Now came April; the elm trees before Court Leys were beginning to burst into leaf, the green buds covered the branches like a delicate rain, like a verdant haze that was visible from a little distance and vanished when one came near. The brown fields clothed themselves with a summer garment, the clover sprang up green and luscious, 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 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 arose, 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 lounging on a sofa while Edward stood 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,” he said, “while they’re putting the trap in.”
He sat down and she put her arm round his neck.
“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, rather 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,” said Edward. “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 that were on the tip of her tongue.
“You’re much better at home,” said her husband cheerfully. “I shall be in for 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 on 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 that 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 with him. 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, and 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,” said Bertha bitterly.
“As far as business goes, I really might. But I daresay 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,” replied Bertha.
They sat till dinner, Edward methodically going through the Standard, 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 dinner almost in silence, for Edward was not talkative and the conversation rested usually with Bertha. He merely remarked that soon they would be having new potatoes and that he had met Dr Ramsay. Bertha answered in monosyllables.
“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 quietness 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?” she cried. 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 that for an hour had been a-dying, and she burst into tears.
“Don’t be angry with me, Eddie,” she sobbed; it was she who apologized 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.”
“You are silly,” he said, laughing.
She dried her tears, smiling. His forgiveness greatly comforted her, and she felt now trebly happy.
11
But Edward was certainly not an ardent lover. Bertha could not tell when first she had noticed his unresponsiveness to her passionate outbursts; at the beginning she had known nothing but that she loved her husband with all her heart, and her ardour had lit up his slightly pallid attachment till it seemed to glow as fiercely as her own. Yet, little by little, she seemed to see very small return for the wealth of affection that she lavished upon him. The causes of her dissatisfaction were scarcely explicable, a slight motion of withdrawal, an indifference to her feelings—little nothings that had seemed almost comic. Bertha at first likened Edward to the Hippolytus of Phaedra,31 he was untamed and wild, the kisses of women frightened him, his phlegm, disguised as rustic savagery, pleased her, 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.
“Oh, I don’t think I do anything of the kind.”
“You don’t see it. When I come up and kiss you it’s the most natural thing in the world for you to push me away, as if—almost as if you couldn’t bear me.”
“Nonsense,” he replied.
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.”
After the day’s work he liked to read his Standard in peace, so when Bertha came up to him he put her gently aside.
“Leave me alone for a bit, there’s a good girl,” he said.
“Oh, you don’t love me,” she cried then, feeling as if her heart would break.
He did not look up from his paper or 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 bad 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 worn out in no time, but now when I see a cuff getting a bit groggy I just give it to the missus, 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 or 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 today.”
“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, you push me away even when I want to kiss you.”
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 today.”
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 and 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 observant person; she answered him in monosyllables, 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 into 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. They went to bed, and, turning her back on him, Bertha pretended to go to sleep; she did not give him the kiss, the never-ending kiss of lovers, that they always exchanged at night. 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 without saying good night to him, without the kiss of his lips.
“He’s stronger than I,” she said, “because he doesn’t love me.”
Bertha sobbed si
lently; she couldn’t 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 awoke 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? You’re not crying just because I forgot to kiss you? I was awfully fagged, you know.”
He really had noticed nothing. 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 stifled. 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 entirely forgotten.
“I can’t live unless you love me.” She nestled against his bosom, sobbing. “Oh, I wish I could make you understand how I love you. We’re friends again now, aren’t we?”
“We haven’t been ever 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 that she had looked forward to. The elms of Court Leys now were dark with leaves, and the 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 placed in the vacant spaces. Edward had set himself with a will to put the place to rights. The spring had seen a new coat of paint on Court Leys, so that it looked as spick and span as the suburban mansion 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 calceolarias; 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 palisade 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.
Mrs Craddock Page 13
