Mrs. Craddock, W. Somerset Maugham [free biff chip and kipper ebooks txt] 📗

arranged with the greatest possible stiffness. On the chimney-piece, along with pipes and tobacco-jars, were bright china vases with rushes in them, and in the middle a marble clock.

“Oh how pretty!” cried Bertha, with enthusiasm. “You must feel very lonely here by yourself.”

“Oh no—I’m always out. Shall I get you some milk? It’ll be better for you than water.”

But Bertha saw a napkin laid on the table, a jug of beer, and some bread and cheese.

“Have I been keeping you from your lunch?” she asked. “I’m so sorry.”

“It doesn’t matter at all. I just have a little snack at eleven.”

“Oh, may I have some too? I love bread and cheese, and I’m perfectly ravenous.”

They sat opposite one another, seeing a great joke in the impromptu meal. The bread, which he cut in a great chunk, was delicious, and the beer, of course, was nectar. But afterwards, Bertha feared that Craddock must be thinking her somewhat odd.

“D’you think it’s very eccentric of me to come and lunch with you in this way?”

“I think it’s awfully good of you. Mr. Ley often used to come and have a snack with my father.”

“Oh, did he?” said Bertha. Of course that made her proceeding quite natural. “But I really must go now. I shall get into awful trouble with Aunt Polly.”

He begged her to take some flowers, and hastily cut a bunch of dahlias. She accepted them with the most embarrassing gratitude; and when they shook hands at parting, her heart went pit-a-pat again ridiculously.

Miss Ley inquired from whom she got her flowers.

“Oh,” said Bertha coolly, “I happened to meet one of the tenants and he gave them to me.”

“Hm,” murmured Miss Ley, “it would be more to the purpose if they paid their rent.”

Miss Ley presently left the room, and Bertha looked at the prim dahlias with a heart full of emotion. She gave a laugh.

“It’s no good trying to hide it from myself,” she murmured, “I’m head over ears in love.”

She kissed the flowers and felt very glad.... She evidently was in that condition, since by the night Bertha had made up her mind to marry Edward Craddock or die. She lost no time, for less than a month had passed and their wedding-day was certainly in sight.

Miss Ley loathed all manifestations of feeling. Christmas, when everybody is supposed to take his neighbour to his bosom and harbour towards him a number of sentimental emotions, caused her such discomfort that she habitually buried herself for the time in some continental city where she knew no one, and could escape the over-brimming of other people’s hearts. Even in summer Miss Ley could not see a holly-tree without a little shiver of disgust; her mind went immediately to the decorations of middle-class houses, the mistletoe hanging from a gas-chandelier, and the foolish old gentlemen who found amusement in kissing stray females. She was glad that Bertha had thought fit to refuse the display of enthusiasm from servants and impoverished tenants, which, on the attainment of her majority, her guardian had wished to arrange. Miss Ley could imagine that the festivities possible on such an occasion, the handshaking, the making of good cheer, and the obtrusive joviality of the country Englishman, might surpass even the tawdry rejoicings of Yule-tide. But Bertha fortunately detested such things as sincerely as did Miss Ley herself, and suggested to the persons concerned that they could not oblige her more than by taking no notice of an event which really did not to her seem very significant.

But Dr. Ramsay’s heartiness could not be entirely restrained; and he had also a fine old English sense of the fitness of things, that passion to act in a certain manner merely because in times past people have always so acted. He insisted on solemnly meeting Bertha to offer congratulations, a blessing, and some statement of his stewardship.

Bertha came downstairs when Miss Ley was already eating breakfast—a very feminine meal, consisting of nothing more substantial than a square inch of bacon and a morsel of dry toast. Miss Ley was really somewhat nervous, she was bothered by the necessity of referring to Bertha’s natal day.

“That is one advantage of women,” she told herself, “after twenty-five they gloss over their birthdays like improprieties. A man is so impressed with his cleverness in having entered the world at all that the anniversary always interests him; and the foolish creature thinks it interests other people as well.”

But Bertha came into the room and kissed her.

“Good morning, dear,” said Miss Ley, and then, pouring out her niece’s coffee, “our estimable cook has burnt the milk in honour of your majority; I trust she will not celebrate the occasion by getting drunk—at all events, till after dinner.”

“I hope Dr. Ramsay won’t enthuse too vigorously,” replied Bertha, understanding Miss Ley’s feeling.

“Oh, my dear, I tremble at the prospect of his jollity. He’s a good man. I should think his principles were excellent, and I don’t suppose he’s more ignorant than most general practitioners; but his friendliness is sometimes painfully aggressive.”

But Bertha’s calm was merely external, her brain was in a whirl, and her heart beat with excitement. She was full of impatience to declare her news. Bertha had some sense of dramatic effect and looked forward a little to the scene when, the keys of her kingdom being handed to her, she made the announcement that she had already chosen a king to rule by her side. She felt also that between herself and Miss Ley alone the necessary explanations would be awkward. Dr. Ramsay’s outspoken bluffness made him easier to deal with; there is always a difficulty in conducting oneself with a person who ostentatiously believes that every one should mind his own business and who, whatever her thoughts, takes more pleasure in the concealment than in the expression thereof. Bertha sent a note to Craddock, telling him to come at three o’clock to be introduced as the future lord and master of Court Leys.

Dr. Ramsay arrived and burst at once into a prodigious stream of congratulation, partly jocose, partly grave and sentimental, but entirely distasteful to the fastidiousness of Miss Ley. Bertha’s guardian was a big, broad-shouldered man, with a mane of fair hair, now turning white; Miss Ley vowed he was the last person upon this earth to wear mutton-chop whiskers. He was very red cheeked, and by his size, joviality, and florid complexion, gave an idea of unalterable health. With his shaven chin and his loud-voiced burliness he looked like a yeoman of the old school, before bad times and the spread of education had made the farmer a sort of cross between the city clerk and the Newmarket trainer. Dr. Ramsay’s frock coat and top hat, notwithstanding the habit of many years, sat uneasily upon him with the air of Sunday clothes upon an agricultural labourer. Miss Ley, who liked to find absurd descriptions of people, or to hit upon an apt comparison, had never been able exactly to suit him; and that somewhat irritated her. In her eyes the only link that connected the doctor with humanity was a certain love of antiquities, which had filled his house with old snuff-boxes, china, and other precious things: humanity, Miss Ley took to be a small circle of persons, mostly feminine, middle-aged, unattached, and of independent means, who travelled on the continent, read good literature and abhorred the vast majority of their fellow-creatures, especially when these shrieked philanthropically, thrust their religion in your face, or cultivated their muscle with aggressive ardour!

Dr. Ramsay ate his luncheon with an appetite that Miss Ley thought must be a great source of satisfaction to his butcher. She asked politely after his wife, to whom she secretly objected for her meek submission to the doctor. Miss Ley made a practice of avoiding those women who had turned themselves into mere shadows of their lords, more especially when their conversation was of household affairs; and Mrs. Ramsay, except on Sundays, when her mind was turned to the clothes of the congregation, thought of nothing beyond her husband’s enormous appetite and the methods of subduing it.

They returned to the drawing-room and Dr. Ramsay began to tell Bertha about the property, who this tenant was and the condition of that farm, winding up with the pitiful state of the times and the impossibility of getting rents.

“And now, Bertha, what are you thinking of doing?” he asked.

This was the opportunity for which Bertha had been looking.

“I?” she said quietly—“Oh, I intend to get married.”

Dr. Ramsay, opening his mouth, threw back his head and laughed immoderately.

“Very good indeed,” he cried. “Ha, ha!”

Miss Ley looked at him with uplifted eyebrows.

“Girls are coming on nowadays,” he said, with much amusement. “Why, in my time, a young woman would have been all blushes and downcast glances. If any one had talked of marriage she would have prayed Heaven to send an earthquake to swallow her up.”

“Fiddlesticks!” said Miss Ley.

Bertha was looking at Dr. Ramsay with a smile that she with difficulty repressed, and Miss Ley caught the expression.

“So you intend to be married, Bertha?” said the doctor, again laughing.

“Yes.”

“When?” asked Miss Ley, who did not take Bertha’s remark as merely playful.

Bertha was looking out the window, wondering when Edward would arrive.

“When?” she repeated, turning round. “This day four weeks!”

“What!” cried Dr. Ramsay, jumping up. “You don’t mean to say you’ve found some one! Are you engaged? Oh, I see, I see. You’ve been having a little joke with me. Why didn’t you tell me that Bertha was engaged all the time, Miss Ley?”

“My good doctor,” answered Miss Ley, with great composure, “until this moment I knew nothing whatever about it.... I suppose we ought to offer our congratulations; it’s a blessing to get them all over on one day.”

Dr. Ramsay looked from one to the other with perplexity.

“Well, upon my word,” he said, “I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I,” replied Miss Ley, “but I keep calm.”

“It’s very simple,” said Bertha. “I got engaged last night, and as I say, I mean to be married exactly four weeks from to-day—to Mr. Craddock.”

“What!” cried Dr. Ramsay, jumping up in astonishment and causing the floor to quake in the most dangerous way. “Craddock! What d’you mean? Which Craddock?”

“Edward Craddock,” replied Bertha coolly, “of Bewlie’s Farm.”

“Brrh!!” Dr. Ramsay’s exclamation cannot be transcribed, but it sounded horrid! “The scoundrel! It’s absurd. You’ll do nothing of the sort.”

Bertha looked at him with a gentle smile, but did not trouble to answer.

“You’re very emphatic, dear doctor,” said Miss Ley. “Who is this gentleman?”

“He isn’t a gentleman,” said Dr. Ramsay, purple with vexation.

“He’s going to be my husband, Dr. Ramsay,” said Bertha, compressing her lips in the manner which with Miss Ley had become habitual; and turned to that lady: “I’ve known him all my life, and father was a great friend of his father’s. He’s a gentleman-farmer.”

“The definition of which,” said Dr. Ramsay, “is a man who’s neither a farmer nor a gentleman.”

“I forget what your father was?” said Bertha, who remembered perfectly well.

“My father was a farmer,” replied Dr. Ramsay, with some heat, “and, thank God! he made no pretence of being a gentleman. He worked with his own hands; I’ve seen him often enough with a pitchfork, turning over a heap of manure, when no one else was handy.”

“I see,” said Bertha.

“But my father can have nothing to do with it; you can’t marry him because he’s been dead these thirty years, and you can’t marry me because I’ve got a wife already.”

Miss Ley, amused at the doctor’s bluntness, concealed a smile; but Bertha, getting rather angry, thought him singularly rude.

“And what have you against him?” she asked.

“If you want to make a fool of yourself, he’s got no right to encourage you. He knows he isn’t a fit match for you.”

“Why not, if I love him?”

“Why not!” shouted Dr. Ramsay. “Because he’s the son of a farmer—like I am—and you’re Miss Ley of Court Leys. Because a