Mrs Craddock

by W. Somerset Maugham

  “Oh, I daresay he was as worthless as the other,” she cried at last.

  Miss Ley sent to inquire if she would eat, but Bertha had now really a bad headache, and could touch nothing. All day she spent in agony; she could not think; she was in despair. Sometimes she reproached herself for denying Gerald when he had asked her to let him stay; she had wilfully let go the happiness that was within her reach; and then, with a revulsion of feeling, she repeated that Gerald was worthless and thanked Heaven that she had escaped the danger. The dreary hours passed, and when the night came Bertha scarcely had strength to undress, and not till the morning did she get rest. But the early post brought a letter from Edward, repeating his wish that she should return to Court Leys. She read it listlessly.

  “Perhaps it’s the best thing to do,” she groaned.

  She hated London now, and the flat; the rooms must be horribly bare without the joyous presence of Gerald. To return to Court Leys seemed the only course left to her, and there at least she would have quiet and solitude. She thought almost with longing of the desolate shore, the marshes and the dreary sea; she wanted rest and silence. But if she went she had better go at once; to stay in London was only to prolong her woe.

  Bertha got up and dressed, and went into Miss Ley. Her face was deathly pale, and her eyes were heavy and red with weeping. She made no attempt to hide her distress.

  “I’m going down to Court Leys today, Aunt Polly. I think it’s the best thing I can do.”

  “Edward will be pleased to see you.”

  “I think he will.”

  Miss Ley hesitated, looking at Bertha.

  “You know, Bertha,” she said after a pause, “in this world it is very difficult to know what to do. One struggles to know good from evil, but really they’re often so very much alike. I always think those people fortunate who are content to stand, without question, by the Ten Commandments, knowing exactly how to conduct themselves and propped up by the hope of Paradise on the one hand and by the fear of a cloven-footed devil with pincers on the other. But we who answer Why to the crude Thou shalt not are like sailors on a wintry sea without a compass: reason and instinct say one thing, and convention says another; but the worst of it is that one’s conscience has been reared on the Decalogue and fostered on hell-fire, and one’s conscience has the last word. I daresay it’s cowardly, but it’s certainly discreet, to take it into consideration; it’s like lobster salad: it’s not immoral to eat it, but you will very likely have indigestion. One has to be very sure of oneself to go against the ordinary view of things; and if one isn’t, perhaps it’s better not to run any risks, but just to walk along the same secure old road as the common herd. It’s not exhilarating, it’s not brave, and it’s rather dull; but it’s eminently safe.”

  Bertha sighed, but did not answer.

  “You’d better tell Jane to pack your boxes,” said Miss Ley. “Shall I wire to Edward?”

  When Bertha had at last started, Miss Ley began to think.

  “I wonder if I’ve done right,” she murmured, uncertain as ever. She was sitting on the piano-stool, and as she meditated, her finger passed idly over the keys. Presently her ears detected the beginning of a well-known melody, and almost unconsciously she began to play the air of Rigoletto.72 La Donna è mobile, the words ran, Qual piuma al vento.73 Miss Ley smiled: “The fact is that few women can be happy with only one husband. I believe that the only solution of the marriage question is legalized polyandry.”

  * * *

  In the train at Victoria Bertha remembered with relief that the cattle-market was held at Tercanbury that day, and Edward would not come home till the evening; she would have the opportunity to settle herself at Court Leys without fuss or bother. Full of her painful thoughts, the journey passed quickly, and Bertha was surprised to find herself at Blackstable. She got out, wondering whether Edward would have sent the trap to meet her, but to her extreme surprise Edward himself was on the platform, and running up, helped her out of the carriage.

  “Here you are at last!” he cried.

  “I didn’t expect you,” said Bertha. “I thought you’d be at Tercanbury.”

  “I got your wire just as I was starting, so of course I didn’t go.”

  “I’m sorry I prevented you.”

  “Why? I’m jolly glad. You didn’t think I was going to the cattle-market when my missus was coming home?”

  She looked at him with astonishment; his honest, red face glowed with the satisfaction he felt at seeing her.

  “By Jove, this is ripping!” he said. “I’m tired of being a grass widower,74 I can tell you.”

  They came to Corstal Hill, and he walked the horse.

  “Just look behind you,” he said in an undertone. “Notice anything?”

  “What?”

  “Look at Parker’s hat.”

  Parker was the footman. Bertha looked again and observed a cockade.75

  “What d’you think of that, eh?” Edward was almost exploding with laughter. “I was elected Chairman of the Urban District Council yesterday; that means I’m ex officio J.P.76 So as soon as I heard you were coming I bolted off and got a cockade.”

  When they reached Court Leys he helped Bertha out of the trap quite tenderly. She was taken aback to find the tea ready, flowers in the drawing-room, and everything possible done to make her comfortable.

  “Are you tired?” asked Edward. “Lie down on the sofa, and I’ll give you your tea.”

  He waited on her and pressed her to eat, and was, in fact, unceasing in his attentions.

  “By Jove, I am glad to see you here again!”

  His pleasure was obvious, and Bertha was touched.

  “Are you too tired to come for a little walk in the garden? I want to show you what I’ve done for you, and just now the place is looking its best.”

  He put a shawl round her shoulders, so that the evening air might not hurt her, and insisted on giving her his arm.

  “Now, look here; I’ve planted rose trees outside the drawing-room window; I thought you’d like to see them when you sat in your favourite place, reading.”

  He took her further to a place that offered a fine view of the sea.

  “I’ve put a bench here between those two trees, so that you can sit down sometimes and look at the view.”

  “It’s very kind of you to be so thoughtful. Shall we sit there now?”

  “Oh, I think you’d better not. There’s a good deal of dew, and I don’t want you to catch cold.”

  For dinner Edward had ordered the dishes that he knew Bertha preferred, and he laughed joyously as she expressed her pleasure.

  Afterwards when she lay down on the sofa he arranged the cushions for her. No one could have been kinder or more thoughtful.

  “Ah, my dear,” she thought, “if you’d been half as kind three years ago you might have kept my love.”

  She wondered whether absence had increased his affection, or whether it was she who had changed. Was he not as unchanging as a rock? She knew that she was as unstable as water and variable as the summer winds. Had he always been kind and considerate; and had she, demanding a passion that it was not in him to feel, been blind to his deep tenderness? Expecting nothing from him now, she was astonished to find he had so much to offer. But she felt sorry if he loved her, for she could give him nothing in return but complete indifference; she was even surprised to find herself so utterly callous.

  At bedtime she bade him good night, and kissed his cheek.

  “I’ve had the spare bedroom arranged for me,” she said.

  “Oh, I didn’t know,” he replied; then, after glancing at her: “I don’t want to do anything that is disagreeable to you.”

  * * *

  There was no change in Blackstable; Bertha’s friends still lived, for the death-rate of that fortunate place was their pride, and they could do nothing to increase it. Arthur Branderton had married a pretty, fluffy-haired girl, nicely bred and properly insignificant; but the only result of that was to
give his mother a new topic of conversation. Bertha, resuming her old habits, had difficulty in realizing that she had ever been away. She set herself to forget Gerald, and was pleased to find the recollection of him not too importunate. A sentimentalist turned cynic has observed that a woman is only passionately devoted to her first lover, afterwards it is love itself of which she is enamoured; and certainly the wounds of second and subsequent attachments heal easily. Bertha was devoutly grateful to Miss Ley for her opportune return on Gerald’s last night; she shuddered to think of what might have happened, and was thoroughly ashamed of the madness that had driven her to Euston intent upon the most dreadful courses. She could hardly forgive Gerald that, on his account, she had almost made herself ridiculous; she saw that he was a fickle boy, prepared to philander with every woman he met, and told herself scornfully that she had never really cared for him.

  But in two weeks Bertha received a letter from America, forwarded by Miss Ley. She turned white as she recognized the handwriting; the old emotions came tumbling back, she thought of Gerald’s green eyes, and of his boyish lips, and she felt sick with love. She looked at the address and at the post-mark, and then put the letter down.

  “I told him not to write,” she murmured.

  A feeling of anger seized her that the sight of a letter from Gerald should bring her such pain. She almost hated him now; and yet with all her heart she wished to kiss the paper and every word that was written upon it. But the violence of her emotion made her set her teeth, as it were, against giving way.

  “I won’t read it,” she said.

  She wanted to prove to herself that she had strength, and this temptation at least she was determined to resist. Bertha lit a candle and took the letter in her hand to burn it, but then put it down again. That would settle the matter too quickly, and she wanted rather to prolong the trial so as to receive full assurance of her fortitude. With a strange pleasure at the pain she was preparing for herself, Bertha placed the letter on the chimney-piece of her room, prominently, so that whenever she went in or out she could not fail to see it. Wishing to punish herself her desire was to make the temptation as distressing as possible.

  She watched the unopened envelope for a month, and sometimes the craving to open it was almost irresistible; sometimes she awoke in the middle of the night, thinking of Gerald, and told herself that she must know what he said. Ah, how well she could imagine it! He vowed he loved her, and he spoke of the kiss she had given him on that last day, and he said it was dreadfully hard to be without her. Bertha looked at the letter, clenching her hands so as not to seize it and tear it open; she had to hold herself forcibly back from covering it with kisses. But at last she conquered all desire; she was able to look at the handwriting indifferently; she scrutinized her heart and found no trace of emotion. The trial was complete.

  “Now it can go,” she said.

  Again she lit a candle, and held the letter to the flame till it was all consumed; and she gathered up the ashes, putting them in her hand, and blew them out of the window. She felt that by that act she had finished with the whole thing, and Gerald was definitely gone out of her life.

  * * *

  But rest did not come to Bertha’s troubled soul. At first she found her life fairly tolerable; but she had now no emotions to distract her, and the routine of the day was unvarying. The weeks passed and the months; the winter came upon her, more dreary than she had ever known it. The country became insufferably dull. The days were grey and cold, and the clouds so low that she could almost touch them. The broad fields, which had once offered such wonderful emotions, were now only tedious, and all the rural sights sank into her mind with a pitiless monotony; day after day, month after month, she saw the same things. She was bored to death.

  Sometimes Bertha wandered to the sea-shore and looked across the desolate waste of water. She longed to travel as her eyes and her mind travelled, South, South to the azure skies, to the lands of beauty and sunshine beyond the greyness. Fortunately she did not know that she was looking almost directly North, and that if she really went on and on as she desired, she would reach no Southern lands of pleasure, but the North Pole.

  She walked along the beach, among the countless shells; and not content with present disquietude, tortured herself with anticipation of the future. She could only imagine that it would bring an increase of this frightful ennui, and her head ached as she looked forward to the dull monotony of her life. She went home, entering the house with aversion as she thought of the tiresome evening.

  Bertha was seized with restlessness. She would walk up and down her room in a fever of almost physical agony. She would sit at the piano, and cease playing after half a dozen bars; music seemed as futile as everything else. She seemed to have done everything so often. She tried to read, but could hardly bring herself to begin a new volume; the very sight of the printed pages was distasteful; the books of information told her things she did not want to know, the novels related deeds of persons about whom she could not raise the least interest. She read a few pages and threw the book down in disgust. Then she went out again—anything seemed preferable to what she was actually doing. She walked rapidly, but the motion, the country, the very atmosphere about her, were wearisome, and almost immediately she returned home.

  Bertha was forced to take the same walks day after day, and the deserted roads, the trees, the hedges, the fields, impressed themselves on her mind with a dismal insistence. When she was driven to go out merely for exercise, she walked a certain number of miles, trying to get it over quickly. The winds of the early year blew that season more persistently than ever, and they impeded her steps, and chilled her to the bone.

  Sometimes Bertha paid visits, and the restraint she had to put upon herself relieved her for the moment, but as soon as the door was closed behind her she felt more desperately bored than ever.

  Yearning suddenly for society, she would send out invitations for some function, then, as it approached, felt it inexpressibly irksome to make preparations, and she loathed and abhorred her guests. For a long time she refused to see anyone, protesting her feeble health; and sometimes in the solitude she thought she would go mad. She turned to prayer as the only refuge of those who cannot act, but she only half believed, and therefore found no comfort. She accompanied Miss Glover on her district visiting, but she disliked the poor and hated their inane chatter.

  Her head ached, and she put her hands to her temples, pressing them painfully; she felt she could take great wisps of her hair and tear it out. She threw herself on her bed and wept in the agony of boredom. Edward once found her thus and asked what was the matter.

  “Oh, my head aches so that I feel I could kill myself.”

  He sent for Ramsay, but Bertha knew that the doctor’s remedies were useless. She imagined that there was no remedy for her ill—not even time—no remedy but death. She knew the terrible distress of waking in the morning with the thought that still another day must be gone through, she knew the relief of bedtime, with the thought that she would enjoy a few hours of unconsciousness. She was racked with the imagination of the future’s frightful monotony: night would follow day, and day would follow night, the months passing one by one and the years slowly, slowly. They say that life is short: to those who look back perhaps it is; but to those who look forward it is long, horribly long, endless. Sometimes Bertha felt it impossible to endure. She prayed that she might fall asleep at night and never awake. How happy must be the lives of those people who can look forward to eternity! To Bertha the idea of living for ever and ever was merely ghastly; she desired nothing but the long rest, the rest of an endless sleep, the dissolution into nothing.

  Once in her depression she wished to kill herself, but she was afraid. People say it requires no courage to commit suicide. Fools! They cannot realize the horror of the needful preparations, the anticipation of the pain, the terrible fear that one may regret when it is too late, when life is ebbing away. And there is the dread of the Unknown; above all, the
awful fear of hell-fire. It is absurd and revolting, but so ingrained that no effort is sufficient entirely to destroy it; there is still, notwithstanding reason and argument, the fear that it may be true, the fear of a jealous God who will doom one to eternal punishment.

  34

  But if the human soul, or the heart, or the mind—call it what you will—is an instrument upon which countless melodies may be played, it is capable of responding to none for very long. Time dulls the most exquisite emotions and softens the most heartrending grief; the story is told of a philosopher who sought to console a woman in distress by the account of tribulations akin to hers, and upon losing his only son was sent by her a list of kings similarly bereaved. He read it, acknowledged its correctness, but wept none the less. Three months later the philosopher and the lady were surprised to find one another quite gay, and they erected a fine statue to Time, with the inscription: A celui qui console.77

  When Bertha vowed that life had lost all savour, that her ennui was unending, she exaggerated as usual; and almost grew angry on discovering that existence could be more supportable than she thought.

  One gets used to all things. It is only very misanthropic persons who pretend that they cannot accustom themselves to the stupidity of their fellows; after a while one gets hardened to the most desperate bores, and monotony even ceases to be quite monotonous. Accommodating herself to circumstances, Bertha found life less tedious; it was a calm river, and presently she came to the conclusion that it ran more easily without the cascades and waterfalls, the eddies, whirlpools and rocks, that had disturbed its course. The man who can still humbug himself has before him a future not lacking in brightness.