Mrs. Craddock. W. Somerset Maugham

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СКАЧАТЬ my dear, I tremble at the prospect of his jollity. He's a good man. I should think his principles were excellent, and I don't suppose he's more ignorant than most general practitioners; but his friendliness is sometimes painfully aggressive."

      But Bertha's calm was merely external, her brain was in a whirl, and her heart beat with excitement. She was full of impatience to declare her news. Bertha had some sense of dramatic effect and looked forward a little to the scene when, the keys of her kingdom being handed to her, she made the announcement that she had already chosen a king to rule by her side. She felt also that between herself and Miss Ley alone the necessary explanations would be awkward. Dr. Ramsay's outspoken bluffness made him easier to deal with; there is always a difficulty in conducting oneself with a person who ostentatiously believes that every one should mind his own business and who, whatever her thoughts, takes more pleasure in the concealment than in the expression thereof. Bertha sent a note to Craddock, telling him to come at three o'clock to be introduced as the future lord and master of Court Leys.

      Dr. Ramsay arrived and burst at once into a prodigious stream of congratulation, partly jocose, partly grave and sentimental, but entirely distasteful to the fastidiousness of Miss Ley. Bertha's guardian was a big, broad-shouldered man, with a mane of fair hair, now turning white; Miss Ley vowed he was the last person upon this earth to wear mutton-chop whiskers. He was very red cheeked, and by his size, joviality, and florid complexion, gave an idea of unalterable health. With his shaven chin and his loud-voiced burliness he looked like a yeoman of the old school, before bad times and the spread of education had made the farmer a sort of cross between the city clerk and the Newmarket trainer. Dr. Ramsay's frock coat and top hat, notwithstanding the habit of many years, sat uneasily upon him with the air of Sunday clothes upon an agricultural labourer. Miss Ley, who liked to find absurd descriptions of people, or to hit upon an apt comparison, had never been able exactly to suit him; and that somewhat irritated her. In her eyes the only link that connected the doctor with humanity was a certain love of antiquities, which had filled his house with old snuff-boxes, china, and other precious things: humanity, Miss Ley took to be a small circle of persons, mostly feminine, middle-aged, unattached, and of independent means, who travelled on the continent, read good literature and abhorred the vast majority of their fellow-creatures, especially when these shrieked philanthropically, thrust their religion in your face, or cultivated their muscle with aggressive ardour!

      Dr. Ramsay ate his luncheon with an appetite that Miss Ley thought must be a great source of satisfaction to his butcher. She asked politely after his wife, to whom she secretly objected for her meek submission to the doctor. Miss Ley made a practice of avoiding those women who had turned themselves into mere shadows of their lords, more especially when their conversation was of household affairs; and Mrs. Ramsay, except on Sundays, when her mind was turned to the clothes of the congregation, thought of nothing beyond her husband's enormous appetite and the methods of subduing it.

      They returned to the drawing-room and Dr. Ramsay began to tell Bertha about the property, who this tenant was and the condition of that farm, winding up with the pitiful state of the times and the impossibility of getting rents.

      "And now, Bertha, what are you thinking of doing?" he asked.

      This was the opportunity for which Bertha had been looking.

      "I?" she said quietly—"Oh, I intend to get married."

      Dr. Ramsay, opening his mouth, threw back his head and laughed immoderately.

      "Very good indeed," he cried. "Ha, ha!"

      Miss Ley looked at him with uplifted eyebrows.

      "Girls are coming on nowadays," he said, with much amusement. "Why, in my time, a young woman would have been all blushes and downcast glances. If any one had talked of marriage she would have prayed Heaven to send an earthquake to swallow her up."

      "Fiddlesticks!" said Miss Ley.

      Bertha was looking at Dr. Ramsay with a smile that she with difficulty repressed, and Miss Ley caught the expression.

      "So you intend to be married, Bertha?" said the doctor, again laughing.

      "Yes."

      "When?" asked Miss Ley, who did not take Bertha's remark as merely playful.

      Bertha was looking out of window, wondering when Edward would arrive.

      "When?" she repeated, turning round. "This day four weeks!"

      "What!" cried Dr. Ramsay, jumping up. "You don't mean to say you've found some one! Are you engaged? Oh, I see, I see. You've been having a little joke with me. Why didn't you tell me that Bertha was engaged all the time, Miss Ley?"

      "My good doctor," answered Miss Ley, with great composure, "until this moment I knew nothing whatever about it. . . . I suppose we ought to offer our congratulations; it's a blessing to get them all over on one day."

      Dr. Ramsay looked from one to the other with perplexity.

      "Well, upon my word," he said, "I don't understand."

      "Neither do I," replied Miss Ley, "but I keep calm."

      "It's very simple," said Bertha. "I got engaged last night, and as I say, I mean to be married exactly four weeks from to-day—to Mr. Craddock."

      "What!" cried Dr. Ramsay, jumping up in astonishment and causing the floor to quake in the most dangerous way. "Craddock! What d'you mean? Which Craddock?"

      "Edward Craddock," replied Bertha coolly, "of Bewlie's Farm."

      "Brrh!!" Dr. Ramsay's exclamation cannot be transcribed, but it sounded horrid! "The scoundrel! It's absurd. You'll do nothing of the sort"

      Bertha looked at him with a gentle smile, but did not trouble to answer.

      "You're very emphatic, dear doctor," said Miss Ley. "Who is this gentleman?"

      "He isn't a gentleman," said Dr. Ramsay, purple with vexation.

      "He's going to be my husband, Dr. Ramsay," said Bertha, compressing her lips in the manner which with Miss Ley had become habitual; and turned to that lady: "I've known him all my life, and father was a great friend of his father's. He's a gentleman-farmer."

      "The definition of which," said Dr. Ramsay, "is a man who's neither a farmer nor a gentleman."

      "I forget what your father was?" said Bertha, who remembered perfectly well.

      "My father was a farmer," replied Dr. Ramsay, with some heat, "and, thank God! he made no pretence of being a gentleman. He worked with his own hands; I've seen him often enough with a pitchfork, turning over a heap of manure, when no one else was handy."

      "I see," said Bertha.

      "But my father can have nothing to do with it; you can't marry him because he's been dead these thirty years, and you can't marry me because I've got a wife already."

      Miss Ley, amused at the doctor's bluntness, concealed a smile; but Bertha, getting rather angry, thought him singularly rude.

      "And what have you against him?" she asked.

      "If you want to make a fool of yourself, he's got no right to encourage you. He knows he isn't a fit match for you."

      "Why not, if I love him?"

      "Why СКАЧАТЬ