"What news?" asked Branderton. "I've been in Yorkshire for the last week at my brother-in-law's."
"Mr. Craddock and I are going to be married."
"Are you, by Jove!" cried Branderton; he looked at Craddock and then, awkwardly, offered his congratulations. They could not help seeing his astonishment, and Craddock flushed, knowing it due to the fact that Bertha had consented to marry a penniless beggar like himself, a man of no family. "I hope you'll invite me to the wedding," said the young man to cover his confusion.
"Oh, it's going to be very quiet—there will only be ourselves, Dr. Ramsay, my aunt, and Edward's best man."
"Then mayn't I come?" asked Branderton.
Bertha looked quickly at Edward; it had caused her some uneasiness to think that he might be supported by a person of no great consequence in the place. After all she was Miss Ley; and she had already discovered that some of her lover's friends were not too desirable. Chance offered her means of surmounting the difficulty.
"I'm afraid it's impossible," she said, in answer to Branderton's appeal, "unless you can get Edward to offer you the important post of best man."
She succeeded in making the pair thoroughly uncomfortable. Branderton had no great wish to perform that office for Edward—"of course, Craddock is a very good fellow, and a fine sportsman, but not the sort of chap you'd expect a girl like Bertha Ley to marry." And Edward, understanding the younger man's feelings, was silent.
But Branderton had some knowledge of polite society, and broke the momentary pause.
"Who is going to be your best man, Craddock?" he asked; he could do nothing else.
"I don't know—I haven't thought of it."
But Branderton, catching Bertha's eye, suddenly understood her desire and the reason of it.
"Won't you have me?" he said quickly. "I dare say you'll find me intelligent enough to learn the duties."
"I should like it very much," answered Craddock. "It's very good of you."
Branderton looked at Bertha, and she smiled her thanks; he saw she was pleased.
"Where are you going for your honeymoon?" he asked now, to make conversation.
"I don't know," answered Craddock. "We've hardly had time to think of it yet."
"You certainly are very vague in all your plans."
He shook hands with them, receiving from Bertha a grateful pressure, and went off.
"Have you really not thought of our honeymoon, foolish boy?" asked Bertha.
"No!"
"Well, I have. I've made up my mind and settled it all. We're going to Italy, and I mean to show you Florence and Pisa and Siena. It'll be simply heavenly. We won't go to Venice, because it's too sentimental; self-respecting people can't make love in gondolas at the end of the nineteenth century. . . . Oh, I long to be with you in the South, beneath the blue sky and the countless stars of night."
"I've never been abroad before," he said, without much enthusiasm.
But her fire was quite enough for two. "I know, I shall have the pleasure of unfolding it all to you. I shall enjoy it more than I ever have before; it'll be so new to you. And we can stay six months if we like."
"Oh, I couldn't possibly," he cried. "Think of the farm."
"Oh, bother the farm. It's our honeymoon, Sposo mio."
"I don't think I could possibly stay away more than a fortnight."
"What nonsense! We can't go to Italy for a fortnight. The farm can get on without you."
"And in January and February too, when all the lambing is coming on."
He did not want to distress Bertha, but really half his lambs would die if he were not there to superintend their entrance into this wicked world.
"But you must go," said Bertha. "I've set my heart upon it."
He looked down for a while, rather unhappily.
"Wouldn't a month do? "he asked. "I'll do anything you really want, Bertha."
But his obvious dislike to the suggestion cut Bertha's heart. She was only inclined to be stubborn when she saw he might resist her; and his first word of surrender made her veer round penitently.
"What a selfish beast I am!" she said. "I don't want to make you miserable, Eddie. I thought it would please you to go abroad, and I'd planned it all so well. . . . But we won't go; I hate Italy. Let's just go up to town for a fortnight, like two country bumpkins."
"Oh, but you won't like that."
"Of course I shall. I like everything you like. D'you think I care where we go so long as I'm with you? . . . You're not angry with me, darling, are you?"
Mr. Craddock was good enough to intimate that he was not.
Miss Ley, much against her will, had been driven by Miss Glover into working for some charitable institution, and was knitting babies' socks (as the smallest garments she could make) when Bertha told her of the altered plan: she dropped a stitch! Miss Ley was too wise to say anything, but she wondered if the world were coming to an end; Bertha's schemes were shattered like brittle glass, and she really seemed delighted. A month ago opposition would have made Bertha traverse seas and scale precipices rather than abandon an idea that she had got into her head. Verily, love is a prestidigitator who can change the lion into the lamb as easily as a handkerchief into a flower-pot! Miss Ley began to admire Edward Craddock.
He, on his way home after leaving Bertha, was met by the Vicar of Leanham. Mr. Glover was a tall man, angular, fair, thin and red-cheeked—a somewhat feminine edition of his sister, but smelling in the most remarkable fashion of antiseptics; Miss Ley vowed he peppered his clothes with iodoform, and bathed daily in carbolic acid. He was strenuous and charitable, hated a Dissenter, and was over forty.
"Ah, Craddock, I wanted to see you."
"Not about the banns, Vicar, is it? We're going to be married by special license."
Like many countrymen, Edward saw something funny in the clergy—one should not grudge it them, for it is the only jest in their lives—and he was given to treating the parson with more humour than he used in the other affairs of this world. The Vicar laughed; it is one of the best traits of the country clergy that they are willing to be amused with their parishioners' jocosity.
"The marriage is all settled then? You're a very lucky young man."
Craddock put his arm through Mr. Glover's with the unconscious friendliness that had gained him an hundred friends. "Yes, I am lucky," he said. "I know you people think it rather queer that Bertha and I should get married, but we're very much attached to one another, and I mean to do my best by her. You know I've never racketed about, Vicar, don't you?"
"Yes, my boy," said the Vicar, touched at Edward's confidence. "Every one knows you're steady enough."
"Of course, she could have found men of much better social position than mine—but I'll try to make her happy. And I've got nothing to hide from her as some men have; I go to her almost as straight as she comes to me."
"That is a very fortunate thing to be able to say."
"I have never loved another woman in my life, and as for the rest—well, of course, I'm young and I've been up to town sometimes; but I always hated and loathed it. And the country and the hard work keep one pretty clear of anything nasty."
"I'm very glad to hear you say that," answered Mr. Glover. "I hope you'll be happy, and I think you will."
The Vicar felt a slight pricking of conscience, for at first his sister and himself had called the match a misalliance (they pronounced the word vilely), and not till they learned it was inevitable did they begin to see that their attitude was a little wanting in charity. The two men shook hands.