Mrs. Craddock - W. Somerset Maugham (top books to read txt) 📗

the county, and he wouldn’t get any one to buy it in a hurry. A man has got to get up early if he wants to do me over a gee!”

By this time Bertha was frightened out of her wits.

“But, Eddie, you’re not going to ride it—supposing something should happen. Oh, I wish you hadn’t bought him.”

“He’s all right,” said Craddock. “If any one can ride him, I can—and, by Jove, I’m going to risk it. Why, if I bought him and then didn’t use him, I’d never hear the last of it.”

“To please me, Eddie, don’t! What does it matter what people say? I’m so frightened. And now of all times you might do something to please me. It’s not often I ask you to do me a favour.”

“Well, when you ask for something reasonable, I always try my best to do it—but really, after I’ve paid thirty-five pounds for a horse, I can’t cut him up for cat’s meat.”

“That means you’ll always do anything for me so long as it doesn’t interfere with your own likes and dislikes.”

“Ah, well, we’re all like that, aren’t we?... Come, come, don’t be nasty about it, Bertha.”

He pinched her cheek good-naturedly—women, we all know, would like the moon if they could get it; and the fact that they can’t doesn’t prevent them from persistently asking for it. Edward sat down beside his wife, holding her hand.

“Now, tell us what you’ve been up to to-day. Has any one been?”

Bertha sighed deeply. She had absolutely no influence over her husband. No prayers, no tears would stop him from doing a thing he had set his mind on—however much she argued he always managed to make her seem in the wrong, and then went his way rejoicing. But she had her child now.

“Thank God for that!” she murmured.

Chapter XV

CRADDOCK went out on his new horse and returned triumphantly.

“He was as quiet as a lamb,” he said. “I could ride him with my arms tied behind my back; and as to jumping—he takes a five-barred gate in his stride.”

Bertha was a little angry with him for having caused her such terror, angry with herself also for troubling.

“And it was rather lucky I had him to-day. Old Lord Philip Dirk was there, and he asked Branderton who I was. ‘You tell him,’ says he, ‘that it isn’t often I’ve seen a man ride as well as he does.’ You should see Branderton, he isn’t half glad at having let me take the beast for thirty-five quid. And Mr. Molson came up to me and said, ‘I knew that horse would get into your hands before long, you’re the only man in this part who can ride it—but if it don’t break your neck, you’ll be lucky.’”

He recounted with great satisfaction the compliments paid to him.

“We had a jolly good run to-day.... And how are you, dear, feeling comfy? Oh, I forgot to tell you—you know Rodgers, the huntsman, well, he said to me, ‘That’s a mighty fine hack you’ve got there, sir, but he takes some riding.’—‘I know he does,’ I said; ‘but I flatter myself I know a thing or two more than most horses.’ They all thought I should get rolled over before the day was out, but I just went slick at everything to show I wasn’t frightened.”

Then he gave details of the affair; and he had as great a passion for the meticulous as a German historian. He was one of those men who take infinite pains over trifles, flattering themselves that they never do things by halves. Bertha had a headache, and her husband bored her; she thought herself a great fool to be so concerned about his safety.

 

As the months wore on Miss Glover became very solicitous. The parson’s sister looked upon birth as a mysteriously heart-fluttering business, which, however, modesty required decent people to ignore. She treated her friend in an absurdly self-conscious manner, and blushed like a peony when Bertha frankly referred to the coming event. The greatest torment of Miss Glover’s life was that, as lady of the Vicarage, she had to manage the Maternity Bag, an institution to provide the infants of the needy with articles of raiment and their mothers with flannel petticoats. She could never, without much confusion, ask the necessary information of the beneficiaries in her charity; feeling that the whole thing ought not to be discussed at all, she kept her eyes averted, and acted generally so as to cause great indignation.

“Well,” said one good lady, “I’d rather not ’ave her bag at all than be treated like that. Why, she treats you as if—well, as if you wasn’t married.”

“Yes,” said another, “that’s just what I complain of—I promise you I ’ad ’alf a mind to take my marriage lines out of my pocket an’ show ’er. It ain’t nothin’ to be ashamed about—nice thing it would be after ’avin’ sixteen, if I was bashful.”

But of course the more unpleasant a duty was, the more zealously did Miss Glover perform it; she felt it right to visit Bertha with frequency, and manfully bore the young wife’s persistence in referring to an unpleasant subject. She carried her heroism to the pitch of knitting socks for the forthcoming baby, although to do so made her heart palpitate uncomfortably; and when she was surprised at the work by her brother, her cheeks burned like two fires.

“Now, Bertha dear,” she said one day, pulling herself together and straightening her back as she always did when she was mortifying the flesh. “Now, Bertha dear, I want to talk to you seriously.”

Bertha smiled. “Oh don’t, Fanny; you know how uncomfortable it makes you.”

“I must,” answered the good creature, gravely. “I know you’ll think me ridiculous, but it’s my duty.”

“I shan’t think anything of the kind,” said Bertha, touched with her friend’s humility.

“Well, you talk a great deal of—of what’s going to happen”—Miss Glover blushed—“but I’m not sure if you are really prepared for it.”

“Oh, is that all?” cried Bertha. “The nurse will be here in a fortnight, and Dr. Ramsay says she’s a most reliable woman.”

“I wasn’t thinking of earthly preparations,” said Miss Glover. “I was thinking of the other. Are you quite sure you’re approaching the—the thing, in the right spirit?”

“What do you want me to do?”

“It isn’t what I want you to do. It’s what you ought to do. I’m nobody. But have you thought at all of the spiritual side of it?”

Bertha gave a sigh that was chiefly voluptuous. “I’ve thought that I’m going to have a son, that’s mine and Eddie’s; and I’m awfully thankful.”

“Wouldn’t you like me to read the Bible to you sometimes?”

“Good heavens, you talk as if I were going to die.”

“One can never tell, dear Bertha,” replied Miss Glover, sombrely; “I think you ought to be prepared.... ‘In the midst of life we are in death’—one can never tell what may happen.”

Bertha looked at her somewhat anxiously. She had been forcing herself of late to be cheerful, and had found it necessary to stifle a recurring presentiment of evil fortune. The Vicar’s sister never realised that she was doing everything possible to make Bertha thoroughly unhappy.

“I brought my own Bible with me,” she said. “Do you mind if I read you a chapter?”

“I should like it,” said Bertha, and a cold shiver went through her.

“Have you got any preference for some particular part?” asked Miss Glover, extracting the book from a little black bag which she always carried.

On Bertha’s answer that she had no preference, Miss Glover suggested opening the Bible at random, and reading on from the first line that crossed her eyes.

“Charles doesn’t quite approve of it,” she said; “he thinks it smacks of superstition. But I can’t help doing it, and the early Protestants constantly did the same.”

Miss Glover, having opened the book with closed eyes, began to read: “The sons of Pharez! Hezron, and Hamul. And the sons of Zerah; Zimri, and Ethan, and Heman, and Calcol, and Dara; five of them in all.” Miss Glover cleared her throat. “And the sons of Ethan; Azariah. The sons also of Hezron, that were born unto him; Jerahmeel, and Ram, and Chelubai. And Ram begat Amminadab; and Amminadab begat Nahshon, prince of the children of Judah.” She had fallen upon the genealogical table at the beginning of the Book of Chronicles. The chapter was very long, and consisted entirely of names, uncouth and difficult to pronounce; but Miss Glover shirked not one of them. With grave and somewhat high-pitched delivery, modelled on her brother’s, she read out the bewildering list. Bertha looked at her in amazement.

“That’s the end of the chapter,” she said at last; “would you like me to read you another one?”

“Yes, I should like it very much; but I don’t think the part you’ve hit on is quite to the point.”

“My dear, I don’t want to reprove you—that’s not my duty—but all the Bible is to the point.”

 

And as the time passed, Bertha quite lost her courage and was often seized by a panic fear. Suddenly, without obvious cause, her heart sank and she asked herself frantically how she could possibly get through it. She thought she was going to die, and wondered what would happen if she did. What would Edward do without her? Thinking of his bitter grief the tears came to her eyes, but her lips trembled with self-pity when the suspicion came that he would not be heartbroken: he was not a man to feel either grief or joy very poignantly. He would not weep; at the most his gaiety for a couple of days would be obscured, and then he would go about as before. She imagined him relishing the sympathy of his friends. In six months he would almost have forgotten her, and such memory as remained would not be extraordinarily pleasing. He would marry again; Edward loathed solitude, and next time doubtless he would choose a different sort of woman—one less remote from his ideal. Edward cared nothing for appearance, and Bertha imagined her successor plain as Miss Hancock or dowdy as Miss Glover; and the irony of it lay in the knowledge that either of those two would make a wife more suitable than she to his character, answering better to his conception of a helpmate.

Bertha fancied that Edward would willingly have given her beauty for some solid advantage, such as a knowledge of dressmaking; her taste, her arts and accomplishments, were nothing to him, and her impulsive passion was a positive defect. “Handsome is as handsome does,” said he; he was a plain, simple man and he wanted a simple, plain wife.

She wondered if her death would really cause him much sorrow; Bertha’s will gave him everything of which she was possessed, and he would spend it with a second wife. She was seized with insane jealousy.

“No, I won’t die,” she cried between her teeth, “I won’t!”

But one day, while Edward was hunting, her morbid fancies took another turn. Supposing he should die? The thought was unendurable, but the very horror of it fascinated her; she could not drive away the scenes which, with strange distinctness, her imagination set before her. She was seated at the piano and heard suddenly a horse stop at the front door—Edward was back early: but the bell rang; why should Edward ring? There was a murmur of voices without and Arthur Branderton came in. In her mind’s eye she saw every detail most clearly. He was in his hunting clothes! Something had happened, and knowing what it was, Bertha was yet able to realise her terrified wonder, as one possibility and another rushed through her brain. He was uneasy, he had something to tell, but dared not say it; she looked at him, horror-stricken, and a faintness came over her so that she could hardly stand.

Bertha’s heart beat quickly. She told herself it was absurd to let her imagination run away