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

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.

Chapter XXXIV

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