“I might have expected it,” she said; “he doesn’t love me.”
She grew angry with him, remembering the little coldnesses which had often pained her. Often he almost pushed her away when she came to caress him—because he had at the moment something else to occupy him; often he had left unanswered her protestations of undying affection. Did he not know that he cut her to the quick? When she said she loved him with all her heart, he wondered if the clock was wound up! Bertha brooded for two hours over her unhappiness, and, ignorant of the time, was surprised to hear the trap again at the door; her first impulse was to run and let Edward in, but she restrained herself. She was very angry. He entered, and shouting to her that he was wet and must change, pounded upstairs. Of course he had not noticed that for the first time since their marriage his wife had not met him in the hall when he came in—he never noticed anything.
Edward entered the room, his face glowing with the fresh air.
“By Jove, I’m glad you didn’t come. The rain simply poured down. How about tea? I’m starving.”
He thought of his tea when Bertha wanted apologies, humble excuses, a plea for pardon. He was as cheerful as usual and quite unconscious that his wife had been crying herself into a towering passion.
“Did you buy your sheep?” she said, in an indignant tone. She was anxious for Edward to notice her discomposure, so that she might reproach him for his sins; but he noticed nothing.
“Not much,” he cried. “I wouldn’t have given a fiver for the lot.”
“You might as well have stayed with me, as I asked you.”
“As far as business goes, I really might. But I dare say the drive across country did me good.” He was a man who always made the best of things.
Bertha took up a book and began reading.
“Where’s the paper?” asked Edward. “I haven’t read the leading articles yet.”
“I’m sure I don’t know.”
They sat till dinner, Edward methodically going through the Standard, column after column; Bertha turning over the pages of her book, trying to understand, but occupied the whole time only with her injuries. They ate the meal almost in silence, for Edward was not talkative. He merely remarked that soon they would be having new potatoes and that he had met Dr. Ramsay. Bertha answered in mono-syllables.
“You’re very quiet, Bertha,” he remarked, later in the evening. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing!”
“Got a headache?”
“No!”
He made no more inquiries, satisfied that her silence was due to natural causes. He did not seem to notice that she was in any way different from usual. She held herself in as long as she could, but finally burst out, referring to his remark of an hour before.
“Do you care if I have a headache or not?” It was hardly a question so much as a taunt.
He looked up with surprise. “What’s the matter?”
She looked at him and then, with a gesture of impatience, turned away. But coming to her, he put his arm round her waist.
“Aren’t you well, dear?” he asked, with concern.
She looked at him again, but now her eyes were full of tears and she could not repress a sob.
“Oh, Eddie, be nice to me,” she said, suddenly weakening.
“Do tell me what’s wrong.”
He put his arms round her and kissed her lips. The contact revived the passion which for an hour had lain a-dying, and she burst into tears.
“Don’t be angry with me, Eddie,” she sobbed; it was she who apologised and made excuses. “I’ve been horrid to you; I couldn’t help it. You’re not angry, are you?”
“What on earth for?” he asked, completely mystified.
“I was so hurt this afternoon because you didn’t seem to care about me two straws. You must love me, Eddie; I can’t live without it.”
“You are silly,” he said, laughing.
She dried her tears, smiling. His forgiveness comforted her and she felt now trebly happy.
Chapter XI
But Edward was certainly not an ardent lover. Bertha could not tell when first she had noticed his irresponsiveness; at the beginning she had known only that she loved her husband with all her heart, and her ardour had lit up his somewhat pallid attachment till it seemed to glow as fiercely as her own. Yet gradually she began to think that he made very little return for the wealth of affection which she lavished upon him. The causes of her dissatisfaction were scarcely explicable: a slight motion of withdrawal, an indifference to her feelings—little nothings which had seemed almost comic. Bertha at first likened Edward to the Hippolitus of Phædra, he was untamed and wild; the kisses of woman frightened him; his phlegm pleased her disguised as rustic savagery, and she said her passion should thaw the icicles in his heart. But soon she ceased to consider his passiveness amusing, sometimes she upbraided him, and often, when alone, she wept.
“I wonder if you realise what pain you cause me at times,” said Bertha.
“Oh, I don’t think I do anything of the kind.”
“You don’t see it.... When I kiss you, it is the most natural thing in the world for you to push me away, as if—almost as if you couldn’t bear me.”
“Nonsense!”
To himself Edward was the same now as when they were first married.
“Of course after four months of married life you can’t expect a man to be the same as on his honeymoon. One can’t always be making love and canoodling. Everything in its proper time and season,” he added, with the unoriginal man’s fondness for proverbial philosophy.
After the day’s work he liked to read his Standard in peace, so when Bertha came up to him he put her gently aside.
“Leave me alone for a bit, there’s a good girl.”
“Oh, you don’t love me,” she cried then, feeling as if her heart would break.
He did not look up from his paper nor make reply; he was in the middle of a leading article.
“Why don’t you answer?” she cried.
“Because you’re talking nonsense.”
He was the best-humoured of men, and Bertha’s temper never disturbed his equilibrium. He knew that women felt a little irritable at times, but if a man gave ’em plenty of rope, they’d calm down after a bit.
“Women are like chickens,” he told a friend. “Give ’em a good run, properly closed in with stout wire netting, so that they can’t get into mischief, and when they cluck and cackle just sit tight and take no notice.”
Marriage had made no great difference in Edward’s life. He had always been a man of regular habits, and these he continued to cultivate. Of course he was more comfortable.
“There’s no denying it: a fellow wants a woman to look after him,” he told Dr. Ramsay, whom he sometimes met on the latter’s rounds. “Before I was married I used to find my shirts wore out in no time, but now when I see a cuff getting a bit groggy I just give it to the Missis and she makes it as good as new.”
“There’s a good deal of extra work, isn’t there, now you’ve taken on the Home Farm?”
“Oh, bless you, I enjoy it. Fact is, I can’t get enough work