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

But her fire was quite enough for two. “I know, I shall have the pleasure of unfolding it all to you. I shall enjoy it more than I ever have before; it’ll be so new to you. And we can stay six months if we like.”

“Oh, I couldn’t possibly,” he cried. “Think of the farm.”

“Oh, bother the farm. It’s our honeymoon, Sposo mio.”

“I don’t think I could possibly stay away more than a fortnight.”

“What nonsense! We can’t go to Italy for a fortnight. The farm can get on without you.”

“And in January and February too, when all the lambing is coming on.”

He did not want to distress Bertha, but really half his lambs would die if he were not there to superintend their entrance into this wicked world.

“But you must go,” said Bertha. “I’ve set my heart upon it.”

He looked down for a while, rather unhappily.

“Wouldn’t a month do?” he asked. “I’ll do anything you really want, Bertha.”

But his obvious dislike to the suggestion cut Bertha’s heart. She was only inclined to be stubborn when she saw he might resist her; and his first word of surrender made her veer round penitently.

“What a selfish beast I am!” she said. “I don’t want to make you miserable, Eddie. I thought it would please you to go abroad, and I’d planned it all so well.... But we won’t go; I hate Italy. Let’s just go up to town for a fortnight, like two country bumpkins.”

“Oh, but you won’t like that.”

“Of course I shall. I like everything you like. D’you think I care where we go so long as I’m with you?... You’re not angry with me, darling, are you?”

Mr. Craddock was good enough to intimate that he was not.

Miss Ley, much against her will, had been driven by Miss Glover into working for some charitable institution, and was knitting babies’ socks (as the smallest garments she could make) when Bertha told her of the altered plan: she dropped a stitch! Miss Ley was too wise to say anything, but she wondered if the world were coming to an end; Bertha’s schemes were shattered like brittle glass, and she really seemed delighted. A month ago opposition would have made Bertha traverse seas and scale precipices rather than abandon an idea that she had got into her head. Verily, love is a prestidigitator who can change the lion into the lamb as easily as a handkerchief into a flower-pot! Miss Ley began to admire Edward Craddock.

He, on his way home after leaving Bertha, was met by the Vicar of Leanham. Mr. Glover was a tall man, angular, fair, thin and red-cheeked—a somewhat feminine edition of his sister, but smelling in the most remarkable fashion of antiseptics; Miss Ley vowed he peppered his clothes with iodoform, and bathed daily in carbolic acid. He was strenuous and charitable, hated a Dissenter, and was over forty.

“Ah, Craddock, I wanted to see you.”

“Not about the banns, Vicar, is it? We’re going to be married by special license.”

Like many countrymen, Edward saw something funny in the clergy—one should not grudge it them, for it is the only jest in their lives—and he was given to treating the parson with more humour than he used in the other affairs of this world. The Vicar laughed; it is one of the best traits of the country clergy that they are willing to be amused with their parishioners’ jocosity.

“The marriage is all settled then? You’re a very lucky young man.”

Craddock put his arm through Mr. Glover’s with the unconscious friendliness that had gained him an hundred friends. “Yes, I am lucky,” he said. “I know you people think it rather queer that Bertha and I should get married, but we’re very much attached to one another, and I mean to do my best by her. You know I’ve never racketed about, Vicar, don’t you?”

“Yes, my boy,” said the Vicar, touched at Edward’s confidence. “Every one knows you’re steady enough.”

“Of course, she could have found men of much better social position than mine—but I’ll try to make her happy. And I’ve got nothing to hide from her as some men have; I go to her almost as straight as she comes to me.”

“That is a very fortunate thing to be able to say.”

“I have never loved another woman in my life, and as for the rest—well, of course, I’m young and I’ve been up to town sometimes; but I always hated and loathed it. And the country and the hard work keep one pretty clear of anything nasty.”

“I’m very glad to hear you say that,” answered Mr. Glover. “I hope you’ll be happy, and I think you will.”

The Vicar felt a slight pricking of conscience, for at first his sister and himself had called the match a mésalliance (they pronounced the word vilely), and not till they learned it was inevitable did they begin to see that their attitude was a little wanting in charity. The two men shook hands.

“I hope you don’t mind me spitting out these things to you, Vicar. I suppose it’s your business in a sort of way. I’ve wanted to tell Miss Ley something of the kind; but somehow or other I can never get an opportunity.”

EXACTLY one month after her twenty-first birthday, as Bertha had announced, the marriage took place; and the young couple started off to spend their honeymoon in London. Bertha, knowing she would not read, took with her notwithstanding a book, to wit the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius; and Edward, thinking that railway journeys were always tedious, bought for the occasion The Mystery of the Six-fingered Woman, the title of which attracted him. He was determined not to be bored, for, not content with his novel, he purchased at the station a Sporting Times.

“Oh,” said Bertha, when the train had started, heaving a great sigh of relief, “I’m so glad to be alone with you at last. Now we shan’t have anybody to worry us, and no one can separate us, and we shall be together for the rest of our lives.”

Craddock put down the newspaper, which, from force of habit, he had opened after settling himself in his seat.

“I’m glad to have the ceremony over too.”

“D’you know,” she said, “I was terrified on the way to church; it occurred to me that you might not be there—that you might have changed your mind and fled.”

He laughed. “Why on earth should I change my mind? That’s a thing I never do.”

“Oh, I can’t sit solemnly opposite you as if we’d been married a century. Make room for me, boy.”

She came over to his side and nestled close to him.

“Tell me you love me,” she whispered.

“I love you very much.”

He bent down and kissed his wife, then putting his arm around her waist drew her nearer to him. He was a little nervous, he would not really have been very sorry if some officious person had disregarded the engaged on the carriage and entered. He felt scarcely at home with Bertha, and was still bewildered by his change of fortune; there was, indeed, a vast difference between Court Leys and Bewlie’s Farm.

“I’m so happy,” said Bertha. “Sometimes I’m afraid.... D’you think it can last, d’you think we shall always be as happy? I’ve got everything I want in the world, and I’m absolutely and completely content.” She was silent for a minute, caressing his hands. “You will always love me, Eddie, won’t you—even when I’m old and horrible?”

“I’m not the sort of chap to alter.”

“Oh, you don’t know how I adore you,” she cried passionately. “My love will never alter, it is too strong. To the end of my days I shall always love you with all my heart. I wish I could tell you what I feel.”

Of late the English language had seemed quite incompetent for the expression of her manifold emotions.

They went to a far more expensive hotel than they could afford. Craddock had prudently suggested something less extravagant, but Bertha would not hear of it; as Miss Ley she had been unused to the second-rate, and she was too proud of her new name to take it to any but the best hotel in London.

The more Bertha saw of her husband’s mind, the more it delighted her. She loved the simplicity and the naturalness of the man; she cast off like a tattered silken cloak the sentiments with which for years she had lived, and robed herself in the sturdy homespun which so well suited her lord and master. It was charming to see his naïve enjoyment of everything. To him all was fresh and novel; he would explode with laughter at the comic papers, and in the dailies continually find observations which struck him for their profound originality. He was the unspoiled child of nature; his mind free from the million perversities of civilisation. To know him was in Bertha’s opinion an education in all the goodness and purity, the strength and virtue of the Englishman!

They went often to the theatre, and it pleased Bertha to watch her husband’s simple enjoyment. The pathetic passages of a melodrama, which made Bertha’s lips curl with semi-amused contempt, moved him to facile tears; and in the darkness he held her hand to comfort her, imagining that his wife enjoyed the same emotions as himself. Ah, she wished she could; she hated the education of foreign countries, which, in the study of pictures and palaces and strange peoples, had released her mind from its prison of darkness, yet had destroyed half her illusions; now she would far rather have retained the plain and unadorned illiteracy, the ingenuous ignorance of the typical and creamy English girl. What is the use of knowledge? Blessed are the poor in spirit: all that a woman really wants is purity and goodness, and perhaps a certain acquaintance with plain cooking.

But the lovers, the injured heroine and the wrongly suspected hero, had bidden one another a heartrending good-bye, and the curtain descended to rapturous applause. Edward cleared his throat and blew his nose.

“Isn’t it splendid?” he said, turning to his wife.

“You dear thing!” she whispered.

It touched her to see how deeply he felt it all. How clean and big and simple and good must be his heart! She loved him ten times more because his emotions were easily aroused. Ah yes, she abhorred the cold cynicism of the worldly-wise who sneer at the burning tears of the simple minded.

The curtain rose on the next act, and in his eagerness to see what was about to happen, Edward immediately ceased to listen to what Bertha was in the middle of saying, and gave himself over to the play. The feelings of the audience having been sufficiently harrowed, the comic relief was turned on. The funny man made jokes about various articles of clothing, tumbling over tables and chairs; and it charmed Bertha again to see her husband’s open-hearted hilarity. It tickled her immensely to hear his peals of unrestrained laughter; he put his head back, and, with his hands to his sides, simply roared.

“He has a charming character,” she thought.

Craddock had the strictest notions of morality, and absolutely refused to take his wife to a music-hall; Bertha had seen abroad many sights, the like of which Edward did not dream, but she respected his innocence. It pleased her to see the firmness with which he upheld his principles, and it somewhat amused her to be treated like a little schoolgirl. They went to all the theatres; Edward, on his rare visits to London, had done his sightseeing economically, and the purchase of stalls, the getting into dress-clothes, were new sensations which caused him great pleasure. Bertha liked to see her husband in evening dress; the black suited his florid style, and the white shirt with a high collar threw up his sunburnt, weather-beaten face. He looked strong above all things, and manly; and he