother. Full of her painful thoughts, the journey passed quickly, and Bertha was surprised to find herself at Blackstable. She got out, wondering whether Edward would have sent a trap to meet her—but to her extreme surprise Edward himself was on the platform, and running up, helped her out of the carriage.
“Here you are at last!” he cried.
“I didn’t expect you,” said Bertha. “I thought you’d be at Tercanbury.”
“I got your wire fortunately just as I was starting, so of course I didn’t go.”
“I’m sorry I prevented you.”
“Why? I’m jolly glad. You didn’t think I was going to the cattle-market when my missus was coming home?”
She looked at him with astonishment; his honest, red face glowed with the satisfaction he felt at seeing her.
“By Jove, this is ripping,” he said, as they drove away. “I’m tired of being a grass-widower, I can tell you.”
They came to Corstal Hill and he walked the horse.
“Just look behind you,” he said, in an undertone. “Notice any thing?”
“What?”
“Look at Parke’s hat.” Parke was the footman.
Bertha, looking again, observed a cockade.
“What d’you think of that, eh?” Edward was almost exploding with laughter. “I was elected chairman of the Urban District Council yesterday; that means I’m ex-officio J.P. So, as soon as I heard you were coming, I bolted off and got a cockade.”
When they reached Court Leys, he helped Bertha out of the trap quite tenderly. She was taken aback to find the tea ready, flowers in the drawing-room, and everything possible done to make her comfortable.
“Are you tired?” asked Edward. “Lie down on the sofa and I’ll give you your tea.”
He waited on her and pressed her to eat, and was, in fact, unceasing in his attentions.
“By Jove, I am glad to see you here again.”
His pleasure was obvious, and Bertha was somewhat touched.
“Are you too tired to come for a little walk in the garden? I want to show what I’ve done for you, and just now the place is looking its best.”
He put a shawl round her shoulders, so that the evening air might not hurt her, and insisted on giving her his arm.
“Now, look here; I’ve planted rose-trees outside the drawing-room window; I thought you’d like to see them when you sat in your favourite place, reading.”
He took her farther, to a place which offered a fine prospect of the sea.
“I’ve put a bench here, between those two trees, so that you might sit down sometimes, and look at the view.”
“It’s very kind of you to be so thoughtful. Shall we sit there now?”
“Oh, I think you’d better not. There’s a good deal of dew, and I don’t want you to catch cold.”
For dinner Edward had ordered the dishes which he knew Bertha preferred, and he laughed joyously, as she expressed her pleasure. Afterwards when she lay on the sofa, he arranged the cushions so as to make her quite easy.
“Ah, my dear,” she thought, “if you’d been half as kind three years ago you might have kept my love.”
She wondered whether absence had increased his affection, or whether it was she who had altered. Was he not unchanging as the rocks, and she knew herself unstable as water, mutable as the summer winds. Had he always been kind and considerate; and had she, demanding a passion which it was not in him to feel, been blind to his deep tenderness? Expecting nothing from him now, she was astonished to find he had so much to offer. But she felt sorry if he loved her, for she could give nothing in return but complete indifference; she was even surprised to find herself so utterly callous.
At bedtime she bade him good-night, and kissed his cheek.
“I’ve had the red room arranged for me,” she said.
There was no change in Blackstable. Bertha’s friends still lived, for the death-rate of that fortunate place was their pride, and they could do nothing to increase it. Arthur Branderton had married a pretty, fair-haired girl, nicely bred, and properly insignificant; but the only result of that was to give his mother a new topic of conversation. Bertha, resuming her old habits, had difficulty in realising that she had been long away. She set herself to forget Gerald, and was pleased to find the recollection of him not too importunate. A sentimentalist turned cynic has observed that a woman is only passionately devoted to her first lover, for afterwards it is love itself of which she is enamoured; and certainly the wounds of later attachments heal easily. Bertha was devoutly grateful to Miss Ley for her opportune return on Gerald’s last night, and shuddered to think of what might otherwise have happened.
“It would have been too awful,” she cried.
She could not understand what sudden madness had seized her, and the thought of the danger she had run, made Bertha’s cheeks tingle. Her heart turned sick at the mere remembrance. She was thoroughly ashamed of that insane excursion to Euston, intent upon the most dreadful courses. She felt like a person who from the top of a tower has been so horribly tempted to throw himself down, that only the restraining hand of a bystander has saved him; and then afterwards from below shivers and sweats at the idea of his peril. But worse than the shame was the dread of ridicule; for the whole affair had been excessively undignified: she had run after a hobbledehoy years younger than herself, and had even fallen seriously in love with him. It was too grotesque. Bertha imagined the joy it must cause Miss Ley. She could not forgive Gerald that, on his account, she had made herself absurd. She saw that he was a fickle boy, prepared to philander with every woman he met; and at last told herself scornfully that she had never really cared for him.
But in a little while Bertha received a letter from America, forwarded by Miss Ley. She turned white as she recognised the handwriting: the old emotions came surging back, and she thought of Gerald’s green eyes, and of his boyish lips; and she felt sick with love. She looked at the superscription, at the post mark; and then put the letter down.
“I told him not to write,” she murmured.
A feeling of anger seized her that the sight of a letter from Gerald should bring her such pain. She almost hated him now; and yet with all her heart she wished to kiss the paper and every word that was written upon it. But the sheer violence of her emotions made her set her teeth, as it were, against giving way.
“I won’t read it,” she said.
She wanted to prove to herself that she had strength; and this temptation at least she was determined to resist. Bertha lit a candle and took the letter in her hand to burn it, but then put it down again. That would settle the matter too quickly, and she wanted rather to prolong the trial so as to receive full assurance of her fortitude. With a strange pleasure at the pain she was preparing for herself, Bertha placed the letter on the chimneypiece of her room, prominently, so that whenever she went in or out, she could not fail to see it. Wishing to punish herself, her desire was to make the temptation as distressing as possible.
She watched the unopened envelope for a month and sometimes the craving to open it was almost irresistible; sometimes she awoke in the middle of the night, thinking of Gerald, and told herself she must know what he said. Ah, how well she could imagine it! He vowed he loved her and he spoke of the kiss she had given him on that last day, and he said it was dreadfully hard to be without her. Bertha looked at the letter, clenching her hands so as not to seize it and tear it open; she had to hold herself forcibly back from covering it with kisses. But at last she conquered all desire, she was able to look at the handwriting indifferently; she scrutinised her heart and found no trace of emotion. The trial was complete.
“Now it can go,” she said.
Again she lit a candle, and held the letter to the flame till it was all consumed; and she gathered up the ashes, putting them in her hand, and blew them out of the window. She felt that by that act she had finished with the whole thing, and Gerald was definitely gone out of her life.
But rest did not yet come to Bertha’s troubled soul. At first she found her life fairly tolerable; but she had now no emotions to distract her and the routine of her day was unvarying. The weeks passed and the months; the winter came upon her, more dreary than she had ever known it; the country became insufferably dull. The days were gray and cold, and the clouds so low that she could almost touch them. The broad fields which once had afforded such inspiring thoughts were now merely tedious, and all the rural sights sank into her mind with a pitiless monotony; day after day, month after month, she saw the same things. She was bored to death.
Sometimes Bertha wandered to the seashore and looked across the desolate waste of water; she longed to travel as her eyes and her mind travelled, south, south to the azure skies, to the lands of beauty and of sunshine beyond the grayness. Fortunately she did not know that she was looking almost directly north, and that if she really went on and on as she desired, would reach no southern lands of pleasure, but merely the North Pole!
She walked along the beach, among the countless shells; and not content with present disquietude, tortured herself with anticipation of the future. She could only imagine that it would bring an increase of this frightful ennui, and her head ached as she looked forward to the dull monotony of her life. She went home, and groaned as she entered the house, thinking of the tiresome evening. Invariably after dinner they played piquet. Edward liked to conduct his life on the most mechanical lines, and regularly, as the clock struck nine, he said: “Shall we have a little game?” Bertha fetched the cards while he arranged the chairs. They played six hands. Edward added up the score and chuckled when he won. Bertha put the cards away, her husband replaced the chairs; and so it went on night after night, automatically.
Bertha was seized with the intense restlessness of utter boredom. She would walk up and down her room in a fever of almost physical agony. She would sit at the piano, and cease playing after half-a-dozen bars—music seemed as futile as everything else; she had done everything so often. She tried to read, but could hardly bring herself to begin a new volume, and the very sight of the printed pages was distasteful: the works of information told her things she did not want to know, the novels related deeds of persons in whom she took no interest. She read a few pages and threw down the book in disgust. Then she went out again—anything seemed preferable to what she actually was doing—she walked rapidly, but the motion, the country, the very atmosphere about her, were wearisome; and almost immediately she returned. Bertha was forced to take the same walks day after day; and the deserted roads, the trees, the hedges, the fields, impressed themselves on her mind with a dismal insistency. Then she was driven to go out merely for exercise, and walked a certain number of miles, trying to get them done quickly. The winds of the early year blew that season more persistently than ever, and they impeded her steps, and chilled her to the bone.
Sometimes Bertha paid visits, and the restraint she had to put upon herself relieved her for the moment, but no sooner was the door closed behind her than she felt more desperately bored than ever.
Yearning suddenly for society, she would send out invitations for some function; then felt it inexpressibly irksome to make preparations, and she loathed and abhorred her guests. For a long time she refused to see any one, protesting her feeble health; and sometimes in the solitude she thought she would go mad. She turned to prayer as the only refuge of those who cannot act, but she only half believed, and therefore found no comfort. She accompanied Miss Glover on her district visiting, but she disliked the poor, and their chatter seemed hopelessly inane. The ennui made her head ache, and she put her hand to her temples, pressing them painfully; she felt she could take great wisps of her hair and tear it out.
She threw herself on her bed and wept in the agony of boredom. Edward once found her thus, and asked what was the matter.
“Oh, my head aches, so that I feel I could kill myself.”
He sent for Ramsay, but Bertha knew the doctor’s remedies were absurd and useless. She imagined that there was no remedy for her ill—not even time—no remedy but death.
She knew the terrible distress of waking in the morning with the thought that still another day must be gone through; she knew the relief of bed-time with the thought that she would enjoy a few hours of unconsciousness. She was racked with the imagination of the future’s frightful monotony: night would follow day, and day would follow night, the months passing one by one and the years slowly, slowly.
They say that life is short. To those who look back perhaps it is; but to those who look forward it is long, horribly long—endless. Sometimes Bertha felt it impossible to endure. She prayed that she might fall asleep at night and never awake. How happy must be the lives of those who can look forward to eternity! To Bertha the idea was merely ghastly; she desired nothing but the long rest, the rest of an endless sleep, the dissolution into nothing.
Once in desperation she wished to kill herself, but was afraid. People say that suicide requires no courage. Fools! They cannot realise the horror of the needful preparation, the anticipation of the pain, the terrible fear that one may regret when it is too late, when life is ebbing away. And there is the dread of the unknown. And there is the dread of hell-fire—absurd and revolting, yet so engrained that no effort is able entirely to destroy it. Notwithstanding reason and argument there is still the numbing fear that the ghastly fables of our childhood may after all be true, the fear of a jealous God who will doom His wretched creatures to unending torture.
BUT if the human soul, or the heart, or the mind—call it what you will—is an instrument upon which countless melodies may be played, it is capable of responding for very long to no single one. Time dulls the most exquisite emotions, softens the most heartrending grief. The story is old of the philosopher who sought to console a woman in distress by the account of tribulations akin to hers, and upon losing his only son was sent by her a list of all kings similarly bereaved. He read it, acknowledged its correctness, but wept none the less. Three months later the philosopher and the lady were surprised to find one another quite gay, and erected a fine monument to Time with the inscription: A celui qui console.
When Bertha vowed that life had lost all savour, that her ennui was unending, she exaggerated as usual, and almost grew angry on discovering that existence could be more supportable than she supposed.
One gets used to all things. It is only very misanthropic persons who pretend that they cannot accustom themselves to the stupidity of their fellows; for, after a while, one gets hardened to the most desperate bores, and monotony even ceases to be quite monotonous. Accommodating herself to circumstances, Bertha found life less tedious; it was a calm river, and presently she came to the conclusion that it ran more easily without the cascades and waterfalls, the eddies, whirlpools and rocks, which had disturbed its course. The man who can still dupe himself with illusions has a future not lacking in brightness.
The summer brought a certain variety, and Bertha found amusement in things which before had never interested her. She went to sheltered parts to see if favourite wild flowers had begun to blow: her love of liberty made her prefer the hedge-roses to the pompous blooms of the garden, the buttercups and daisies of the field to the prim geranium, and the calcellaria. Time fled and she was surprised to find the year pass imperceptibly. She began to read with greater zest, and in her favourite seat, on the sofa by the window, spent long hours of pleasure. She read as fancy prompted her, without a plan, because she wished and not because she ought (how can they say that England is decadent when its young ladies are so strenuous!). She obtained pleasure by contrasting different writers, gaining emotions from the gravity of one and the frivolity of the next. She went from the latest novel to the Orlando Furioso, from the Euphues of John Lyly (most entertaining and whimsical of books!) to the passionate corruption of Verlaine. With a lifetime before her, the length of books was no hindrance, and she started boldly upon the eight volumes of the Decline and Fall, upon the many tomes of St. Simon: and she never hesitated to put them aside after a hundred pages.
Bertha found reality tolerable when it was merely a background, a foil to the fantastic happenings of old books. She looked at the green trees, and the song of birds mingled agreeably with her thoughts still occupied, perhaps, with the Dolorous Knight of La Mancha, with Manon Lescaut, or with the joyous band that wanders through the Decameron. With greater knowledge came greater curiosity, and she forsook the broad highroads of literature for the mountain pathways of some obscure poet, for the bridle-tracks of the Spanish picaroon. She found unexpected satisfaction in the half-forgotten masterpieces of the past, in poets not quite divine whom fashion had left on one side, in the playwrights, and novelists, and essayists, whose remembrance lives only with the bookworm. It is a relief sometimes to look away from the bright sun of perfect achievement; and the writers who appealed to their age and not to posterity, have by contrast a subtle charm. Undazzled by their splendour, one may discern more easily their individualities and the spirit of their time; they have pleasant qualities not always found among their betters, and there is even a certain pathos in their incomplete success.
In music also Bertha developed a taste for the half known, the half archaic. It suited the Georgian drawing-room with its old pictures, with its Chippendale and chintz, to play the simple melodies of Couperin and Rameau; the rondos, the gavottes, the sonatinas in powder and patch, which delighted the rococo lords and ladies of a past century.
Living away from the present, in an artificial paradise, Bertha was almost completely happy. She found indifference to the whole world a trusty armour: life was easy without love or hate, hope or despair, without ambition, desire of change, or tumultuous passion. So bloom the flowers; unconscious, uncaring, the bud bursts from the enclosing leaf, and opens to the sunshine, squanders its perfume to the breeze and there is none to see its beauty—and then it dies.
Bertha found it possible to look back upon the past years with something like amusement. It seemed now melodramatic to have loved the simple Edward with such violence, and she was able even to smile at the contrast between her vivid expectations and the flat reality. Gerald was a pleasantly sentimental memory; she did not wish to see him again, but thought of him often, idealising him till he became unsubstantial as a character in a favourite book. Her winter in Italy also formed the motive of some of her most delightful thoughts, and she determined never to spoil the impression by another visit. She had advanced a good deal in the art of life when she realised that pleasure came by surprise, that happiness was a spirit which descended unawares, and seldom when it was sought.
Edward had fallen into a life of such activity that his time was entirely taken up. He had added largely to the Ley estate, and, with the second-rate man’s belief that you must do a thing yourself to have it well done, kept the farms under his immediate supervision. He was an important member of all the rural bodies: he was on the School Board, on the Board of Guardians, on the County Council; he was chairman of the Urban District Council, president of the Leanham cricket club, president of the Faversley football club; patron of the Blackstable regatta; he was on the committee of the Tercanbury dog-show, and an enthusiastic supporter of the Mid-Kent Agricultural Exhibition. He was a pillar of the Blackstable Conservative Association, a magistrate, and a churchwarden. Finally he was an ardent Freemason, and flew over Kent to attend the meetings of the half-dozen lodges of which he was a member. But the amount of work did not disturb him.
“Lord bless you,” he said, “I love work. You can’t give me too much. If there’s anything to be done, come to me and I’ll do it, and say thank you for giving me the chance.”
Edward had always been even-tempered, but now his good-nature was quite angelic. It became a byword. His success was according to his deserts, and to have him concerned in a matter was an excellent insurance. He was always jovial and gay, contented with himself and with the world at large; he was a model squire, landlord, farmer, conservative, man, Englishman. He did everything thoroughly, and his energy was such that he made a point of putting into every concern twice as much work as it really needed. He was busy from morning till night (as a rule quite unnecessarily), and he gloried in it.
“It shows I’m an excellent woman,” said Bertha to Miss Glover, “to support his virtues with equanimity.”
“My dear, I think you ought to be very proud and happy. He’s an example to the whole county. If he were my husband, I should be grateful to God.”
“I have much to be thankful for,” murmured Bertha.
Since he let her go her own way and she was only too pleased that he should go his, there was really no possibility of difference, and Edward, wise man, came to the conclusion that he had effectually tamed his wife. He thought, with good-humoured scorn, that he had been quite right when he likened women to chickens, animals which, to be happy, required no more than a good run, well fenced in, where they could scratch about to their heart’s content.
“Feed ’em regularly, and let ’em cackle; and there you are!”
It is always satisfactory when experience verifies the hypothesis of your youth.
One year, remembering by accident their wedding-day, Edward gave his wife a bracelet; and feeling benevolent in consequence, and having dined well, he patted her hand and remarked:—
“Time does fly, doesn’t it?”
“I have heard people say so,” she replied, smiling.
“Well, who’d have thought we’d been married eight years! it doesn’t seem above eighteen months to me. And we’ve got on very well, haven’t we?”
“My dear Edward, you are such a model husband. It quite embarrasses me sometimes.”
“Ha, ha! that’s a good one. But I can say this for myself, I do try to do my duty. Of course at first we had our little tiffs—people have to get used to one another, and one can’t expect to have all plain sailing just at once. But for years now—well, ever since you went to Italy, I think, we’ve been as happy as the day is long, haven’t we?”
“Yes, dear.”
“When I look back at the little rumpuses we used to have, upon my word, I wonder what they were all about.”
“So do I.” And this Bertha said quite truthfully.
“I suppose it was just the weather.”
“I dare say.”
“Ah, well—all’s well that ends well.”
“My dear Edward, you’re a philosopher.”
“I don’t know about that—but I think I’m a politician; which reminds me that I’ve not read about the new men-of-war in to-day’s paper. What I’ve been agitating about for years is more ships and more guns—I’m glad to see the Government have taken my advice at last.”
“It’s very satisfactory, isn’t it? It will encourage you to persevere. And, of course, it’s nice to know that the Cabinet read your speeches in the Blackstable Times.”
“I think it would be a good sight better for the country if those in power paid more attention to provincial opinion. It’s men like me who really know the feeling of the nation. You might get me the paper, will you—it’s in the dining-room.”
It seemed quite natural to Edward that Bertha should wait upon him: it was the duty of a wife. She handed him the Standard, and he began to read; he yawned once or twice.
“Lord, I am sleepy.”
Presently he could not keep his eyes open, the paper dropped from his hand, and he sank back in his chair with legs outstretched, his hands resting comfortably on his stomach. His head lolled to one side and his jaw dropped, and he began to snore. Bertha read. After a while he woke with a start.
“Bless me, I do believe I’ve been asleep,” he cried. “Well, I’m dead tired, I think I shall go to bed. I suppose you won’t come up yet?”
“Not just yet.”
“Well, don’t stay up too late, there’s a good girl, it’s not good for you; and put the lights out properly when you come.”
She turned to him her cheek, which he kissed, stifling a yawn; then he rolled upstairs.
“There’s one advantage in Edward,” murmured Bertha. “No one could accuse him of being uxorious.”
Mariage à la mode.
Bertha’s solitary walk was to the sea. The shore between Blackstable and the Medway was extraordinarily wild. At distant intervals were the long, low buildings of the coastguard stations; and the clean, pink walls, the neat railings, the well-kept gravel, contrasted rather surprisingly with the surrounding desolation. One could walk for miles without meeting a soul, and the country spread out from the sea, low and flat and marshy. The beach was of countless shells of every possible variety, which crumbled under foot; while here and there were great banks of seaweed and bits of wood or rope, the jetsam of a thousand tides. In one spot, a few yards out but high and dry at low water, were the remains of an old hulk, whose wooden ribs stood out weirdly like the skeleton of some huge sea-beast. And then all round was the lonely sea, with never a ship nor a fishing-smack in sight. In winter it was as if a spirit of solitude, like a mystic shroud, had descended upon the shore and upon the desert waters.
Then, in the melancholy, in the dreariness, Bertha found a subtle fascination. The sky was a threatening heavy cloud, low down; and the wind tore along shouting, screaming, and whistling: there was panic in the turbulent sea, murky and yellow, and the waves leaped up, one at the other’s heels, and beat down on the beach with an angry roar. It was desolate, desolate; the sea was so merciless that the very sight appalled one: it was a wrathful power, beating forwards, ever wrathfully beating forwards, roaring with pain when the chains that bound it wrenched it back; and after each desperate effort it shrank with a yell of anguish. And the seagulls swayed above the waves in their melancholy flight, rising and falling with the wind.
Bertha loved also the calm of winter, when the sea-mist and the mist of heaven were one; when the sea was silent and heavy, and the solitary gull flew screeching over the gray waters, screeching mournfully. She loved the calm of summer when the sky was cloudless and infinite. Then she spent long hours, lying at the water’s edge, delighted with the solitude and with her absolute peace. The sea, placid as a lake, unmoved by the lightest ripple, was a looking-glass reflecting the glory of heaven; and it turned to fire when the sun sank in the west; it was a sea of molten copper, red, brilliant, so that the eyes were dazzled. A troop of seagulls slept on the water; and there were hundreds of them, motionless and silent; one arose now and then, and flew for a moment with heavy wing, and sank down, and all was still.
Once the coolness was so tempting that Bertha could not resist it. Timidly, rapidly, she slipped off her clothes and looking round to see that there was really no one in sight, stepped in. The wavelets about her feet made her shiver a little, and then with a splash, stretching out her arms, she ran forward, and half fell, half dived into the water. Now it was delightful; she rejoiced in the freedom of her limbs, for it was an unknown pleasure to swim unhampered by costume. It gave a fine sense of power, and the salt water, lapping round her, was wonderfully exhilarating. She wanted to sing aloud in the joy of her heart. Diving below the surface, she came up with a shake of the head and a little cry of delight; then her hair was loosened and with a motion it all came tumbling about her shoulders and trailed out in its ringlets over the water.
She swam out, a fearless swimmer; and it gave her a feeling of strength and independence to have the deep waters all about her, the deep calm sea of summer; she turned on her back and floated, trying to look the sun in the face. The sea glimmered with the sunbeams and the sky was dazzling. Then, returning, Bertha floated again, quite near the shore; it amused her to lie on her back, rocked by the tiny waves, and to sink her ears so that she could hear the shingle rub together curiously with the ebb and flow of the tide. She shook out her long hair and it stretched about her like an aureole.
She exulted in her youth—in her youth? Bertha felt no older than when she was eighteen, and yet—she was thirty. The thought made her wince; for she had never realised the passage of the years, she had never imagined that her youth was waning. Did people think her already old? The sickening fear came to her that she resembled Miss Hancock, attempting by archness and by an assumption of frivolity, to persuade her neighbours that she was juvenile. Bertha asked herself whether she was ridiculous when she rolled in the water like a young girl: you cannot act the mermaid with crow’s feet about your eyes, with wrinkles round your mouth. In a panic she dressed herself, and going home, flew to a looking-glass. She scrutinised her features as she had never done before, searching anxiously for the signs she feared to see; she looked at her neck and at her eyes: her skin was as smooth as ever, her teeth as perfect. She gave a sigh of relief.
“I see no difference.”
Then, doubly to reassure herself, a fantastic idea seized Bertha to dress as though she were going to a great ball; she wished to see herself to all advantage. She chose the most splendid gown she had, and took out her jewels. The Leys had sold every vestige of their old magnificence, but their diamonds, with characteristic obstinacy, they had invariably declined to part with; and they lay aside, year after year unused, the stones in their old settings, dulled with dust and neglect. The moisture still in Bertha’s hair was an excuse to do it capriciously, and she placed in it the beautiful tiara which her grandmother had worn in the Regency. On her shoulders she wore two ornaments exquisitely set in gold-work, purloined by a great-uncle in the Peninsular War from the saint of a Spanish church. She slipped a string of pearls round her neck, bracelets on her arms, and fastened a glistening row of stars to her bosom. Knowing she had beautiful hands, Bertha disdained to wear rings, but now she covered her fingers with diamonds and emeralds and sapphires.
Finally she stood before the looking-glass, and gave a laugh of pleasure. She was not old yet.
But when she sailed into the drawing-room, Edward jumped up in surprise.
“Good Lord!” he cried. “What on earth’s up! Have we got people coming to dinner?”
“My dear, if we had, I should not have dressed like this.”
“You’re got up as if the Prince of Wales were coming. And I’m only in knickerbockers. It’s not our wedding-day?”
“No.”
“Then I should like to know why you’ve dressed yourself up like that.”
“I thought it would please you,” she said, smiling.
“I wish you’d told me—I’d have dressed too. Are you sure no one’s coming?”
“Quite sure.”
“Well, I think I ought to dress. It would look so queer if some one turned up.”
“If any one does, I promise you I’ll fly.”
They went in to dinner, Edward feeling very uncomfortable, and keeping his ear alert for the front-door bell. They ate their soup, and then were set on the table—the remains of a cold leg of mutton and mashed potatoes. Bertha looked for a moment blankly, and then, leaning back, burst into peal upon peal of laughter.
“Good Lord, what is the matter now?” asked Edward.
Nothing is more annoying than to have people violently hilarious over a joke that you cannot see.
Bertha held her sides and tried to speak.
“I’ve just remembered that I told the servants they might go out to-night, there’s a circus at Blackstable; and I said we’d just eat up the odds and ends.”
“I don’t see any joke in that.”
And really there was none, but Bertha laughed again immoderately.
“I suppose there are some pickles,” said Edward.
Bertha repressed her gaiety and began to eat.
“That is my whole life,” she murmured under her breath, “to eat cold mutton and mashed potatoes in a ball-dress and all my diamonds.”
BUT in the winter of that very year Edward, while hunting, had an accident. For years he had made a practice of riding unmanageable horses, and he never heard of a vicious beast without wishing to try it. He knew that he was a fine rider, and since he was never shy of parading his powers, nor loath to taunt others on the score of inferior skill or courage, he preferred difficult animals. It gratified him to see people point to him and say, “There’s a good rider:” and his best joke with some person on a horse that pulled or refused, was to cry: “You don’t seem friends with your gee; would you like to try mine?” And then, touching its sides with his spurs, he set it prancing. He was merciless with the cautious hunters who looked for low parts of a hedge or tried to get through a gate instead of over it; and when any one said a jump was dangerous, Edward with a laugh promptly went for it, shouting as he did so—
“I wouldn’t try it if I were you. You might fall off.”
He had just bought a roan for a mere song, because it jumped uncertainly, and had a trick of swinging a fore-leg as it rose. He took it out on the earliest opportunity, and the first two hedges and a ditch the horse cleared easily. Edward thought that once again he had got for almost nothing a hunter that merely wanted riding properly to behave like a lamb. They rode on, and came to a post and rail fence.
“Now, my beauty, this’ll show what you’re made of.”
He took the horse up in a canter, and pressed his legs; the horse did not rise, but swerved round suddenly.
“No, you don’t,” said Edward, taking him back.
He dug his spurs in, and the horse cantered up, and refused again. This time Edward grew angry. Arthur Branderton came flying by, and having many old scores to pay, laughed loudly.
“Why don’t you get down and walk over?” he shouted, as he passed Edward and took the jump.
“I’ll either get over or break my neck,” said Edward, setting his teeth.
But he did neither. He set the roan at the jump for the fourth time, hitting him with his crop; the beast rose, and then letting the fore-leg swing, came down with a crash.
Edward fell heavily, and for a minute was stunned. When he recovered consciousness, he found some one pouring brandy down his neck.
“Is the horse hurt?” he asked, not thinking of himself.
“No; he’s all right. How d’you feel?”
A young surgeon was in the field, and rode up. “What’s the matter? Any one injured?”
“No,” said Edward, struggling to his feet, somewhat annoyed at the exhibition he thought he was making of himself. “One would think none of you fellows had ever seen a man come down before. I’ve seen most of you come off often enough.”
He walked up to the horse, and put his foot in the stirrup.
“You’d better go home, Craddock,” said the surgeon. “I expect you’re a bit shaken up.”
“Go home be damned. Confound!” As he tried to mount, Edward felt a pain at the top of his chest. “I believe I’ve broken something.”
The surgeon went up and helped him off with his coat. He twisted Edward’s arm.
“Does that hurt?”
“A bit.”
“You’ve broken your collar-bone,” said the surgeon, after a moment’s examination.
“I thought I’d smashed something. How long will it take to mend?”
“Only three weeks. You needn’t be alarmed.”
“I’m not alarmed, but I suppose I shall have to give up hunting for at least a month.”
Edward was driven to Dr. Ramsay, who bandaged him and sent him back to Court Leys. Bertha was surprised to see him in a dogcart. Edward by now had recovered his good temper, and explained the occurrence, laughing.
“It’s nothing to make a fuss about. Only I’m bandaged up so that I feel like a mummy, and I don’t know how I’m going to get a bath. That’s what worries me.”
Next day Arthur Branderton came to see him. “You’ve found your match at last, Craddock.”
“Me? Not much! I shall be all right in a month, and then out I go again.”
“I wouldn’t ride him again, if I were you. It’s not worth it. With that trick of his of swinging his leg, you’ll break your neck.”
“Bah,” said Edward, scornfully. “The horse hasn’t been built that I can’t ride.”
“You’re a good weight now, and your bones aren’t as supple as when you were twenty. The next fall you have will be a bad one.”
“Rot, man! One would think I was eighty; I’ve never funked a horse yet, and I’m not going to begin now.”
Branderton shrugged his shoulders, and said nothing more at the time, but afterwards spoke to Bertha privately.
“You know, I think, if I were you, I’d persuade Edward to get rid of that horse. I don’t think he ought to ride it again. It’s not safe. However well he rides, it won’t save him if the beast has got a bad trick.”
Bertha had in this particular great faith in her husband’s skill. Whatever he could not do, he was certainly one of the finest riders in the county; but she spoke to him notwithstanding.
“Pooh, that’s all rot!” he said. “I tell you what, on the 11th of next month we go over pretty well the same ground; and I’m going out, and I swear he’s going over that post and rail in Coulter’s field.”
“You’re very incautious.”
“No, I’m not. I know exactly what a horse can do. And I know that horse can jump if he wants to, and by George, I’ll make him. Why, if I funked it now I could never ride again. When a chap gets to be near forty and has a bad fall, the only thing is to go for it again at once, or he’ll lose his nerve and never get it back. I’ve seen that over and over again.”
Miss Glover later on, when Edward’s bandages were removed and he was fairly well, begged Bertha to use her influence with him.
“I’ve heard he’s a most dangerous horse, Bertha. I think it would be madness for Edward to ride him.”
“I’ve begged him to sell it, but he merely laughs at me,” said Bertha. “He’s extremely obstinate and I have very little power over him.”
“Aren’t you dreadfully frightened?”
Bertha laughed. “No, I’m really not. You know he always has ridden dangerous horses and he’s never come to any harm. When we were first married I used to go through agonies. Every time he hunted I used to think he’d be brought home dead on a stretcher. But he never was, and I calmed down by degrees.”
“I wonder you could.”
“My dear, no one can keep on being frightfully agitated for ten years. People who live on volcanoes forget all about it; and you’d soon get used to sitting on barrels of gunpowder if you had no armchair.”
“Never!” said Miss Glover, with conviction, seeing a vivid picture of herself in such a position.
Miss Glover was unaltered. Time passed over her head powerlessly; she still looked anything between five-and-twenty and forty, her hair was no more washed-out, her figure in its armour of black cloth was as juvenile as ever; and not a new idea nor a thought had entered her mind. She was like Alice’s queen, who ran at the top of her speed and remained in the same place; but with Miss Glover the process was reversed: the world moved on, apparently faster and faster as the century drew near its end, but she remained fixed—an incarnation of the eighteen-eighties.
The day before the 11th arrived. The hounds were to meet at the Share and Coulter, as when Edward had been thrown. He sent for Dr. Ramsay to assure Bertha that he was quite fit; and after the examination, brought him into the drawing-room.
“Dr. Ramsay says my collar-bone is stronger than ever.”
“But I don’t think he ought to ride the roan notwithstanding. Can’t you persuade Edward not to, Bertha?”
Bertha looked from the doctor to Edward, smiling. “I’ve done my best.”
“Bertha knows better than to bother,” said Edward. “She don’t think much of me as a churchwarden, but when a horse is concerned, she does trust me; don’t you, dear?”
“I really do.”
“There,” said Edward, much pleased, “that’s what I call a good wife.”
Next day the horse was brought round and Bertha filled Edward’s flask.
“You’ll bury me nicely if I break my neck, won’t you?” he said, laughing. “You’ll order a handsome tombstone.”
“My dear, you’ll never come to a violent end. I feel certain you will die in your bed when you’re a hundred and two, with a crowd of descendants weeping round you. You’re just that sort of man.”
“Ha, ha!” he laughed. “I don’t know where the descendants are coming in.”
“I have a presentiment that I am doomed to make way for Fanny Glover. I’m sure there’s a fatality about it. I’ve felt for years that you will eventually marry her, and it’s horrid of me to have kept you waiting so long—especially as she pines for you, poor thing.”
Edward laughed again. “Well, good-bye!”
“Good-bye. Remember me to Mrs. Arthur.”
She stood at the window to see him mount, and as he flourished his crop at her, she waved her hand.
The winter day closed in and Bertha, interested in the novel she was reading, was surprised to hear the clock strike five. She wondered that Edward had not yet come in, and ringing for tea and the lamps, had the curtains drawn. He could not now be long.
“I wonder if he’s had another fall,” she said, with a smile. “He really ought to give up hunting, he’s getting too fat.”
She decided to wait no longer, but poured out her tea and arranged herself so that she could get at the scones and see comfortably to read. Then she heard a carriage drive up. Who could it be?
“What bores these people are to call at this time!”
As the bell was rung, Bertha put down her book to receive the visitor. But no one was shown in; there was a confused sound of voices without. Could something have happened to Edward after all? She sprang to her feet and walked half across the room. She heard an unknown voice in the hall.
“Where shall we take it?”
It. What was it—a corpse? Bertha felt a coldness travel through all her body, she put her hand on a chair, so that she might steady herself if she felt faint. The door was opened slowly by Arthur Branderton, and he closed it quickly behind him.
“I’m awfully sorry, but there’s been an accident. Edward is rather hurt.”
She looked at him, growing pale, but found nothing to answer.
“You must nerve yourself, Bertha. I’m afraid he’s very bad. You’d better sit down.”
He hesitated, and she turned to him with sudden anger.
“If he’s dead, why don’t you tell me?”
“I’m awfully sorry. We did all we could. He fell at the same post and rail fence as the other day. I think he must have lost his nerve. I was close by him, I saw him rush at it blindly, and then pull just as the horse was rising. They came down with a crash.”
“Is he dead?”
“Yes.”
Bertha did not feel faint. She was a little horrified at the clearness with which she was able to understand Arthur Branderton. She seemed to feel nothing at all. The young man looked at her as if he expected that she would weep or swoon.
“Would you like me to send my wife to you?”
“No, thanks.”
Bertha understood quite well that her husband was dead, but the news seemed to make no impression upon her. She heard it unmoved, as though it referred to a stranger. She found herself wondering what young Branderton thought of her unconcern.
“Won’t you sit down,” he said, taking her arm and leading her to a chair. “Shall I get you some brandy?”
“I’m all right, thanks. You need not trouble about me—Where is he?”
“I told them to take him upstairs. Shall I send Ramsay’s assistant to you? He’s here.”
“No,” she said, in a low voice. “I want nothing. Have they taken him up already?”
“Yes, but I don’t think you ought to go to him. It will upset you dreadfully.”
“I’ll go to my room. Do you mind if I leave you? I should prefer to be alone.”
Branderton held the door open and Bertha walked out, her face very pale, but showing not the least trace of emotion. Branderton walked to Leanham Vicarage to send Miss Glover to Court Leys, and then home, where he told his wife that the wretched widow was stunned by the shock.
Bertha locked herself in her room. She heard the hum of voices in the house, Dr. Ramsay came to her door, but she refused to open; then all was quite still.
She was aghast at the blankness of her heart, the tranquility was so inhuman that she wondered if she was going mad; she felt no emotion whatever. Bertha repeated to herself that Edward was killed; he was lying quite near at hand, dead—and she felt no grief. She remembered her anguish years before when she thought of his death; and now that it had taken place she did not faint, she did not weep, she was untroubled. Bertha had hidden herself to conceal her tears from strange eyes, and the tears came not. After her sudden suspicion was confirmed, she had experienced no emotion whatever; she was horrified that the tragic death affected her so little. She walked to the window and looked out, trying to gather her thoughts, trying to make herself care; but she was almost indifferent.
“I must be frightfully cruel,” she muttered.
Then the idea came of what her friends would say when they saw her calm self-possession. She tried to weep, but her eyes remained dry.
There was a knock at the door, and Miss Glover’s voice, broken with tears, “Bertha, Bertha, wont you let me in? It’s me—Fanny.”
Bertha sprang to her feet, but did not answer.
Miss Glover called again, and her voice was choked with sobs. Why could Fanny Glover weep for Edward’s death, who was a stranger, when she, Bertha, remained insensible?
“Bertha!”
“Yes.”
“Open the door for me. Oh, I’m so sorry for you. Please let me in.”
Bertha looked wildly at the door, she dared not let Miss Glover come.
“I can see no one now,” she cried, hoarsely. “Don’t ask me.”
“I think I could comfort you.”
“I want to be alone.”
Miss Glover was silent for a minute, crying audibly.
“Shall I wait downstairs? You can ring if you want me. Perhaps you’ll see me later.”
Bertha wished to tell her to go away, but dared not.
“Do as you like,” she said.
There was silence again, an unearthly silence more trying than hideous din. It was a silence that tightened the nerves and made them horribly sensitive: one dared not breathe for fear of breaking it.
And one thought came to Bertha, assailing her like a devil tormenting. She cried out in horror, for this was more odious than anything; it was simply intolerable. She threw herself on her bed and buried her face in her pillow to drive it away. For shame, she put her hands to her ears so as not to hear the invisible fiends that whispered it silently.
She was free.
She quailed before the thought, but could not crush it. “Has it come to this!” she murmured.
And then came back the recollection of the beginnings of her love. She recalled the passion that had thrown her blindly into Edward’s arms, her bitter humiliation when she realised that he could not respond to her ardour; her love was a fire playing ineffectually upon a rock of basalt. She recalled the hatred which followed the disillusion, and finally the indifference. It was the same indifference that chilled her heart now.
Her life seemed all wasted when she compared her mad desire for happiness with the misery she had actually endured. Bertha’s many hopes stood out like phantoms, and she looked at them despairingly. She had expected so much and secured so little. She felt a terrible pain at her heart as she considered all she had gone through. Her strength fell away, and overcome by her own self-pity, she sank to her knees and burst into tears.
“Oh, God!” she cried, “what have I done that I should have been so unhappy?”
She sobbed aloud, not caring to restrain her grief. Miss Glover, good soul, was waiting outside the room in case Bertha wanted her, crying silently. She knocked again when she heard the impetuous sobs within.
“Oh, Bertha, do let me in. You’re tormenting yourself so much more because you won’t see anybody.”
Bertha dragged herself to her feet and undid the door. Miss Glover entered, and throwing off all reserve in her overwhelming sympathy, clasped Bertha to her heart.
“Oh, my dear, my dear, it’s utterly dreadful; I’m so sorry for you. I don’t know what to say. I can only pray.”
Bertha sobbed unrestrainedly—not because Edward was dead.
“All you have now is God,” said Miss Glover.
At last Bertha tore herself away and dried her eyes.
“Don’t try and be too brave, Bertha,” compassionately said the Vicar’s sister. “It will do you good to cry. He was such a good, kind man, and he loved you so devotedly.”
Bertha looked at her in silence.
“I must be horribly cruel,” she thought.
“Do you mind if I stay here to-night, dear,” added Miss Glover. “I’ve sent word to Charles.”
“Oh, no, please don’t. If you care for me, Fanny, let me be alone. I don’t want to be unkind, but I can’t bear to see any one.”
Miss Glover was deeply pained. “I don’t want to be in the way. If you really wish me to go, I’ll go.”
“I feel if I can’t be alone, I shall go mad.”
“Would you like to see Charles?”
“No, dear. Don’t be angry. Don’t think me unkind or ungrateful, but I want nothing but to be left entirely by myself.”
ALONE in her room once more, memories of the past crowded upon her. The last years fled from her mind and Bertha saw vividly again the first days of her love, the visit to Edward at his farm, the night at the gate of Court Leys when he asked her to marry him. She recalled the rapture with which she had flung herself into his arms. Forgetting the real Edward who had just died, she remembered the tall strong youth who had made her faint with love; and her passion returned, overwhelming. On the chimney-piece stood a photograph of Edward as he was then; it had been before her for years, but she had never noticed it. She took it and pressed it to her heart, and kissed it. A thousand things came back and she saw him again standing before her as he was, manly, strong, so that she felt his love a protection against all the world.
But what was the use now?
“I should be mad if I began to love him again when it is too late.”
Bertha was appalled by the regret which she felt rising within her, a devil that wrung her heart in an iron grip. Oh, she could not risk the possibility of grief, she had suffered too much and she must kill in herself the springs of pain. She dared not leave things which in future years might be the foundations of a new idolatry. Her only chance of peace was to destroy everything that might recall him.
She seized the photograph and without daring to look again, withdrew it from the frame and rapidly tore it in pieces. She looked round the room.
“I musn’t leave anything,” she muttered.
She saw on a table an album containing pictures of Edward at all ages, the child with long curls, the urchin in knickerbockers, the schoolboy, the lover of her heart. She had persuaded him to be photographed in London during their honeymoon, and he was there in half-a-dozen different positions. Bertha thought her heart would break as she destroyed them one by one, and it needed all the strength she had to prevent her from covering them with passionate kisses. Her fingers ached with the tearing, but in a little while they were all in fragments in the fireplace. Then, desperately, she added the letters Edward had written to her; and applied a match. She watched them curl and frizzle and burn; and presently they were ashes.
She sank on a chair, exhausted by the effort, but quickly roused herself. She drank some water, nerving herself for a more terrible ordeal; for she knew that on the next few hours depended her future peace.
By now the night was late, a stormy night with the wind howling through the leafless trees. Bertha started when it beat against the windows with a scream that was nearly human. A fear seized her of what she was about to do, but she was driven by a greater fear. She took a candle, and opening the door, listened. There was no one; the wind roared with its long monotonous voice, and the branches of a tree beating against a window in the passage gave a ghastly tap-tap, as if unseen spirits were near.
The living, in the presence of death, feel that the whole air is full of something new and terrible. A greater sensitiveness perceives an inexplicable feeling of something present, or of some horrible thing happening invisibly. Bertha walked to her husband’s room and for a while dared not enter. At last she opened the door, she lit the candles on the chimney-piece and on the dressing-table, then went to the bed. Edward was lying on his back, with a handkerchief bound round his jaw to hold it up, his hands crossed in front.
Bertha stood in front of the corpse and looked. The impression of the young man passed away, and she saw him as in truth he was, stout, red-faced, with the venules of his cheeks standing out distinctly in a purple network; the sides of his face were prominent as of late years they had become; and he had little side whiskers. His skin was lined already and rough, the hair over the front of his head was scanty, and the scalp was visible, shiny and white. The hands which once had delighted her by their strength, so that she compared them with the porphyry hands of an unfinished statue, now were repellent in their coarseness. For a long time their touch had a little disgusted her. This was the image Bertha wished to impress upon her mind. It was a stranger lying dead before her, a man to whom she was indifferent.
At last turning away, she went out and returned to her own room.
Three days later was the funeral. All the morning wreaths and crosses of beautiful flowers had poured in, and now there was a crowd in the drive in front of Court Leys. The Blackstable Freemasons (Lodge No. 31,899), of which Edward at his death was Worshipful Master, had signified their intention of attending, and lined the road, two and two, in white gloves and aprons. There were likewise representatives of the Tercanbury Lodge (4169), of the Provincial Grand Lodge, the Mark Masons, and the Knights Templars. The Blackstable unionist Association sent one hundred Conservatives, who walked two and two after the Freemasons. There were a few words as to precedence between Brother G. W. Hancock (P.W.M.), who led the Blackstable Lodge (31,899), and Mr. Atthill Bacot, who marched at the head of the politicians; but it was finally settled in favour of the Lodge, as the older established body. Then came the members of the Local District Council, of which Edward had been chairman, and after these the carriages of the gentry. Mrs. Mayston Ryle sent a landau and pair, but Mrs. Branderton, the Molsons, and the rest, only sent broughams. It needed a prodigious amount of generalship to marshal these forces, and Arthur Branderton lost his temper because the Conservatives would start before they were wanted to.
“Ah,” said Brother A. W. Rogers (the landlord of the Pig and Whistle), “they want Craddock here now. He was the best organiser I’ve ever seen; he’d have got the procession into working order and the funeral over by this time.”
The last carriage disappeared, and Bertha, alone at length, lay down by the window on the sofa. She was devoutly grateful to the old convention which prevented the widow’s attendance at the funeral.
She looked with tired and listless eyes at the long avenue of elm-trees, bare of leaf. The sky was gray and the clouds heavy and low. Bertha now was a pale woman of thirty, still beautiful, with curling, abundant hair; but her dark eyes had under them still darker lines, and their fire was half gone. Between her brows was a little vertical line, and her lips had lost the joyousness of youth, the corners of her mouth turned down with a melancholy expression. The face was thin and extremely pale; but what chiefly struck one was that she seemed so utterly weary. Her features remained singularly immobile, and there was in her eyes an apathy that was very painful. Her eyes said that she had loved and found love wanting, that she had been a mother and that her child had died, and that now she desired nothing very strongly but to be left in peace.
Bertha was indeed tired out, in body and mind, tired of love and hate, tired with friendship and knowledge, tired with the passing years. Her thought wandered to the future and she decided to leave Blackstable, and let Court Leys, so that in no moment of weakness might she be tempted to return. And first she intended to travel, wishing to live in places where she was unknown, so as more easily to forget the past. Bertha’s memory brought back Italy, the land of those who suffer in unfulfilled desire, the lotus land. She would go there and she would go farther, ever towards the sun; for now she had no ties on earth, and at last, at last she was free.
The melancholy day closed in the great clouds hanging overhead darkened with approaching night. Bertha remembered how ready in her girlhood she had been to pour herself out to the world. Feeling intense fellowship with all human beings, she wished to throw herself into their arms, thinking that they would be outstretched to receive her. Her life seemed to overflow into the lives of others, becoming one with theirs as the water of rivers becomes one with the sea. But very soon the power she had felt of doing all this departed; she recognised a barrier between herself and human kind, and felt that they were strangers. Hardly understanding the impossibility of what she desired, she placed all her love, all her faculty of expansion, on one person, on Edward, making a final effort, as it were, to break the barrier of consciousness and unite her soul with his. She drew him towards her with all her might, Edward the man, seeking to know him in the depths of his heart, yearning to lose herself in him. But at last she saw that what she had striven for was unattainable. I myself stand on one side and the rest of the world on the other. There is an abyss between, that no power can cross, a strange barrier more insuperable than a mountain of fire. Not even the most devoted lovers know the essentials of one another’s selves. However ardent their passion, however intimate their union, they are always strangers; scarcely more to one another than chance acquaintance.
And when she discovered this, with many tears and after bitter heartache, Bertha retired into herself. But soon she found solace. In her silence she built a world of her own, and kept it from the eyes of every living soul, knowing that none could understand it. And then all ties were irksome, all earthly attachments unnecessary.
Confusedly thinking these things, Bertha’s thoughts reverted to Edward.
“If I had been keeping a diary of my emotions, I should close it to-day, with the words, ‘My husband has broken his neck.’”
But she was pained at her own callousness.
“Poor fellow,” she murmured. “He was honest and kind and forbearing. He did all he could, and tried always to act like a gentleman. He was very useful in the world, and, in his own way, he was fond of me. His only fault was that I loved him—and ceased to love him.”
By her side lay the book she had read while waiting for Edward when he was hunting. Bertha had put it on the table open, face-downwards, when she rose from the sofa to receive the expected visitor; and it had remained as she left it. She was tired of thinking; and taking it now, began to read quietly.