Mrs Craddock

by W. Somerset Maugham

  “I say, Bertha, I’ve been thinking it over, and it seems a pity that your name should be dropped entirely. And it sounds funny that people called Craddock should live at Court Leys.”

  “D’you think so? I don’t know how you can remedy it, unless you think of advertising for tenants with a more suitable name.”

  “Well, I was thinking it wouldn’t be a bad idea, and it would have a good effect on the county, if we took the name again.”

  He looked at Bertha, who glared at him icily, but answered nothing.

  “I’ve talked to old Bacot about it, and he thinks it would be just the thing, so I think we’d better do it.”

  “I suppose you’re going to consult me on the subject.”

  “That’s what I’m doing now.”

  “Do you think of calling yourself Ley-Craddock or Craddock-Ley, or dropping the Craddock altogether?”

  “Well, to tell you the truth, I hadn’t gone so far as that yet.”

  Bertha gave a little scornful laugh. “I think the idea is utterly ridiculous.”

  “I don’t see that; I think it would be rather an improvement.”

  “Really, Edward, if I was not ashamed to take your name, I don’t think that you need be ashamed to keep it.”

  “I say, I think you might be reasonable. You’re always standing in my way.”

  “I have no wish to do that. If you think my name will add to your importance, use it by all means. You may call yourself Tompkins for all I care.”

  “What about you?”

  “Oh, I—I shall continue to call myself Craddock.”

  “I do think it’s rough. You never do anything to help me.”

  “I am sorry you’re dissatisfied. But you forget that you have impressed one ideal on me for years; you have always given me to understand that your pattern of a female animal was the common or garden cow. I always regret that you didn’t marry Fanny Glover. You would have suited one another admirably. And I think she would have worshipped you as you desire to be worshipped. I’m sure she would not have objected to your calling yourself Glover.”

  “I shouldn’t have wanted to take her name. That’s no better than Craddock. The only thing in Ley is that it’s an old county name and has belonged to your people.”

  “That is why I don’t choose that you should take it.”

  27

  Time passed slowly, slowly. Bertha wrapped her pride about her like a cloak, but sometimes it seemed too heavy to bear, and she nearly fainted. The restraint that she imposed upon herself was often intolerable; anger and hatred seethed within her, but she forced herself to preserve the smiling face that people had always seen. She suffered intensely from loneliness of spirit, for she had no one to whom she could tell her unhappiness; it is terrible to have no means of expressing oneself, to keep imprisoned always the anguish that gnaws at one’s heart-strings; it is well enough for the writer; he can find solace in his words, he can tell his secret and yet not betray it; but the woman has only silence.

  Bertha loathed Edward now with such an angry, physical repulsion that she could not bear his touch; and everyone she knew was his admiring friend. How could she tell Fanny Glover that Edward was a fool who bored her to death, when Fanny Glover thought him the best and most virtuous of mankind? She was annoyed that in the universal estimation Edward should have so entirely eclipsed her; once his only importance lay in the fact that he was her husband, but now the position was reversed. She found it very irksome thus to shine with reflected light, and at the same time despised herself for the petty jealousy.

  At last she felt it impossible any longer to endure his company; he made her stupid and vulgar, she was ill and weak and she despaired. She made up her mind to go away again, this time for ever.

  “If I stay, I shall kill myself.”

  For two days Edward had been miserable; a favourite dog of his had died, and he was brought to the verge of tears. Bertha watched him contemptuously.

  “You are more affected over the death of a wretched dog than you have ever been over a pain of mine.”

  “Oh, don’t rag me now, there’s a good girl; I can’t bear it.”

  “Fool!” muttered Bertha under her breath.

  He went about with hanging head and melancholy face, telling everyone the particulars of the beast’s demise in a voice quivering with emotion.

  “Poor fellow,” said Miss Glover, “he has such a good heart.”

  Bertha could hardly repress the bitter invective that rose to her lips. If people knew the coldness with which he had met her love, the indifference he had shown to her tears and to her despair. She despised herself when she remembered the utter self-abasement of the past.

  “He made me drink the cup of humiliation to the very dregs.”

  From the height of her disdain she summed him up for the thousandth time. It was inexplicable that she had been subject to a man so paltry in mind, so despicable in character. It made her blush with shame to think how servile had been her love.

  Dr Ramsay, who was visiting Bertha for some trivial ill, happened to come in when she was engaged with such thoughts.

  “Well,” he said, as soon as she had taken breath, “and how is Edward today?”

  “Good Heavens, how should I know?” she cried, beside herself, the words slipping out unawares after the long constraint.

  “Hulloa, what’s this? Have the turtle-doves had a tiff at last?”

  “Oh, I’m sick of continually hearing Edward’s praises. I’m sick of being treated as an appendage to him.”

  “What’s the matter with you, Bertha?” said the doctor, bursting into a shout of laughter. “I always thought nothing pleased you more than to hear how much we all liked your husband.”

  “Oh, my good doctor, you must be blind or an utter fool. I thought everyone knew by now that I loathe my husband.”

  “What!” shouted Dr Ramsay; then, thinking Bertha was unwell: “Come, come, I see you want a little medicine, my dear. You’re out of sorts, and like all women you think the world is consequently coming to an end.”

  Bertha sprang from the sofa. “D’you think I should speak like this if I hadn’t good cause? Don’t you think I’d conceal my humiliation if I could? Oh, I’ve hidden it long enough; now I must speak. Oh, God, I can hardly help screaming with pain when I think of all I’ve suffered and hidden. I’ve never said a word to anyone but you, and now I can’t help it. I tell you I loathe and abhor my husband and I utterly despise him. I can’t live with him any more and I want to go away.”

  Dr Ramsay opened his mouth and fell back in his chair; he looked at Bertha as if he expected her to have a fit.

  “Well, I’m blowed. You’re not serious?”

  Bertha stamped her foot impatiently: “Of course I’m serious. Do you think I’m a fool too? We’ve been miserable for years, and it can’t go on. If you knew what I’ve had to suffer when everyone has congratulated me and said how pleased they were to see me so happy! Sometimes I’ve had to dig my nails in my hands to prevent myself from crying out the truth.”

  Bertha walked up and down the room, letting herself go at last. The tears were streaming down her cheeks, but she took no notice of them. She was giving full vent to her passionate hatred.

  “Oh, I’ve tried to love him. You know how I loved him once, how I adored him. I would have laid down my life for him with pleasure. I would have done anything he asked me; I used to search for the smallest indication of his wishes so that I might carry them out. I used to love to think that I was his abject slave. But he’s destroyed every vestige of my love, and now I only despise him, I utterly despise him. Oh, I’ve tried to love him, but he’s too great a fool.”

  The last words Bertha said with such force that Dr Ramsay was startled.

  “My dear Bertha!”

  “Oh, I know you all think him wonderful. I’ve had his praises thrown at me for years. But you don’t know what a man really is till you’ve lived with him, till you’ve seen him in every mood and i
n every circumstance. I know him through and through, and he’s a fool. You can’t conceive how stupid, how utterly brainless he is. He bores me to death.”

  “Come now, you don’t mean what you say. You’re exaggerating as usual. You must expect to have little quarrels now and then; upon my word, I think it took me twenty years to get used to my wife.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, don’t be sententious,” Bertha interrupted fiercely. “I’ve had enough moralizing in these five years. I might have loved Edward better if he hadn’t been so moral. He’s thrown his virtues in my face till I’m sick of them. He’s made every goodness ugly to me till I sigh for vice just for a change. Oh, you can’t imagine how frightfully dull is a really good man. Now I want to be free; I tell you I can’t stand it any more.”

  Bertha again walked up and down the room excitedly.

  “Upon my word,” cried Dr Ramsay, “I can’t make head or tail of it.”

  “I didn’t expect you would. I knew you’d only preach at me.”

  “What d’you want me to do? Shall I speak to him?”

  “No! No! I’ve spoken to him endlessly. It’s no good. D’you suppose your speaking to him will make him love me? He’s incapable of it; all he can give me is esteem and affection. Good God, what do I want with esteem! It requires a certain intelligence to love, and he hasn’t got it. I tell you he’s a fool. Oh, when I think that I’m shackled to him for the rest of my life I feel I could kill myself.”

  “Come now, he’s not such a fool as all that. Everyone agrees that he’s a very smart man of business. And I can’t help saying that I’ve always thought you did uncommonly well when you insisted on marrying him.”

  “It was all your fault,” cried Bertha. “If you hadn’t opposed me I might not have married so quickly. Oh, you don’t know how I’ve regretted it. I wish I could see him dead at my feet.”

  Dr Ramsay whistled. His mind worked somewhat slowly and he was becoming confused with the overthrow of his cherished opinions and the vehemence with which the unpleasant operation was conducted.

  “I didn’t know things were like this.”

  “Of course you didn’t!” said Bertha scornfully. “Because I smiled and hid my sorrow you thought I was happy. When I look back on the misery I’ve gone through I wonder that I can ever have borne it.”

  “I can’t believe that this is very serious. You’ll be of a different mind tomorrow and wonder that such things ever entered your head. You musn’t mind an old fellow like me telling you you’re very headstrong and impulsive. After all, Edward is a fine fellow, and I can’t believe that he would willingly hurt your feelings.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake don’t give me more of Edward’s praises.”

  “I wonder if you’re a little jealous of the way he’s got on?” asked the doctor, looking at her sharply.

  Bertha flushed, for she had asked herself the same question; much scorn was needed to refute it.

  “I? My dear doctor, you forget! Oh, don’t you understand that it isn’t a passing whim? It’s dreadfully serious to me. I’ve borne the misery till I can bear it no longer. You must help me to get away. If you have any of your old affection for me, do what you can. I want to go away; but I don’t want to have any more rows with Edward; I just want to leave him quietly. It’s no good trying to make him understand that we’re incompatible. He thinks that it’s enough for my happiness just to be his wife. He’s of iron and I am pitifully weak. I used to think myself so strong.”

  “Am I to take it that you’re absolutely serious? Do you want to take the extreme step of separating from your husband?”

  “It’s an extreme step that I’ve taken before. Last time I went with a flourish of trumpets, but now I want to go without any fuss at all. I still loved Edward then, but I have even ceased to hate him. Oh, I knew I was a fool to come back, but I couldn’t help it. He asked me to return and I did.”

  “Well, I don’t know what I can do for you. I can’t help thinking that if you wait a little things will get better.”

  “I can’t wait any longer. I’ve waited too long. I’m losing my whole life.”

  “Why don’t you go away for a few months, and then you can see? Miss Ley is going to Italy for the winter as usual, isn’t she? Upon my word, I think it would do you good to go too.”

  “I don’t mind what I do as long as I can get away. I’m suffering too much.”

  “Have you thought that Edward will miss you?” asked Dr Ramsay, gravely.

  “No, he won’t. Good Heavens, don’t you think I know him by now? I know him through and through. And he’s callous and selfish and stupid. And he’s making me like himself. Oh, Dr Ramsay, please help me.”

  “Does Miss Ley know?” asked the doctor, remembering what she had told him on her visit to Court Leys.

  “No, I’m sure she doesn’t. She thinks we adore one another. And I don’t want her to know. I’m such a coward now. Years ago I never cared a straw for what anyone in the world thought of me; but my spirit is broken. Oh, get me away from here, Dr Ramsay, get me away.”

  She burst into tears, weeping as she had been long unaccustomed to do; she was exhausted after the outburst of all that for years she had kept hid.

  “I’m still so young, and I almost feel an old woman. Sometimes I should like to lie down and die, and have done with it all.”

  * * *

  A month later Bertha was in Rome. But at first she was hardly able to realize the change in her condition; for her life at Court Leys had impressed itself upon her with ghastly distinctness, so that she could not imagine its cessation. She was like a prisoner so long immured that freedom dazes him, and he looks for his chains and cannot understand that he is free.

  They had taken an apartment in the Via Gregoriana, and Bertha, waking in the morning, did not know where she was. The relief was so great that she could not believe it true, and she lived in fear that her vision would be disturbed and she find herself again within the prison walls of Court Leys. It was a dream that she wandered in sunlit places, where the air was scented with violets and roses. The people were unreal, the models lounging on the steps of the Piazza di Spagna, the ragged urchins, quaintly costumed and importunate, the silver speech that caressed the air. How could she believe that life was true when it gave blue sky and sunshine, so that the heart thrilled with joy; when it gave rest and peace and the most delightful idleness. Real life was gloomy and strenuous; and its setting a Georgian mansion, surrounded by desolate, wind-swept fields. In real life everyone was deadly virtuous and deadly dull; the Ten Commandments hedged one round with the menace of hell-fire and eternal damnation. They are a dungeon more terrible because it has not walls, nor bars and bolts. But beyond those gloomy stones with the harsh “thou shalt not” written upon them, is a land of fragrance and light, where the sunbeams send the blood running gaily through the veins, where the flowers give their perfume freely to the air, in token that riches must be spent and virtue must be squandered; where the amorets flutter here and there on the spring breezes, unknowing whither they go, uncaring. This land beyond the Ten Commandments is a land of olive-trees and pleasant shade, and the sea kisses the shore gently to show the youths how they must kiss the maidens; there lips are not vehicles for grotesque strenuosities, but Cupid’s bows; and there dark eyes flash lambently, telling the traveller he need not fear, Love may be had for the asking. Blood is warm, and hands linger with grateful pressure in hands, and red lips ask for the kisses that are so sweet to give. There the flesh and the spirit walk side by side, and each is well satisfied with the other. Ah, give me the sunshine of this blissful country, and a garden of roses, and the murmur of a pleasant brook; give me a shady bank, and wine, and books, and the coral lips of Amaryllis,61 and I will live in complete felicity for at least ten days.

  To Bertha the life in Rome seemed like a play. Miss Ley left her much freedom, and she wandered alone in strange places. She went often to the market and spent the morning wandering in and out of the booths, looki
ng at a thousand things she did not want to buy; she fingered rich silks and antique bits of silver, smiling at the compliments of a friendly dealer. The people bustled round her, volubly talking, intensely alive, and yet, because she could not understand that what she saw was true, strangely unreal. She went to the galleries, to the Sistine Chapel or the Stanze of Raphael; and, lacking the hurry of the tourist and his sense of duty, she would spend a whole morning in front of one picture or in a corner of an old church, weaving with whatever she looked at the fantasies of her imagination.

  And when she felt the need of her fellow-men she went to the Pincio and mingled with the throng that listened to the band. But the Franciscan monk in his brown cowl, standing apart, was a figure of a romantic play, and the soldiers in gay uniforms, the Bersaglieri62 with the bold cock’s feathers in their hats, were the chorus of a comic opera. And there were black-robed priests, some old and fat, taking the sun and smoking cigarettes, at peace with themselves and the world; others young and restless, with the flesh unsubdued shining out of their dark eyes. And everyone seemed as happy as the children who romped and scampered with merry cries.

  But gradually the shadows of the past fell away and Bertha was able more consciously to appreciate the beauty and the life that surrounded her. And knowing it fleeting, she set herself to enjoy it as best she could. Care and youth are difficultly yoked together, and merciful time wraps in oblivion the most gruesome misery. Bertha stretched out her arms to embrace the wonders of the living world, and she put away the dreadful thought that it must end so quickly. In the spring she spent long hours in the gardens that surround the city; the remains of ancient Rome mingled exotically with the half-tropical luxuriance, and excited in her new and subtle emotions. The flowers grew in the sarcophagi with a wild exuberance, wantoning, it seemed, in mockery of the tomb whence they sprang. Death is hideous, but life is always triumphant; the rose and the hyacinth arise from man’s decay; and the dissolution of man is but the signal of other birth; and the world goes on, beautiful and ever new, revelling in its vigour.