Miss Ley had at last accepted one of the invitations which Edward insisted should be showered upon her, and wrote to say she was coming down for a week. Edward was of course much pleased; as he said, he wanted to be friends with everybody, and it didn’t seem natural that Bertha’s only relative should make a point of avoiding them.
“It looks as if she didn’t approve of our marriage, and it makes the people talk.”
He met the good lady at the station, and somewhat to her disgust greeted her with effusion.
“Ah, here you are at last!” he bellowed, in his jovial way. “We thought you were never coming. Here, porter!” He raised his voice so that the platform shook and rumbled.
He seized both Miss Ley’s hands, and the terrifying thought flashed through her head that he would kiss her before the assembled multitude.
“He’s cultivating the airs of the country squire,” she thought. “I wish he wouldn’t.”
He took the innumerable bags with which she travelled and scattered them among the attendants. He even tried to induce her to take his arm to the dog-cart, but this honour she stoutly refused.
“Now, will you come round to this side and I’ll help you up. Your luggage will come on afterwards with the pony.”
He was managing everything in a self-confident and masterful fashion; Miss Ley noticed that marriage had dispelled the shyness which had been in him rather an attractive feature. He was becoming bluff and hearty. Also he was filling out. Prosperity and a knowledge of greater importance had broadened his back and straightened his shoulders; he was quite three inches more round the chest than when she had first known him, and his waist had proportionately increased.
“If he goes on developing in this way,” she thought, “the good man will be colossal by the time he’s forty.”
“Of course, Aunt Polly,” he said, boldly dropping the respectful Miss Ley, which hitherto he had invariably used, though his new relative was not a woman whom most men would have ventured to treat familiarly. “Of course it’s all rot about your leaving us in a week; you must stay a couple of months at least.”
“It’s very good of you, dear Edward,” replied Miss Ley drily, “but I have other engagements.”
“Then you must break them; I can’t have people leave my house immediately they come.”
Miss Ley raised her eyebrows and smiled; was it his house already? Dear me!
“My dear Edward,” she answered, “I never stay anywhere longer than two days—the first day I talk to people, the second I let them talk to me, and the third I go.... I stay a week at hotels so as to go en pension, and get my washing properly aired.”
“You’re treating us like a hotel,” said Edward, laughing.
“It’s a great compliment: in private houses one gets so abominably waited on.”
“Ah well, we’ll say no more about it. But I shall have your trunk taken to the box-room and I keep the key of it.”
Miss Ley gave the short, dry laugh which denoted that her interlocutor’s remark had not amused her, but something in her own mind. Presently they arrived at Court Leys.
“D’you see all the differences since you were last here?” asked Edward, jovially.
Miss Ley looked round and pursed her lips.
“It’s charming,” she said.
“I knew it would make you sit up,” he cried, laughing.
Bertha received her aunt in the hall and embraced her with the grave decorum which had always characterised their relations.
“How clever you are, Bertha,” said Miss Ley; “you manage to preserve your beautiful figure.”
Then she set herself solemnly to investigate the connubial bliss of the young couple.
Chapter XII
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,”