Though Bertha abhorred all innovations, she had meekly accepted Edward’s improvements; they formed an inexhaustible topic of conversation, and his enthusiasm delighted 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, but with a shudder at the prospect of Miss Ley’s sarcastic praise.
“She’ll hardly recognize 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 that Edward had 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 people talk.”
He met the good lady at the station, and, somewhat to her dismay, 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. Six people.
“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,32 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 that had been in him rather an attractive feature. He was becoming bluff and hearty. Also he was filling out; prosperity and a consciousness of his greater importance had broadened his back and straightened his 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 respectful Miss Ley that 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 it his house 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 go en pension33 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 boxes taken to the box-room,34 and I keep the key of it.”
Miss Ley gave the short dry laugh that denoted that the remark of the person she was with had not amused her, but something in her own mind. 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 her with the grave decorum that had always characterized 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 youthful couple.
12
The passion to analyse the casual fellow-creature was the most absorbing vice that Miss Ley possessed, and no ties of relationship or affection prevented her from exercising her talents in this direction. She observed Bertha and Edward during luncheon. Bertha was talkative, chattering with a vivacity that seemed suspicious about the neighbours—Mrs Branderton’s new bonnets and new hair, Miss Glover’s good works and Mr Glover’s visit to London. Edward was silent, except when he pressed Miss Ley to take a second helping. He ate largely, and the maiden lady noticed the enormous mouthfuls he took and the heartiness with which he drank his beer. Of course she drew conclusions; and she drew further conclusions when, having devoured half a pound of cheese and taken a last drink of all, he pushed back his chair with a sort of low roar reminding one of a beast of prey gorged with food, and said:
“Ah, well, I suppose I must set about my work. There’s no rest for the weary.”
He pulled a new briarwood pipe out of his pocket, filled and lit it.
“I feel better now. Well, good-bye, I shall be in to tea.”
Conclusions buzzed about Miss Ley like midges on a summer’s day. She drew them all the afternoon and again at dinner. Bertha was effusive too, unusually so; and Miss Ley asked herself a dozen times if this stream of chatter, these peals of laughter, proceeded from a light heart or from a base desire to deceive a middle-aged and inquiring aunt. After dinner, Edward, telling her that of course she was one of the family, so he hoped she did not wish him to stand on ceremony, began reading the paper. When Bertha at Miss Ley’s request played the piano, good manners made him put it aside, and he yawned a dozen times in a quarter of an hour.
“I mustn’t play any more,” said Bertha, “or Eddie will go to sleep. Won’t you, darling?”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” he replied, laughing. “The fact is that the things Bertha plays when we’ve got company give me the fair hump.”
“Edward only consents to listen when I play ‘The Blue Bells of Scotland’ or ‘Yankee Doodle’.”
Bertha made the remark, smiling good-naturedly at her husband, but Miss Ley drew conclusions.
“I don’t mind confessing that I can’t stand all this foreign music. What I say to Bertha is, Why can’t you play English stuff?”
“If you must play at all,” interposed his wife.
“After all’s said and done, ‘The Blue Bells of Scotland’ has got a tune about it that a fellow can get his teeth into.”
“You see, there’s the difference,” said Bertha, strumming a few bars of “Rule, Britannia,” “it sets mine on edge.”
“Well, I’m patriotic,” retorted Edward. “I like the good, honest, homely English airs. I like ’em because they’re English. I’m not ashamed to say that for me the best piece of music that’s ever been written is ‘God Save the Queen’.”
“Which was written by a German, dear Edward,” said Miss Ley, smiling.
“That’s as it may be,” said Edward, unabashed, “but the sentiment’s English, and that’s all I care about.”
“Hear! Hear!” cried Bertha. “I believe Edward has aspirations towards a political career. I know I shall finish up as the wife of the local M.P.”
“I’m patriotic,” said Edward, “and I’m not ashamed to confess it.”
“Rule, Britannia,” sang Bertha, “Britannia rules the waves, Britons never, never shall be slaves. Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay! Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay!”
“It’s the same everywhere now,” proceeded the orator. “We’re chock full of foreigners and their goods. I think it’s scandalous. English music isn’t good enough for you; you get it from France an
d Germany. Where do you get your butter from? Brittany! Where d’you get your meat from? New Zealand!” This he said with great scorn, and Bertha punctuated it with a resounding chord. “And as far as the butter goes, it isn’t butter—it’s margarine. Where does your bread come from? America. Your vegetables from Jersey.”
“Your fish from the sea,” interposed Bertha.
“And so it is all along the line; the British farmer hasn’t got a chance.”
To this speech Bertha played a burlesque accompaniment that would have irritated a more sensitive man than Craddock; but he merely laughed good-naturedly.
“Bertha won’t take these things seriously,” he said, passing his hand affectionately over her hair.
She suddenly stopped playing, and his good humour, joined with the loving gesture, filled her with remorse. Her eyes filled with tears.
“I wonder if you realize what pain you cause me at times,” said Bertha.
“You are a dear good thing,” she faltered, “and I’m utterly horrid.”
“Now don’t talk stuff before Aunt Polly. You know she’ll laugh at us.”
“Oh, I don’t care,” said Bertha, smiling happily. She stood up and linked her arm with his. “Eddie’s the best-tempered person in the world; he’s perfectly wonderful.”
“He must be indeed,” said Miss Ley, “if you have preserved your faith in him after six months of marriage.”
But the maiden lady had stored so many observations, her impressions were so multitudinous, that she felt an urgent need to retire to the privacy of her bed-chamber and sort them. She kissed Bertha and held out her hand to Edward.
“Oh, if you kiss Bertha, you must kiss me too,” said he, bending forward with a laugh.
“Upon my word!” said Miss Ley, somewhat taken aback, then, as he was evidently insisting, she embraced him on the cheek. She positively blushed.
The upshot of Miss Ley’s investigation was that once again the hymeneal35 path had not been found strewn with roses; and the notion crossed her head, as she laid it on the pillow, that Dr Ramsay would certainly come and crow over her; it was not in masculine human nature, she thought, to miss an opportunity of exulting over a vanquished foe.
“He’ll vow that I was the direct cause of the marriage. The dear man, he’ll be so pleased with my discomfiture that I shall never hear the last of it. He’s sure to call tomorrow.”
Indeed the news of Miss Ley’s arrival had been by Edward industriously spread abroad, and promptly Mrs Ramsay put on her blue velvet calling dress and in the doctor’s brougham drove with him to Court Leys. The Ramsays found Miss Glover and the Vicar of Leanham already in possession of the field. Mr Glover looked thinner and older than when Miss Ley had last seen him; he was more weary, meek and brow-beaten. Miss Glover never altered.
“The parish?” said the parson, in answer to Miss Ley’s polite inquiry, “I’m afraid it’s in a bad way. The dissenters have got a new chapel, you know; and they say the Salvation Army is going to set up “barracks,” as they call them. It’s a great pity the Government doesn’t step in; after all, we are established by law, and the law ought to protect us from encroachment.”
“You don’t believe in liberty of conscience?” asked Miss Ley.
“My dear Miss Ley,” said the vicar in his tired voice, “everything has its limits. I should have thought there was in the Established Church enough liberty of conscience for anyone.”
“Things are becoming dreadful in Leanham,” said Miss Glover. “Practically all the tradesmen go to chapel now, and it makes it so difficult for us.”
“Yes,” replied the vicar with a weary sigh, “and as if we hadn’t enough to put up with, I hear that Walker has ceased coming to church.”
“Oh, dear! oh, dear!” said Miss Glover.
“Walker, the baker?” asked Edward.
“Yes, and now the only baker in Leanham who goes to church is Andrews.”
“Well, we can’t possibly deal with him, Charles,” said Miss Glover. “His bread is too bad.”
“My dear, we must,” groaned her brother. “It would be against all my principles to deal with a tradesman who goes to chapel. You must tell Walker to send his book in, unless he will give an assurance that he’ll come to church regularly.”
“But Andrews’s bread always gives you indigestion, Charles,” cried Miss Glover.
“I must put up with it. If none of our martyrdoms were more serious than that we should have no cause to complain.”
“Well, it’s quite easy to get your bread from Tercanbury,” said Mrs Ramsay, who was severely practical.
Both Mr and Miss Glover threw up their hands in dismay.
“Then Andrews would go to chapel too. The only thing that keeps them at church, I’m sorry to say, is the vicarage custom, or the hope of getting it.”
Presently Miss Ley found herself alone with the parson’s sister.
“You must be very glad to see Bertha again, Miss Ley.”
“Now she’s going to crow,” thought the good lady. “Of course I am,” she said aloud.
“And it must be such a relief to you to see how well it’s all turned out.”
Miss Ley looked sharply at Miss Glover, but saw no trace of irony.
“Oh, I think it’s beautiful to see a married couple so thoroughly happy. It really makes me feel a better woman when I come here and see how those two worship one another.”
“Of course the poor thing’s a perfect idiot,” thought Miss Ley. “Yes, it’s very satisfactory,” she said, drily.
She glanced round for Dr Ramsay, looking forward, notwithstanding that she was on the losing side, to the tussle she foresaw. She had the instinct of the fighting woman, and even though defeat was inevitable, never avoided an encounter. The doctor approached.
“Well, Miss Ley, so you have come back to us. We’re all delighted to see you.”
“How cordial these people are,” thought Miss Ley, rather crossly, thinking Dr Ramsay’s remark preliminary to coarse banter or reproach. “Shall we take a turn in the garden? I’m sure you wish to quarrel with me.”
“There’s nothing I should like better. To walk in the garden, I mean; of course no one could quarrel with so charming a lady as yourself.”
“He would never be so polite if he did not mean afterwards to be very rude,” thought Miss Ley. “I’m glad you like the garden.”
“Craddock has improved it so wonderfully. It’s a perfect pleasure to look at all he’s done.”
This Miss Ley considered a gibe, and she looked for a repartee, but, finding none, was silent: Miss Ley was a wise woman. They walked a few steps without a word, and then Dr Ramsay suddenly burst out:
“Well, Miss Ley, you were right after all.”
She stopped and looked at the speaker. He seemed quite serious.
“Yes,” he said, “I don’t mind acknowledging it. I was wrong. It’s a great triumph for you, isn’t it?”
He looked at her and shook with good-tempered laughter.
“Is he making fun of me?” Miss Ley asked herself, with something not very far removed from dismay; this was the first occasion upon which she had been unable to understand, not only the good doctor, but his inmost thoughts as well. “So you think the estate has been improved?”
“I can’t make out how the man’s done so much in so short a time. Why, just look at it!”
Miss Ley pursed her lips. “Even in its most dilapidated days, Court Leys looked gentlemanly; now all this,” she glanced round with upturned nose, “might be the country mansion of a pork-butcher.”
“My dear Miss Ley, you must pardon my saying so, but the place wasn’t even respectable.”
“But it is now; that is my complaint. My dear doctor, in the old days the passer-by could see that the owners of Court Leys were decent people; that they could not make both ends meet was a detail; it was possibly because they burnt one end too rapidly, which is the sign of a rather delicate mind,”—Miss Ley was mixing her metaphors—“and he m
oralized accordingly. For a gentleman there are only two decorous states, absolute poverty or overpowering wealth; the middle condition is vulgar. Now the passer-by sees thrift and careful management, the ends meet, but they do it aggressively, as if it were something to be proud of. Pennies are looked at before they are spent; and, good Heavens, the Leys serve to point a moral and adorn a tale. The Leys who gambled and squandered their sustenance, who bought diamonds when they hadn’t got bread, and pawned the diamonds to give the king a garden-party, now form the heading of a copy-book and the ideal of a market-gardener.”
Mrs Craddock Page 14
