THE passion to analyse the casual fellow-creature was the most absorbing vice that Miss Ley possessed; and no ties of relationship or affection (the two go not invariably together) prevented her from exercising her talents in that 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 visits 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 ale, he pushed back his chair and with a sort of low roar, reminding one of a beast of prey gorged with food, said—

“Ah, well, I suppose I must set about my work. There’s no rest for the weary.”

He pulled a new briar-wood pipe from his pocket, filled and lit it.

“I feel better now.... Well, so-long; I shall be in to tea.”

Conclusions buzzed about Miss Ley, like midges on a summer’s day. She drew them all the afternoon; she drew them all through 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 to read 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 choke full of foreigners and their goods. I think it’s scandalous. English music isn’t good enough for you—you get it from France and 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 the observation 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, which 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.

“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 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 investigations was that once again the hymeneal path had been found strewn with roses; and the idea 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 to-morrow.”

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 any one.”

“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.

Mr. Glover and his sister 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.”

“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 instincts of a good fighter, 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, somewhat crossly, thinking Dr. Ramsay’s remark preliminary to coarse banter or to 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 person 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 searched 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 distantly removed from agony. This was the first occasion upon which she had failed to understand not only the good doctor, but his inmost thoughts as well. “So you think the estate has been improved?” she said hurriedly.

“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 the passer-by moralised 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 about. 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 substance, who bought diamonds when they hadn’t bread, and pawned the diamonds to give the King a garden-party, now form the heading of a copybook and the ideal of a market-gardener.”

Miss Ley had the characteristics of the true phrase-maker, for so long as her period was well rounded, she did not mind how much nonsense it contained. Coming to the end of her tirade, she looked at the doctor for the signs of disapproval which she thought her right, but he merely laughed.

“I see you want to rub it in,” he said.

“What on earth does the creature mean?” Miss Ley asked herself.

“I confess I did believe things would turn out badly,” the doctor proceeded. “And I couldn’t help thinking he’d be tempted to play ducks and drakes with the whole property. Well, I don’t mind frankly acknowledging that Bertha couldn’t have chosen a better husband; he’s a thoroughly good fellow; no one realised what he had in him, and there’s no knowing how far he’ll go.”

A man would have expressed Miss Ley’s feeling with a little whistle, but that lady merely raised her thin eyebrows. Then Dr. Ramsay shared the opinion of Miss Glover?

“And what precisely is the opinion of the county?” she asked. “Of that odious Mrs. Branderton, of Mrs. Ryle (she has no right to the Mayston at all), of the Hancocks, and the rest?”

“Edward Craddock has won golden opinions all round. Every one likes him, and thinks well of him. No, I assure you, although I’m not so fond as all that of confessing I was wrong, he’s the right man in the right place. It’s extraordinary how people took up to him and respect him already.... I give you my word for it, Bertha has reason to congratulate herself—a girl doesn’t pick up a husband like that every day of the week.”

Miss Ley smiled; it was a great relief to find that she really was no more foolish than most people (so she modestly put it), for a doubt on the subject had given her some uneasiness.

“So every one thinks they’re as happy as turtle-doves?”

“Why, so they are,” cried the doctor; “surely you don’t think otherwise?”

Miss Ley never considered it a duty to dispel the error of her fellow-creatures, and whenever she had a little piece of knowledge, vastly preferred keeping it to herself.

“I?” she answered to the doctor’s question. “I make a point of thinking with the majority—it’s the only way to get a reputation for wisdom!” But Miss Ley, after all, was only human. “Which do you think is the predominant partner?” she asked, smiling drily.

“The man, as he should be,” gruffly replied the doctor.

“Do you think he has more brains?”

“Ah, you’re a feminist,” said Dr. Ramsay, with great scorn.

“My dear doctor, my gloves are sixes, and perceive my shoes.” She put out for the old gentleman’s inspection a very pointed, high-heeled shoe, displaying at the same time the elaborate open-work of a silk stocking.

“Do you intend me to take that as an acknowledgment of the superiority of man?”

“Heavens, how argumentative you are!” Miss Ley laughed, for she was getting into her own particular element. “I knew you wished to quarrel with me. Do you really want my opinion?”

“Yes.”

“Well, it seems to me that if you take the very clever woman and set her beside an ordinary man, you prove nothing. That is how women mostly argue. We place George Eliot (who, by the way, had nothing of the woman but petticoats—and those not always) beside plain John Smith, and ask tragically if such a woman can be considered inferior to such a man. But that’s silly! The question I’ve been asking myself for the last five-and-twenty years is, whether the average fool of a woman is a greater fool than the average fool of a man.”

“And the answer?”

“Well, upon my word, I don’t think there’s much to choose between them.”

“Then you haven’t really an opinion on the subject at all?” cried the doctor.

“That is why I give it you.”

“Hm!” grunted Dr. Ramsay. “And how does that apply to the Craddocks?”

“It doesn’t apply to them.... I don’t think Bertha is a fool.”

“She couldn’t be, having had the discretion to be born your niece, eh?”

“Why, doctor, you’re growing quite pert.”

They had finished the tour of the garden and Mrs. Ramsay was seen in the drawing-room, bidding Bertha good-by.

“Now, seriously, Miss Ley,” said the doctor, “they’re quite happy, aren’t they? Every one thinks so.”

“Every one is always right,” said Miss Ley.

“And what is your opinion?”

“Good heavens, what an insistent man it is! Well, Dr. Ramsay, all I would suggest is that—for Bertha, you know, the book of life is written throughout in italics; for Edward it is all in the big round hand of the copybook headings.... Don’t you think it will make the reading of the book somewhat difficult?”