My dearest Bertha,—I am much obliged to your husband for his politeness in asking me to stay at Court Leys; butI flatter myself you have too high an opinion of me to think me capable of accepting. Newly married people offer much matter for ridicule (which, they say, is the noblest characteristic of man, being the only one that distinguishes him from the brutes); but since I am a peculiarly self-denying creature, I do not avail-myself of the opportunity. Perhaps in a year you will have begun to see one another’s imperfections and then, though less amusing, you will be more interesting. No, I am going to Italy—to hurl myself once more into that sea of pensions and second-rate hotels, wherein it is the fate of single women, with moderate incomes, to spend their lives; and I am taking with me a Baedeker, so that if ever I am inclined to think myself less foolish than the average man I may look upon its red cover and remember that I am but human. By the way, I hope do not show your correspondence to your husband, least of all mine. A man can never understand a woman’s epistolary communications, for he reads them with his own simple alphabet of twenty-six letters, whereas he requires one of at least fifty-two; and even that is little. It is madness for a happy pair to pretend to have no secrets from one another: it leads them into so much deception. If, however, as I suspect, you think it your duty to show Edward this note of mine, he will perhaps find it not unuseful for the elucidation of my character, in the study of which I myself have spent many entertaining years.I give you no address so that you may not be in want of an excuse to leave this letter unanswered.—Your affectionate Aunt,Mary Ley.
My dearest Bertha,—I am much obliged to your husband for his politeness in asking me to stay at Court Leys; butI flatter myself you have too high an opinion of me to think me capable of accepting. Newly married people offer much matter for ridicule (which, they say, is the noblest characteristic of man, being the only one that distinguishes him from the brutes); but since I am a peculiarly self-denying creature, I do not avail-myself of the opportunity. Perhaps in a year you will have begun to see one another’s imperfections and then, though less amusing, you will be more interesting. No, I am going to Italy—to hurl myself once more into that sea of pensions and second-rate hotels, wherein it is the fate of single women, with moderate incomes, to spend their lives; and I am taking with me a Baedeker, so that if ever I am inclined to think myself less foolish than the average man I may look upon its red cover and remember that I am but human. By the way, I hope do not show your correspondence to your husband, least of all mine. A man can never understand a woman’s epistolary communications, for he reads them with his own simple alphabet of twenty-six letters, whereas he requires one of at least fifty-two; and even that is little. It is madness for a happy pair to pretend to have no secrets from one another: it leads them into so much deception. If, however, as I suspect, you think it your duty to show Edward this note of mine, he will perhaps find it not unuseful for the elucidation of my character, in the study of which I myself have spent many entertaining years.
I give you no address so that you may not be in want of an excuse to leave this letter unanswered.—Your affectionate Aunt,
Mary Ley.
Bertha impatiently tossed the letter to Edward.
“What does she mean?” he asked, when he had read it.
Bertha shrugged her shoulders. “She believes in nothing but the stupidity of other people.... Poor woman, she has never been in love! But we won’t have any secrets from one another, Eddie. I know that you will never hide anything from me, and I—What can I do that is not at your telling?”
“It’s a funny letter,” he replied, looking at it again.
“But we’re free now, darling,” she said. “The house is ready for us; shall we go at once?”
“But we haven’t been here a fortnight yet,” he objected.
“What does it matter? We’re both sick of London; let us go home and start our life. We’re going to lead it for the rest of our days, so we’d better begin it quickly. Honeymoons are stupid things.”
“Well, I don’t mind. By Jove, fancy if we’d gone to Italy for six weeks.”
“Oh, I didn’t know what a honeymoon was like. I think I imagined something quite different.”
“You see I was right, wasn’t I?”
“Of course you were right,” she answered, flinging her arms round his neck; “you’re always right, my darling.... Ah! you can’t think how I love you.”
THEKentish coast is bleak and grey between Leanham and Blackstable; through the long winter months the winds of the North Sea sweep down upon it, bowing the trees before them; and from the murky waters perpetually arise the clouds, and roll up in heavy banks. It is a country that offers those who live there, what they give: sometimes the sombre colours and the silent sea express only restfulness and peace; sometimes the chill breezes send the blood racing through the veins; but also the solitude can answer the deepest melancholy, or the cheerless sky a misery which is more terrible than death. The moment’s mood seems always reproduced in the surrounding scenes, and in them may be found, as it were, a synthesis of the emotions. Bertha stood upon the high road which ran past Court Leys, and from the height looked down upon the lands which were hers. Close at hand the only habitations were a pair of humble cottages, from which time and rough weather had almost effaced the obtrusiveness of human handiwork. They stood away from the road, among fruit trees—a part of nature and not a blot upon it, as Court Leys had never ceased to be. All around were fields, great stretches of ploughed earth and meadows of coarse herbage. The trees were few, and stood out here and there in the distance, bent before the wind. Beyond was Blackstable, straggling grey houses with a border of new villas built for the Londoners who came in summer; and the sea was dotted with the smacks of the fishing town.
Bertha looked at the scene with sensations that she had never known; the heavy clouds hung above her, shutting out the whole world, and she felt an invisible barrier between herself and all other things. This was the land of her birth out of which she, and her fathers before her,had arisen; they had their day, and one by one returned whence they came and became again united with the earth. She had withdrawn from the pomps and vanities of life to live as her ancestors had lived, ploughing the land, sowing and reaping; but her children, the sons of the future, would belong to a new stock, stronger and fairer than the old. The Leys had gone down into the darkness of death, and her children would bear another name. All these things she gathered out of the brown fields and the grey sea mist. She was a little tired and the physical sensation caused a mental fatigue so that she felt in her suddenly the weariness of a family that had lived too long; she knew she was right to choose new blood to mix with the old blood of the Leys. It needed freshness and youth, the massive strength of her husband, to bring life to the decayed race. Her thoughts wandered to her father, the dilettante who wandered through Italy in search of beautiful things and emotions which his native country could not give him; of Miss Ley, whose attitude towards life was a shrug of the shoulders and a well-bred smile of contempt. Was not she, the last of them, wise? Feeling herself too weak to stand alone, she had taken a mate whose will and vitality would be a pillar of strength to her defaillance: her husband had still in his sinews the might of his mother, the Earth, a barbaric power which knew not the subtleties of weakness; he was the conqueror, and she was his handmaiden. But an umbrella was being waved at Mrs. Craddock from the bottom of the hill, and she smiled, recognising the masculine walk of Miss Glover.
Even from a distance the maiden’s determination and strength of mind were apparent; she approached, her face redder even than usual after the climb, encased in the braided jacket that fitted her as severely as sardines are fitted in their tin.
“I was coming to see you, Bertha,” she cried. “I heard you were back.”
“We’ve been home several days, getting to rights.”
Miss Clover shook Bertha’s hand with much vigour, andtogether they walked back to the house, along the avenue bordered with leafless trees.
“Now, do tell me all about your honeymoon, I’m so anxious to hear everything.”
But Bertha was not very communicative, she had an instinctive dislike to telling her private affairs, and never had any overpowering desire for sympathy.
“Oh, I don’t think there’s much to tell,” she answered, when they were in the drawing-room and she was pouring out tea for her guest. “I suppose all honeymoons are more or less alike.”
“You funny girl,” said Miss Glover. “Didn’t you enjoy it?”
“Yes,” said Bertha, with a smile that was almost ecstatic; then after a little pause: “We had a very good time—we went to all the theatres.”
Miss Glover felt that marriage had caused a difference in Bertha, and it made her nervous to realise the change. She looked uneasily at the married woman and occasionally blushed.
“And are you really happy?” she blurted out suddenly. Bertha smiled, and reddening, looked more charming than ever.
“Yes—I think I’m perfectly happy.”
“Aren’t you sure?” asked Miss Glover, who cultivated precision in every part of life and strongly disapproved of persons who did not know their own minds.
Bertha looked at her for a moment, as if considering the question.
“You know,” she answered, at last, “happiness is never quite what one expected it to be. I hardly hoped for so much; but I didn’t imagine it quite like it is.”
“Ah, well, I think it’s better not to go into these things,” replied Miss Glover, a little severely, thinking the suggestion of analysis scarcely suitable in a young married woman. “We ought to take things as they are, and be thankful.”
“Ought we?” said Bertha lightly, “I never do.... I’m never satisfied with what I have.”
They heard the opening of the front door and Bertha jumped up.
“There’s Edward! I must go and see him. You don’t mind, do you?”
She almost skipped out of the room; marriage, curiously enough, had dissipated the gravity of manner which had made people find so little girlishness about her. She seemed younger, lighter of heart.
“What a funny creature she is!” thought Miss Glover. “When she was a girl she had all the ways of a married woman, and now that she’s really married she might be a schoolgirl.”
The parson’s sister was not certain whether the irresponsibility of Bertha was fit to her responsible position, whether her unusual bursts of laughter were proper to a mystic state demanding gravity.
“I hope she’ll turn out all right,” she sighed.
But Bertha impulsively rushed to her husband and kissed him. She helped him off with his coat.
“I’m so glad to see you again,” she cried, laughing a little at her own eagerness; for it was only after luncheon that he had left her.
“Is any one here?” he asked, noticing Miss Glover’s umbrella. He returned his wife’s embrace somewhat mechanically.
“Come and see,” said Bertha, taking his arm and dragging him along. “You must be dying for tea, you poor thing.”
“Miss Glover!” he said, shaking the lady’s hand as energetically as she shook his. “How good of you to come and see us. Iamglad to see you. You see we came home sooner than we expected—there’s no place like the country, is there?”
“You’re right there, Mr. Craddock; I can’t bear London.”
“Oh, you don’t know it,” said Bertha; “for you it’s Aerated Bread shops, Exeter Hall, and Church Congresses.”
“Bertha!” cried Edward, in a tone of surprise; he could not understand frivolity with Miss Glover.
That good creature was far to kind-hearted to take offence at any remark of Bertha’s, and smiled grimly: she could smile in no other way.
“Tell me what you did in London. I can’t get anything out of Bertha.”
Craddock’s mind was communicative, nothing pleased him more than to give people information, and he was always ready to share his knowledge with the world at large. He never picked up a fact without rushing to tell it to somebody else. Some persons when they know a thing immediately lose interest and it bores them to discuss it, but Craddock was not of these. Nor could repetition exhaust his eagerness to enlighten his fellows, he would tell an hundred people the news of the day and be as fresh as ever when it came to the hundred and first. Such a characteristic is undoubtedly a gift, useful in the highest degree to schoolmasters and politicians, but slightly tedious to their hearers. Craddock favoured his guest with a detailed account of all their adventures in London, the plays they had seen, the plots thereof and the actors who played them. He gave the complete list of the museums and churches and public buildings they had visited, while Bertha looked at him, smiling happily at his enthusiasm. She cared little what he spoke of, the mere sound of his voice was music in her ears, and she would have listened delightedly while he read aloud from end to endWhitaker’s Almanack: that was a thing, by the way, which he was quite capable of doing. Edward corresponded far more with Miss Glover’s conception of the newly married man than did Bertha with that of the newly married woman.
“He is a nice fellow,” she said to her brother afterwards, when they were eating their supper of cold mutton, solemnly seated at either end of a long table.
“Yes,” answered the Vicar, in his tired, patient voice, “I think he’ll turn out a good husband.”
Mr. Glover was patience itself, which a little irritated Miss Ley, who liked a man of spirit; and of that Mr. Glover had never a grain. He was resigned to everything;he was resigned to his food being badly cooked, to the perversity of human nature, to the existence of dissenters (almost), to his infinitesimal salary; he was resignation driven to death. Miss Ley said he was like those Spanish donkeys that one sees plodding along in a string, listlessly bearing over-heavy loads—patient, patient, patient. But not so patient as Mr. Glover; the donkey sometimes kicked, the Vicar of Leanham never.
“I do hope it will turn out well, Charles,” said Miss Glover.
“I hope it will,” he answered; then after a pause: “Did you ask them if they were coming to church to-morrow?” He helped himself to mashed potatoes, noticing long-sufferingly that they were burnt again; the potatoes were always burnt, but he made no comment.
“Oh, I quite forgot,” said his sister, answering the question. “But I think they’re sure to. Edward Craddock was always a regular attendant.”
Mr. Glover made no reply, and they kept silence for the rest of the meal. Immediately afterwards the parson went into his study to finish the morrow’s sermon, and Miss Glover took out of her basket her brother’s woollen socks and began to darn them. She worked for more than an hour, thinking meanwhile of the Craddocks; she liked Edward better and better each time she saw him, and she felt he was a man who could be trusted. She upbraided herself a little for her disapproval of the marriage; her action was unchristian, and she asked herself whether it was not her duty to apologise to Bertha or to Craddock; the thought of doing something humiliating to her own self-respect attracted her wonderfully. But Bertha was different from other girls; Miss Glover, thinking of her, grew confused.
But a tick of the clock to announce an hour about to strike made her look up, and she saw it wanted but five minutes to ten.
“I had no idea it was so late.”
She got up and tidily put away her work, then taking from the top of the harmonium the Bible and the big prayer-bookwhich were upon it, placed them at the end of the table. She drew forward a chair for her brother, and sat patiently to await his coming. As the clock struck she heard the study door open, and the Vicar walked in. Without a word he went to the books, and sitting down, found his place in the Bible.
“Are you ready?” she asked.
He looked up one moment over his spectacles. “Yes.”
Miss Glover leant forward and rang the bell—the servant appeared with a basket of eggs, which she placed on the table. Mr. Glover looked at her till she was settled on her chair, and began the lesson. Afterwards the servant lit two candles and bade them good-night. Miss Glover counted the eggs.
“How many are there to-day?” asked the parson.
“Seven,” she answered, dating them one by one, and entering the number in a book kept for the purpose.
“Are you ready?” now asked Mr. Glover.
“Yes, Charles,” she said, taking one of the candles.
He put out the lamp, and with the other candle followed her upstairs. She stopped outside her door and bade him good-night; he kissed her coldly on the forehead and they went into their respective rooms.
There is always a certain flurry in a country-house on Sunday morning. There is in the air a feeling peculiar to the day, a state of alertness and expectation; for even when they are repeated for years, week by week, the preparations for church cannot be taken coolly. The odour of clean linen is unmistakable, every one is highly starched and somewhat ill-at-ease; the members of the household ask one another if they’re ready, they hunt for prayer-books; the ladies are never dressed in time and sally out at last, buttoning their gloves; the men stamp and fume and take out their watches. Edward, of course, wore a tail-coat and a top-hat, which is quite the proper costume for the squire to go to church in, and no one gave more thought to the proprieties than Edward. He held himselfvery upright, cultivating the slightly self-conscious gravity considered fit to the occasion.
“We shall be late, Bertha,” he said. “It will look so bad—the first time we come to church since our marriage, too.”
“My dear,” said Bertha, “you may be quite certain that even if Mr. Glover is so indiscreet as to start, for the congregation the ceremony will not really begin till we appear.”
They drove up in an old-fashioned brougham used only for going to church and to dinner-parties, and the word was immediately passed by the loungers at the porch to the devout within; there was a rustle of attention as Mr. and Mrs. Craddock walked up the aisle to the front pew which was theirs by right.
“He looks at home, don’t he?” murmured the natives, for the behaviour of Edward interested them more than that of his wife, who was sufficiently above them to be almost a stranger.
Bertha sailed up with a royal unconsciousness of the eyes upon her; she was pleased with her personal appearance, and intensely proud of her good-looking husband. Mrs. Branderton, the mother of Craddock’s best man, fixed her eye-glass upon her and stared as is the custom of great ladies in the suburbs. Mrs. Branderton was a woman who cultivated the mode in the depths of the country, a little, giggling, grey-haired creature who talked stupidly in a high, cracked voice and had her too juvenile bonnets straight from Paris. She was a gentlewoman, and this, of course, is a very fine thing to be. She was proud of it (in quite a nice way), and in the habit of saying that gentlefolk were gentlefolk; which, if you come to think of it, is a most profound remark.
“I mean to go and speak to the Craddocks afterwards,” she whispered to her son. “It will have a good effect on the Leanham people; I wonder if poor Bertha feels it yet.”
Mrs. Branderton had a self-importance which was almost sublime; it never occurred to her that there might be persons sufficiently ill-conditioned as to resent her patronage. She did it all in kindness—she showered advice upon all andsundry, besides soups and jellies upon the poor, to whom when they were ill she even sent her cook to read the Bible. She would have gone herself, only she strongly disapproved of familiarity with the lower classes, which made them independent and often rude. Mrs. Branderton knew without possibility of question that she and her equals were made of different clay from common folk; but, being a gentlewoman, did not throw this fact in the latters’ faces, unless, of course, they gave themselves airs, when she thought a straight talking-to did them good. Without any striking advantages of birth, money, or intelligence, Mrs. Branderton never doubted her right to direct the affairs and fashions, even the modes of thought of her neighbours; and by sheer force of self-esteem had caused them to submit for thirty years to her tyranny, hating her and yet looking upon her invitations to a bad dinner, as something quite desirable.
Mrs. Branderton had debated with herself how she should treat the Craddocks.
“I wonder if it’s my duty to cut them,” she said. “Edward Craddock isnotthe sort of man a Miss Ley ought to marry. But there are so few gentlefolk in the neighbourhood, and of course people do make marriages which they wouldn’t have dreamed of twenty years ago. Even the best society is very mixed nowadays. Perhaps I’d better err on the side of mercy!”
Mrs. Branderton was a little pleased to think that the Leys required her support—as was proved by the request of her son’s services at the wedding.
“The fact is gentlefolk are gentlefolk, and they must stand by one another in these days of pork-butchers and furniture people.”
After the service, when the parishioners were standing about the churchyard, Mrs. Branderton sailed up to the Craddocks followed by Arthur, and in her high, cracked voice began to talk with Edward. She kept an eye on the Leanham people to see that her action was being duly noticed, speaking to Craddock in the manner a gentlewoman should adopt with a man whose gentility was a little doubtful. Of course he was very much pleased and flattered.
SOMEdays later, after the due preliminaries which Mrs. Branderton would on no account have neglected, the Craddocks received an invitation to dinner. Bertha silently passed it to her husband.
“I wonder who she’ll ask to meet us,” he said.
“D’you want to go?” asked Bertha.
“Why, don’t you? We’ve got no engagement, have we?”
“Have you ever dined there before?” said Bertha.
“No. I’ve been to tennis-parties and that sort of thing, but I’ve hardly set foot inside their house.”
“Well, I think it’s an impertinence of her to ask you now.”
Edward opened his mouth wide: “What on earth d’you mean?”
“Oh, don’t you see?” cried his wife, “they’re merely asking you because you’re my husband. It’s humiliating.”
“Nonsense!” replied Edward, laughing. “And if they are, what do I care?—I’m not so thin-skinned as that. Mrs. Branderton was very nice to me the other Sunday; it would be funny if we didn’t accept.”
“Did you think she was nice? Didn’t you see that she was patronising you as if you were a groom. It made me boil with rage. I could hardly hold my tongue.”
Edward laughed again. “I never noticed anything. It’s just your fancy, Bertha.”
“I’m not going to her horrid dinner-party.”
“Then I shall go by myself,” he replied, laughing.
Bertha turned white; it was as if she had received a sudden blow; but he was laughing, of course he did not mean what he said. She hurriedly agreed to all he asked.
“Of course if you want to go, Eddie, I’ll come too.... It was only for your sake that I did not wish to.”
“We must be neighbourly. I want to be friends with everybody.”
She sat on the side of his chair, putting her arm round his neck. Edward patted her hand and she looked at him with eyes full of eager love, she bent down and kissed his hair. How foolish had been her sudden thought that he did not love her!
But Bertha had another reason for not wishing to go to Mrs. Branderton. She knew Edward would be bitterly criticised, and the thought made her wretched; they would talk of his appearance and manner, and wonder how they got on together. Bertha understood well enough the position Edward occupied in Leanham; the Brandertons and their like, knowing him all his life, had treated him as a mere acquaintance: for them he had been a person to whom you are civil, and that is all. This was the first occasion upon which he had been dealt with entirely as an equal; it was his introduction into what Mrs. Branderton was pleased to call the upper ten of Leanham. It did indeed make Bertha’s blood boil; and it cut her to the heart to think that for years he had been used in so infamous a fashion: he did not seem to mind.
“If I were he,” she said, “I’d rather die than go. They’ve ignored him always, and now they take him up as a favour to me.”
But Edward appeared to have no pride; of course his character was charming, and he could bear ill will to no one. He neither resented the former neglect of the Brandertons nor their present impertinence.
“I wish I could make him understand.”
Bertha passed the intervening week in a tremor of anxiety. She divined who the other guests would be. Would they laugh at him? Of course not openly; Mrs. Branderton, the least charitable of them all, prided herself upon her breeding; but Edward was shy, and among strangers awkward. To Bertha this was a charm rather than a defect; his half-bashful candour touched her, and she compared it favourably with the foolish worldliness of the imaginaryman-about-town, whose dissipations she always opposed to her husband’s virtues. But she knew that a spiteful tongue would find another name for what she called a delightfulnaïveté.
When at last the great day arrived, and they trundled off in the old-fashioned brougham, Bertha was thoroughly prepared to take mortal offence at the merest shadow of a slight offered to her husband. The Lord Chief Justice himself could not have been more careful of a company promoter’s fair name than was Mrs. Craddock of her husband’s susceptibilities; Edward, like the financier, treated the affair with indifference.
Mrs. Branderton had routed out the whole countryside for her show of gentlefolk. They had come from Blackstable and Tercanbury and Faversley, and from the seats and mansions which surrounded those places. Mrs. Mayston Ryle was there in a wonderful jete-black wig, and a voluminous dress of violet silk. Lady Wagget was there.
“Merely the widow of a city knight, my dear,” said the hostess to Bertha, “but if she isn’t distinguished, she’s good; so one mustn’t be too hard upon her.”
General Hancock arrived with two fuzzy-haired daughters, who were dreadfully plain, but pretended not to know it. They had walked; and while the soldier toddled in, blowing like a grampus, the girls (whose united ages made the respectable total of sixty-five years) stayed behind to remove their boots and put on the shoes which they had brought in a bag. Then, in a little while, came the Dean, meek and somewhat talkative; Mr. Glover had been invited for his sake, and of course Charles’ sister could not be omitted. She was looking almost festive in very shiny black satin.
“Poor dear,” said Mrs. Branderton to another guest, “it’s her only dinner dress; I’ve seen it for years. I’d willingly give her one of my old ones, only I’m afraid I should offend her by offering it. People in that class are so ridiculously sensitive.”
Mr. Atthill Bacot was announced; he had once contested the seat, and ever after been regarded as an authority upon the nation’s affairs. Mr. James Lycett and Mr. Molson came next, both red-faced squires with dogmatic opinions; they were alike as two peas, and it had been the local joke for thirty years that no one but their wives could tell them apart. Mrs. Lycett was thin and quiet and staid, wearing two little strips of lace on her hair to represent a cap; Mrs. Molson was so insignificant that no one had ever noticed what she was like. It was one of Mrs. Branderton’s representative gatherings; moral excellence was joined to perfect gentility and the result could not fail to edify. She was herself in high spirits and her cracked voice rang high and shrill. She was conscious of a successful costume; she really had much taste, and her frock would have looked charming on a woman half her age. Thinking also that it was part of woman’s duty to be amiable, Mrs. Branderton smiled and ogled at the old gentlemen in a way that quite alarmed them, and Mr. Atthill Bacot really thought she had designs upon his virtue.
The dinner just missed being eatable. Mrs. Branderton was a woman of fashion and disdained the solid fare of a country dinner-party—thick soup, fried soles, mutton cutlets, roast mutton, pheasant, Charlotte russe, and jellies. (The earlier dishes are variable according to season, but the Charlotte russe and the jelly are inevitable.) No, Mrs. Branderton said she must be a little more “distangay” than that, and provided her guests with clear soup,entreesfrom the Stores, a fluffy sweet which looked pretty and tasted horrid. The feast was extremely elegant, but it was not filling, which is unpleasant to elderly squires with large appetites.
“I never get enough to eat at the Brandertons,” said Mr. Atthill Bacot, indignantly.
“Well, I know the old woman,” replied Mr. Molson. Mrs. Branderton was the same age as himself, but he was rather a dog, and thought himself quite young enough to flirt with the least plain of the two Miss Hancocks. “Iknow her well, and I make a point of drinking a glass of sherry with a couple of eggs beaten up in it before I come.”
“The wines are positively immoral,” said Mrs. Mayston Ryle, who prided herself on her palate. “I’m always inclined to bring with me a flask with a little good whisky in it.”
But if the food was not heavy the conversation was. It is an axiom of narration that truth should coincide with probability, and the realist is perpetually hampered by the wild exaggeration of actual facts; a verbatim report of the conversation at Mrs. Branderton’s dinner-party would read like a shrieking caricature. The anecdote reigned supreme. Mrs. Mayston Ryle was a specialist in the clerical anecdote; she successively related the story of Bishop Thorold and his white hands, the story of Bishop Wilberforce and the bloody shovel. (This somewhat shocked the ladies, but Mrs. Mayston Ryle could not spoil her point by the omission of a swear word.) The Dean gave an anecdote about himself, to which Mrs. Mayston Ryle retorted with one about the Archbishop of Canterbury and the tedious curate. Mr. Arthill Bacot gave political anecdotes, Mr. Gladstone and the table of the House of Commons, Dizzy and the agricultural labourer. The climax came when General Hancock gave his celebrated stories about the Duke of Wellington. Edward laughed heartily at them all.
Bertha’s eyes were constantly upon her husband. She detested the thoughts that ran through her head, for that they should come to her at all was disparaging to him; but still she was horribly anxious. Was he not perfect, and handsome, and adorable? Why should she tremble before the opinion of a dozen stupid people? But she could not help it. However much she despised her neighbours, she could not prevent herself from being miserably affected by their judgment. And what did Edward feel? Was he as nervous as she? She could not bear the thought that he should suffer pain. It was an immense relief when Mrs. Branderton rose from the table. Bertha looked at Arthur holding open the door; she would have given anything toask him to look after Edward, but dared not. She was terrified lest, to his humiliation, those old squires should pointedly ignore him.
On reaching the drawing-room Miss Glover found herself by Bertha’s side, a little separated from the others, and the accident seemed designed by higher powers to give her an opportunity for the amends which she felt it her duty to make Mrs. Craddock for her former disparagement of Edward. She had been thinking the matter over, and considered an apology distinctly needful. But Miss Glover suffered terribly from nervousness, and the idea of broaching so delicate a subject caused her indescribable torture; yet the very unpleasantness of it reassured her, if speech was so disagreeable, it must obviously be her duty. But the words stuck in her throat, and she began talking of the weather. She reproached herself for cowardice; she set her teeth and grew scarlet.
“Bertha, I want to beg your pardon,” she blurted out suddenly.
“What on earth for?” Bertha opened her eyes wide and looked at the poor woman with astonishment.
“I feel I’ve been unjust to your husband. I thought he wasn’t a proper match for you, and I said things about him which I shouldn’t even have thought. I’m very sorry. He’s one of the best and kindest men I’ve ever seen, and I’m very glad you married him, and I’m sure you’ll be very happy.”
Tears came to Bertha’s eyes as she laughed; she felt inclined to throw her arms round the grim Miss Glover’s neck, for such a speech at that moment was very comforting.
“Of course I know you didn’t mean what you said.”
“Oh yes, I did, I’m sorry to say,” replied Miss Glover, who could allow no extenuation to her own crime.
“I’d quite forgotten all about it; and I believe you’ll soon be as madly in love with Edward as I am.”
“My dear Bertha,” replied Miss Glover, who never jested, “with your husband? You must be joking.”
But Mrs. Branderton interrupted them with her high voice.
“Bertha, dear, I want to talk to you.” Bertha, smiling, sat down beside her, and Mrs. Branderton proceeded in undertones.
“I must tell you, every one has been saying you’re the handsomest couple in the county, and we all think your husband is so nice.”
“He laughed at all your jokes,” replied Bertha.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Branderton, looking upwards and sideways like a canary, “he has such a merry disposition. But I’ve always liked him, dear. I was telling Mrs. Mayston Ryle that I’ve known him intimately ever since he was born. I thought it would please you to know that we all think your husband is nice.”
“I’m very much pleased. I hope Edward will be equally satisfied with all of you.”
The Craddock’s carriage came early, and Bertha offered to drive the Glovers home.
“I wonder if that lady has swallowed a poker,” said Mr. Molson, as soon as the drawing-room door was closed.
The two Miss Hancocks went into shrieks of laughter at this sally, and even the Dean smiled gently.
“Where did she get her diamonds from?” said the elder Miss Hancock. “I thought they were as poor as church mice.”
“The diamonds and the pictures are the only things they have left,” said Mrs. Branderton; “her family always refused to sell them; though, of course, it’s absurd for people in that position to have such jewels.”
“He’sa remarkably nice fellow,” said Mrs. Mayston Ryle in her deep, authoritative voice; “but I agree with Mr. Molson, she’s distinctly inclined to give herself airs.”
“The Leys for generations have been as proud as turkey-cocks,” added Mrs. Branderton.
“I shouldn’t have thought Mrs. Craddock had much to be proud of now, at all events,” said the elder Miss Hancock; she had no ancestors herself, and thought people who had were snobs.
“Perhaps she was a little nervous,” said Lady Waggett, who, though not distinguished, was good. “I know when I was a bride I used to be all of a tremble when I went to dinner-parties.”
“Nonsense,” said Mrs. Mayston Ryle. “She was extremely self-possessed; I don’t think it looks well for a young woman to have so much assurance. And I think she ought to be told that it’s hardly well bred for a young married woman to leave a house before anybody else as if she were royalty, when there are present women of a certain age and of a position undoubtedly not inferior to her own.”
“Oh, they’re so newly married they like to be alone, poor things,” said Lady Waggett. “I know I used to when I was first married to Sir Samuel.”
“My dear Lady Waggett,” answered Mrs. Mayston Ryle in tones of thunder, “the cases are not similar; Mrs. Craddock was a Miss Ley, and really should know something of the usages of good society.”
“Well, what do you think she said to me?” said Mrs. Branderton, waving her thin arms. “I was telling her that we were all so pleased with her husband—I thought it would comfort her a little, poor thing—and she said she hoped he would be equally satisfied with us.”
Mrs. Mayston Ryle for a moment was stupefied, but soon recovered.
“How very amusing,” she cried, rising from her chair. “Ha! ha! She hopes Mr. Edward Craddock will be satisfied with Mrs. Mayston Ryle.”
The two Miss Hancocks said “Ha! ha!” in chorus. Then, the great lady’s carriage being announced, she bade the assembly good-night, and swept out with a great rustling of her violet silk. The party might now really be looked upon as concluded, and the others obediently flocked off.
When they had put the Glovers down, Bertha nestled close to her husband.
“I’m so glad it’s all over,” she whispered; “I’m only happy when I’m alone with you.”
“It was a jolly evening, wasn’t it,” he said. “I thought they were all ripping.”
“I’m so glad you enjoyed it, dear; I was afraid you’d be bored.”
“Good heavens, that’s the last thing I should be. It does one good to hear conversation like that now and then—it brightens one up.”
Bertha started a little.
“Old Bacot is a very well informed man, isn’t he? I shouldn’t wonder if he was right in thinking that the government would go out at the end of their six years.”
“He always leads one to believe that he’s in the Prime Minister’s confidence,” said Bertha.
“And the General is a funny old chap,” added Edward. “That was a good story he told about the Duke of Wellington.”
Somehow this remark had a curious effect upon Bertha; she could not restrain herself, but burst suddenly into shrieks of hysterical laughter. Her husband, thinking she was laughing at the anecdote, burst also into peal upon peal.
“And the story about the Bishop’s gaiters!” cried Edward, shouting with merriment.
The more he laughed, the more hysterical became Bertha; and as they drove through the silent night they screamed and yelled and shook with uncontrollable mirth.
ANDso the Craddocks began their journey along the great road nowhither which is called the Road of Holy Matrimony. The spring came, and with it a hundred new delights; Bertha watched the lengthening days, the coloured crocus spring from the ground, the snowbells; the warm damp days of February brought the primroses and then the violets. February is a month of languors; the world’s heart is heavy, listless of the unrest of April and the vigorous life of May. Throughout nature the seed is germinating and the pulse of all things throbs. The sea mists arose from the North Sea, and covered the Kentish land with a veil of moisture, white and almost transparent, so that through it the leafless trees were seen strangely distorted, their branches like long arms writhing to free themselves from the shackles of winter; the grass was very green in the marshes, and the young lambs frisked and gambolled, bleating to their mothers. Already the thrushes and the blackbirds were singing in the hedge-rows. March roared in boisterously, and the clouds, high above, swept across the sky before the tearing winds, sometimes heaped up in heavy masses and then blown asunder, flying westwards, tripping over one another’s heels in their hurry. Nature was resting; holding her breath, as it were, before the great effort of birth.
Gradually Bertha came to know her husband better. At her marriage she had really known nothing but that she loved him; the senses only had spoken, she and he were merely puppets whom nature had thrown together and made attractive in one another’s eyes, that the race might be continued. Bertha, desire burning within her like a fire, had flung herself into her husband’s arms, loving as the beasts love—and as the gods. He was the man and shewas the woman, and the world was a Garden of Eden, conjured up by the power of passion. But greater knowledge brought only greater love. Little by little, reading in Edward’s mind, Bertha discovered to her delight an unexpected purity; it was with a feeling of curious happiness that she recognised his innocence. She saw that he had never loved before, that woman to him was a strange thing, a thing he had scarcely known. She was proud that her husband had come to her unsoiled by foreign embraces, the lips that kissed hers were clean; no speech on the subject had passed between them, and yet she felt certain of his extreme chastity. His soul was truly virginal.
And this being so, how could she fail to adore him! Bertha was only happy in her husband’s company, and it was an exquisite pleasure for her to think that their bonds could not be sundered, that so long as they lived they would be always together, always inseparable. She followed him like a dog, with a subjection that was really touching; her pride had utterly vanished, and she desired to exist only in Edward, to fuse her character with his and be entirely one with him. She wanted him to be her only individuality, likening herself to ivy climbing to the oak tree; for he was an oak tree, a pillar of strength, and she was very weak. In the morning after breakfast she accompanied him on his walk around the farms, and only when her presence was impossible did she stay at home to look after her house. The attempt to read was hopeless, and she had thrown aside her books. Why should she read? Not for entertainment, since her husband was a perpetual occupation; and if she knew how to love, what other knowledge was useful? Often, left alone for a while, she would take up some volume, but her mind quickly wandered and she thought of Edward again, wishing to be with him.
Bertha’s life was an exquisite dream, a dream which need never end; for her happiness was not of that boisterous sort which needs excursions and alarums, but equable and smooth; she dwelt in a paradise of rosy tints, in which were neither violent shadows nor glaring lights. She was inheaven, and the only link attaching her to earth was the weekly service at Leanham. There was a delightful humanity about the bare church with its pitch-pine, highly varnished pews, and the odours of hair-pomade and Reckitt’s Blue. Edward was in his Sabbath garments, the organist made horrid sounds, and the village choir sang out of tune; Mr. Glover’s mechanical delivery of the prayers cleverly extracted all beauty from them, and his sermon was intensely prosaic. Those two hours of church gave Bertha just the touch of earthliness which was necessary to make her realize that life was not entirely spiritual.
Now came April. The elms before Court Leys were beginning to burst into leaf; the green buds covered the branches like a delicate rain, a verdant haze that was visible from a little distance and vanished when one came near. The brown fields also clothed themselves with a summer garment; the clover sprang up green and luxurious, and the crops showed good promise for the future. There were days when the air was almost balmy, when the sun was warm and the heart leapt, certain at last that the spring was at hand. The warm and comfortable rain soaked into the ground; and from the branches continually hung the countless drops, glistening in the succeeding sun. The self-conscious tulip unfolded her petals and carpeted the ground with gaudy colour. The clouds above Leanham were lifted up and the world was stretched out in a greater circle. The birds now sang with no uncertain notes as in March, but from a full throat, filling the air; and in the hawthorn behind Court Leys the first nightingale poured out his richness. And the full scents of the earth rose up, the fragrance of the mould and of the rain, the perfumes of the sun and of the soft breezes.
But sometimes, without ceasing, it rained from morning till night, and then Edward rubbed his hands.
“I wish this would keep on for a week; it’s just what the country wants.”
One such day Bertha was lying on a sofa while Edwardstood at the window, looking at the pattering rain. She thought of the November afternoon when she had stood at the same window considering the dreariness of the winter, but her heart full of hope and love.
“Come and sit down beside me, Eddie dear,” she said. “I’ve hardly seen you all day.”
“I’ve got to go out,” he said, without turning round.
“Oh no, you haven’t. Come here and sit down.”
“I’ll come for two minutes, while they’re putting the trap in.”
“Kiss me.”
He kissed her and she laughed. “You funny boy, I don’t believe you care about kissing me a bit.”
He could not answer this, for at that moment the trap came to the door and he sprang up.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m driving over to see old Potts at Herne about some sheep.”
“Is that all? Don’t you think you might stay in for an afternoon when I ask you?”
“Why?” he replied. “There’s nothing to do in here. Nobody is coming, I suppose.”
“I want to be with you, Eddie,” she said, plaintively.
He laughed. “I’m afraid I can’t break an appointment just for that.”
“Shall I come with you then?”
“What on earth for?” he asked, with surprise.
“I want to be with you; I hate being always separated from you.”
“But we’re not always separated. Hang it all, it seems to me that we’re always together.”
“You don’t notice my absence as I notice yours,” said Bertha in a low voice, looking down.
“But it’s raining cats and dogs, and you’ll get wet through, if you come.”
“What do I care about that if I’m with you!”
“Then come by all means if you like.”
“You don’t care if I come or not; it’s nothing to you.”
“Well, I think it would be very silly of you to come in the rain. You bet, I shouldn’t go if I could help it.”
“Then go,” she said. She kept back with difficulty the bitter words which were on the tip of her tongue.
“You’re much better at home,” said her husband, cheerfully. “I shall be in to tea at five. Ta-ta!”
He might have said a thousand things. He might have said that nothing would please him more than that she should accompany him, that the appointment could go to the devil and he would stay with her. But he went off, cheerfully whistling. He didn’t care. Bertha’s cheeks grew red with the humiliation of his refusal.
“He doesn’t love me,” she said, and suddenly burst into tears—the first tears of her married life, the first she had wept since her father’s death; and they made her ashamed. She tried to control them, but could not and wept ungovernably. Edward’s words seemed terribly cruel; she wondered how he could have said them.
“I might have expected it,” she said; “he doesn’t love me.”
She grew angry with him, remembering the little coldnesses which had often pained her. Often he almost pushed her away when she came to caress him—because he had at the moment something else to occupy him; often he had left unanswered her protestations of undying affection. Did he not know that he cut her to the quick? When she said she loved him with all her heart, he wondered if the clock was wound up! Bertha brooded for two hours over her unhappiness, and, ignorant of the time, was surprised to hear the trap again at the door; her first impulse was to run and let Edward in, but she restrained herself. She was very angry. He entered, and shouting to her that he was wet and must change, pounded upstairs. Of course he had not noticed that for the first time since their marriage his wife had not met him in the hall when he came in—he never noticed anything.
Edward entered the room, his face glowing with the fresh air.
“By Jove, I’m glad you didn’t come. The rain simply poured down. How about tea? I’m starving.”
He thought of his tea when Bertha wanted apologies, humble excuses, a plea for pardon. He was as cheerful as usual and quite unconscious that his wife had been crying herself into a towering passion.
“Did you buy your sheep?” she said, in an indignant tone. She was anxious for Edward to notice her discomposure, so that she might reproach him for his sins; but he noticed nothing.
“Not much,” he cried. “I wouldn’t have given a fiver for the lot.”
“You might as well have stayed with me, as I asked you.”
“As far as business goes, I really might. But I dare say the drive across country did me good.” He was a man who always made the best of things.
Bertha took up a book and began reading.
“Where’s the paper?” asked Edward. “I haven’t read the leading articles yet.”
“I’m sure I don’t know.”
They sat till dinner, Edward methodically going through theStandard, column after column; Bertha turning over the pages of her book, trying to understand, but occupied the whole time only with her injuries. They ate the meal almost in silence, for Edward was not talkative. He merely remarked that soon they would be having new potatoes and that he had met Dr. Ramsay. Bertha answered in mono-syllables.
“You’re very quiet, Bertha,” he remarked, later in the evening. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing!”
“Got a headache?”
“No!”
He made no more inquiries, satisfied that her silence was due to natural causes. He did not seem to notice that she was in any way different from usual. She held herself in as long as she could, but finally burst out, referring to his remark of an hour before.
“Do you care if I have a headache or not?” It was hardly a question so much as a taunt.
He looked up with surprise. “What’s the matter?”
She looked at him and then, with a gesture of impatience, turned away. But coming to her, he put his arm round her waist.
“Aren’t you well, dear?” he asked, with concern.
She looked at him again, but now her eyes were full of tears and she could not repress a sob.
“Oh, Eddie, be nice to me,” she said, suddenly weakening.
“Do tell me what’s wrong.”
He put his arms round her and kissed her lips. The contact revived the passion which for an hour had lain a-dying, and she burst into tears.
“Don’t be angry with me, Eddie,” she sobbed; it was she who apologised and made excuses. “I’ve been horrid to you; I couldn’t help it. You’re not angry, are you?”
“What on earth for?” he asked, completely mystified.
“I was so hurt this afternoon because you didn’t seem to care about me two straws. You must love me, Eddie; I can’t live without it.”
“Youaresilly,” he said, laughing.
She dried her tears, smiling. His forgiveness comforted her and she felt now trebly happy.
BUTEdward was certainly not an ardent lover. Bertha could not tell when first she had noticed his irresponsiveness; at the beginning she had known only that she loved her husband with all her heart, and her ardour had lit up his somewhat pallid attachment till it seemed to glow as fiercely as her own. Yet gradually she began to think that he made very little return for the wealth of affection which she lavished upon him. The causes of her dissatisfaction were scarcely explicable: a slight motion of withdrawal, an indifference to her feelings—little nothings which had seemed almost comic. Bertha at first likened Edward to the Hippolitus ofPhædra, he was untamed and wild; the kisses of woman frightened him; his phlegm pleased her disguised as rustic savagery, and she said her passion should thaw the icicles in his heart. But soon she ceased to consider his passiveness amusing, sometimes she upbraided him, and often, when alone, she wept.
“I wonder if you realise what pain you cause me at times,” said Bertha.
“Oh, I don’t think I do anything of the kind.”
“You don’t see it.... When I kiss you, it is the most natural thing in the world for you to push me away, as if—almost as if you couldn’t bear me.”
“Nonsense!”
To himself Edward was the same now as when they were first married.
“Of course after four months of married life you can’t expect a man to be the same as on his honeymoon. One can’t always be making love and canoodling. Everything in its proper time and season,” he added, with the unoriginal man’s fondness for proverbial philosophy.
After the day’s work he liked to read hisStandardin peace, so when Bertha came up to him he put her gently aside.
“Leave me alone for a bit, there’s a good girl.”
“Oh, you don’t love me,” she cried then, feeling as if her heart would break.
He did not look up from his paper nor make reply; he was in the middle of a leading article.
“Why don’t you answer?” she cried.
“Because you’re talking nonsense.”
He was the best-humoured of men, and Bertha’s temper never disturbed his equilibrium. He knew that women felt a little irritable at times, but if a man gave ’em plenty of rope, they’d calm down after a bit.
“Women are like chickens,” he told a friend. “Give ’em a good run, properly closed in with stout wire netting, so that they can’t get into mischief, and when they cluck and cackle just sit tight and take no notice.”
Marriage had made no great difference in Edward’s life. He had always been a man of regular habits, and these he continued to cultivate. Of course he was more comfortable.
“There’s no denying it: a fellow wants a woman to look after him,” he told Dr. Ramsay, whom he sometimes met on the latter’s rounds. “Before I was married I used to find my shirts wore out in no time, but now when I see a cuff getting a bit groggy I just give it to the Missis and she makes it as good as new.”
“There’s a good deal of extra work, isn’t there, now you’ve taken on the Home Farm?”
“Oh, bless you, I enjoy it. Fact is, I can’t get enough work to do. And it seems to me that if you want to make farming pay nowadays you must do it on a big scale.”
All day Edward was occupied, if not on the farms, then with business at Blackstable, Tercanbury, and Faversley.
“I don’t approve of idleness,” he said. “They always say the devil finds work for idle hands to do, and upon my word I think there’s a lot of truth in it.”
Miss Glover, to whom this sentiment was addressed, naturally approved, and when Edward immediately afterwards went out, leaving her with Bertha, she said—
“What a good fellow your husband is! You don’t mind my saying so, do you?”
“Not if it pleases you,” said Bertha, drily.
“I hear praise of him from every side. Of course Charles has the highest opinion of him.”
Bertha did not answer, and Miss Glover added, “You can’t think how glad I am that you’re so happy.”
Bertha smiled. “You’ve got such a kind heart, Fanny.”
The conversation dragged, and after five minutes of heavy silence Miss Glover rose to go. When the door was closed upon her, Bertha sank back in her chair, thinking. This was one of her unhappy days—Eddie had walked into Blackstable, and she had wished to accompany him.
“I don’t think you’d better come with me,” he said. “I’m in rather a hurry and I shall walk fast.”
“I can walk fast too,” she said, her face clouding over.
“No, you can’t—I know what you call walking fast. If you like you can come and meet me on the way back.”
“Oh, you do everything you can to hurt me. It looks as if you welcomed an opportunity of being cruel.”
“How unreasonable you are, Bertha. Can’t you see that I’m in a hurry, and I haven’t got time to saunter along and chatter about the buttercups.”
“Well, let’s drive in.”
“That’s impossible. The mare isn’t well, and the pony had a hard day yesterday; he must rest to-day.”
“It’s simply because you don’t want me to come. It’s always the same, day after day. You invent anything to get rid of me.”
She burst into tears, knowing that what she said was unjust, but feeling notwithstanding extremely ill-used. Edward smiled with irritating good temper.
“You’ll be sorry for what you’ve said when you’ve calmed down, and then you’ll want me to forgive you.”
She looked up, flushing. “You think I’m a child and a fool.”
“No, I just think you’re out of sorts to-day.”
Then he went out, whistling, and she heard him give an order to the gardener in his usual manner, as cheerful as if nothing had happened. Bertha knew that he had already forgotten the little scene. Nothing affected his good humour. She might weep, she might tear her heart out (metaphorically), and bang it on the floor, Edward would not be perturbed; he would still be placid, good-tempered, forbearing. Hard words, he said, broke nobody’s bones—“Women are like chickens, when they cluck and cackle sit tight and take no notice!”
On his return Edward appeared not to see that his wife was out of temper. His spirits were always equable, and he was an unobservant person. She answered him in mono-syllables, but he chattered away, delighted at having driven a good bargain with a man in Blackstable. Bertha longed for him to remark upon her condition so that she might burst out with reproaches, but Edward was hopelessly dense—or else he saw and was unwilling to give her an opportunity to speak. Bertha, almost for the first time, was seriously angry with her husband and it frightened her—suddenly Edward seemed an enemy, and she wished to inflict some hurt upon him. She did not understand herself—what was going to happen next? Why wouldn’t he say something so that she might pour forth her woes and then be reconciled! The day wore on and she preserved a sullen silence; her heart was beginning to ache terribly—the night came, and still Edward made no sign; she looked about for a chance of beginning the quarrel, but nothing offered. Bertha pretended to go to sleep and she did not give him the kiss, the never-ending kiss of lovers which they always exchanged. Surely he would notice it, surely he would ask what troubled her, and then she could at last bring him to his knees. But he said nothing; he was dog-tired after a hard day’s work, and without a word went to sleep—in five minutes Bertha heard his heavy, regular breathing.
Then she broke down; she could never sleep withoutsaying good-night to him, without the kiss of his lips.
“He’s stronger than I,” she said, “because he doesn’t love me.”
Bertha wept silently; she could not bear to be angry with her husband. She would submit to anything rather than pass the night in wrath, and the next day as unhappily as this. She was entirely humbled. At last, unable any longer to bear the agony, she woke him.
“Eddie, you’ve not said good-night to me.”
“By Jove, I forgot all about it,” he answered, sleepily. Bertha stifled a sob.
“Hulloa, what’s the matter?” he said. “You’re not crying just because I forgot to kiss you—I was awfully fagged, you know.”
He really had noticed nothing whatever; while she was passing through utter distress he had been as happily self-satisfied as usual. But the momentary recurrence of Bertha’s anger was quickly stilled. She could not afford now to be proud.
“You’re not angry with me?” she said. “I can’t sleep unless you kiss me.”
“Silly girl!” he whispered.
“You do love me, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
He kissed her as she loved to be kissed, and in the delight of it her anger was quite forgotten.
“I can’t live unless you love me. Oh, I wish I could make you understand how I love you.... We’re friends again now, aren’t we?”
“We haven’t ever been otherwise.”
Bertha gave a sigh of relief, and lay in his arms completely happy. A minute more and Edward’s breathing told her that he had already fallen asleep; she dared not move for fear of waking him.
The summer brought Bertha new pleasures, and she set herself to enjoy the pastoral life which she had imagined. The elms of Court Leys now were dark with leaves; andthe heavy, close-fitting verdure gave quite a stately look to the house. The elm is the most respectable of trees, over-pompous if anything, but perfectly well-bred; and the shade it casts is no ordinary shade, but solid and self-assured as befits the estate of a county family. The fallen trunk had been removed, and in the autumn young trees were to be planted in the vacant spaces. Edward had set himself with a will to put the place properly to rights. The spring had seen a new coat of paint on Court Leys, so that it looked spick and span as the suburban villa of a stockbroker. The beds which for years had been neglected, now were trim with the abominations of carpet bedding; squares of red geraniums contrasted with circles of yellow calcellarias; the overgrown boxwood was cut down to a just height; the hawthorn hedge was doomed, and Edward had arranged to enclose the grounds with a wooden pallisade and laurel bushes. The drive was decorated with several loads of gravel, so that it became a thing of pride to the successor of an ancient and lackadaisical race. Craddock had not reigned in their stead a fortnight before the grimy sheep were expelled from the lawns on either side of the avenue, and since then the grass had been industriously mown and rolled. Now a tennis-court had been marked out, which, as Edward said, made things look homely. Finally the iron gates were gorgeous in black and gold as suited the entrance to a gentleman’s mansion, and the renovated lodge proved to all and sundry that Court Leys was in the hands of a man who knew what was what, and delighted in the proprieties.
Though Bertha abhorred all innovations, she had meekly accepted Edward’s improvements: they formed an inexhaustible topic of conversation, and his enthusiasm always pleased her.
“By Jove,” he said, rubbing his hands, “the changes will make your aunt simply jump, won’t they?”
“They will indeed,” said Bertha, smiling.
She shuddered a little at the prospect of Miss Ley’s sarcastic praise.
“She’ll hardly recognise the place; the house looks as good as new, and the grounds might have been laid out only half-a-dozen years ago.... Give me five years more and even you won’t know your old home.”
Miss Ley had at last accepted one of the invitations which Edward insisted should be showered upon her, and wrote to say she was coming down for a week. Edward was of course much pleased; as he said, he wanted to be friends with everybody, and it didn’t seem natural that Bertha’s only relative should make a point of avoiding them.
“It looks as if she didn’t approve of our marriage, and it makes the people talk.”
He met the good lady at the station, and somewhat to her disgust greeted her with effusion.
“Ah, here you are at last!” he bellowed, in his jovial way. “We thought you were never coming. Here, porter!” He raised his voice so that the platform shook and rumbled.
He seized both Miss Ley’s hands, and the terrifying thought flashed through her head that he would kiss her before the assembled multitude.
“He’s cultivating the airs of the country squire,” she thought. “I wish he wouldn’t.”
He took the innumerable bags with which she travelled and scattered them among the attendants. He even tried to induce her to take his arm to the dog-cart, but this honour she stoutly refused.
“Now, will you come round to this side and I’ll help you up. Your luggage will come on afterwards with the pony.”
He was managing everything in a self-confident and masterful fashion; Miss Ley noticed that marriage had dispelled the shyness which had been in him rather an attractive feature. He was becoming bluff and hearty. Also he was filling out. Prosperity and a knowledge of greater importance had broadened his back and straightenedhis shoulders; he was quite three inches more round the chest than when she had first known him, and his waist had proportionately increased.
“If he goes on developing in this way,” she thought, “the good man will be colossal by the time he’s forty.”
“Of course, Aunt Polly,” he said, boldly dropping the respectfulMiss Ley, which hitherto he had invariably used, though his new relative was not a woman whom most men would have ventured to treat familiarly. “Of course it’s all rot about your leaving us in a week; you must stay a couple of months at least.”
“It’s very good of you, dear Edward,” replied Miss Ley drily, “but I have other engagements.”
“Then you must break them; I can’t have people leave my house immediately they come.”
Miss Ley raised her eyebrows and smiled; was ithishouse already? Dear me!
“My dear Edward,” she answered, “I never stay anywhere longer than two days—the first day I talk to people, the second I let them talk to me, and the third I go.... I stay a week at hotels so as to goen pension, and get my washing properly aired.”
“You’re treating us like a hotel,” said Edward, laughing.
“It’s a great compliment: in private houses one gets so abominably waited on.”
“Ah well, we’ll say no more about it. But I shall have your trunk taken to the box-room and I keep the key of it.”
Miss Ley gave the short, dry laugh which denoted that her interlocutor’s remark had not amused her, but something in her own mind. Presently they arrived at Court Leys.
“D’you see all the differences since you were last here?” asked Edward, jovially.
Miss Ley looked round and pursed her lips.
“It’s charming,” she said.
“I knew it would make you sit up,” he cried, laughing.
Bertha received her aunt in the hall and embraced herwith the grave decorum which had always characterised their relations.
“How clever you are, Bertha,” said Miss Ley; “you manage to preserve your beautiful figure.”
Then she set herself solemnly to investigate the connubial bliss of the young couple.