for days bertha was overwhelmed with grief. she thought always of the dead child that had never lived, and her heart ached. but above all she was tormented by the idea that all her pain had been futile; she had gone through so much, her sleep still was full of the past agony, and it had been utterly, utterly useless. her body was mutilated so that she wondered it was possible for her to recover; she had lost her old buoyancy, that vitality which had been so enjoyable, and she felt like an old woman. her sense of weariness was unendurable—she was so tired that it seemed to her impossible to get rest. she lay in bed, day after day, in a posture of hopeless fatigue, on her back, with arms stretched out alongside of her, the pillows supporting her head: all her limbs were singularly powerless.
recovery was very slow, and edward suggested sending for miss ley, but bertha refused.
“i don’t want to see anybody,” she said; “i merely want to lie still and be quiet.”
it bored her to speak with people, and even her affections, for the time, were dormant: she looked upon edward as some one apart from her, his presence and absence gave no particular emotion. she was tired, and desired only to be left alone. all sympathy was unnecessary and useless, she knew that no one could enter into the bitterness of her sorrow, and she preferred to bear it alone.
little by little, however, bertha regained strength and consented to see the friends who called, some genuinely sorry, others impelled merely by a sense of duty or by a ghoul-like curiosity. miss glover, at this period, was a great trial; the good creature felt for bertha the sincerest sympathy, but her feelings were one thing, her sense of right and wrong another. she did not think the young wife took her affliction with proper humility. gradually a rebellious feeling had replaced the extreme prostration of the beginning, and bertha raged at the injustice of her lot. miss glover came every day, bringing flowers and good advice; but bertha was not docile, and refused to be satisfied with miss glover’s pious consolations. when the good creature read the bible, bertha listened with a firmer closing of her lips, sullenly.
“do you like me to read the bible to you, dear?” asked the parson’s sister once.
and bertha, driven beyond her patience, could not as usual command her tongue.
“if it amuses you, dear,” she answered, bitterly.
“oh, bertha, you’re not taking it in the proper spirit—you’re so rebellious, and it’s wrong, it’s utterly wrong.”
“i can only think of my baby,” said bertha, hoarsely.
“why don’t you pray to god, dear—shall i offer a short prayer now, bertha?”
“no, i don’t want to pray to god—he’s either impotent or cruel.”
“bertha,” cried miss glover. “you don’t know what you’re saying. oh, pray to god to melt your stubbornness; pray to god to forgive you.”
“i don’t want to be forgiven. i’ve done nothing that needs it. it’s god who needs my forgiveness—not i his.”
“you don’t know what you’re saying, bertha,” replied miss glover, very gravely and sorrowfully.
bertha was still so ill that miss glover dared not press the subject, but she was grievously troubled. she asked herself whether she should consult her brother, to whom an absurd shyness prevented her from mentioning spiritual matters, unless necessity compelled. but she had immense faith in him, and to her he was a type of all that a christian clergyman should be. although her character was so much stronger than his, mr. glover always seemed to his sister a pillar of strength; and often in past times, when the flesh was more stubborn, had she found help and consolation in his very mediocre sermons. finally, however, miss glover decided to speak to him, with the result that, for a week she avoided spiritual topics in her daily conversation with the invalid; then, bertha having grown a little stronger, without previously mentioning the fact, she brought her brother to court leys.
miss glover went alone to bertha’s room, in her ardent sense of propriety fearing that bertha, in bed, might not be costumed decorously enough for the visit of a clerical gentleman.
“oh,” she said, “charles is downstairs and would like to see you so much. i thought i’d better come up first to see if you were—er—presentable.”
bertha was sitting up in bed, with a mass of cushions and pillows behind her—a bright red jacket contrasted with her dark hair and the pallor of her skin. she drew her lips together when she heard that the vicar was below, and a slight frown darkened her forehead. miss glover caught sight of it.
“i don’t think she likes your coming,” said miss glover—to encourage him—when she fetched her brother, “but i think it’s your duty.”
“yes, i think it’s my duty,” replied mr. glover, who liked the approaching interview as little as bertha.
he was an honest man, oppressed by the inroads of dissent; but his ministrations were confined to the services in church, the collecting of subscriptions, and the visiting of the church-going poor. it was something new to be brought before a rebellious gentlewoman, and he did not quite know how to treat her.
miss glover opened the bedroom door for her brother and he entered, a cold wind laden with carbolic acid. she solemnly put a chair for him by the bedside and another for herself at a little distance.
“ring for the tea before you sit down, fanny,” said bertha.
“i think, if you don’t mind, charles would like to speak to you first,” said miss glover. “am i not right, charles?”
“yes, dear.”
“i took the liberty of telling him what you said to me the other day, bertha.”
mrs. craddock pursed her lips, but made no reply.
“i hope you’re not angry with me for doing so, but i thought it my duty.... now, charles.”
the vicar of leanham coughed.
“i can quite understand,” he said, “that you must be most distressed at your affliction. it’s a most unfortunate occurrence. i need not say that fanny and i sympathise with you from the bottom of our hearts.”
“we do indeed,” said his sister.
still bertha did not answer and miss glover looked at her uneasily. the vicar coughed again.
“but i always think that we should be thankful for the cross we have to bear. it is, as it were, a measure of the confidence that god places in us.”
bertha remained quite silent and miss glover saw that no good would come by beating about the bush.
“the fact is, bertha,” she said, breaking the awkward silence, “that charles and i are very anxious that you should be churched. you don’t mind our saying so, but we’re both a great deal older than you are, and we think it will do you good. we do hope you’ll consent to it; but, more than that, charles is here as the clergyman of your parish, to tell you that it is your duty.”
“i hope it won’t be necessary for me to put it in that way, mrs. craddock.”
bertha paused a moment longer, and then asked for a prayer-book. miss glover gave a smile which for her was quite radiant.
“i’ve been wanting for a long time to make you a little present, bertha,” she said, “and it occurred to me that you might like a prayer-book with good large print. i’ve noticed in church that the book you generally use is so small that it must try your eyes, and be a temptation to you not to follow the service. so i’ve brought you one to-day, which it will give me very much pleasure if you will accept.”
she produced a large volume, bound in gloomy black cloth, and redolent of the antiseptic odours which pervaded the vicarage. the print was indeed large, but, since the society which arranged the publication insisted on the combination of cheapness with utility, the paper was abominable.
“thank you very much,” said bertha, holding out her hand for the gift. “it’s awfully kind of you.”
“shall i find you the churching of women?”
bertha nodded, and presently the vicar’s sister handed her the book, open. she read a few lines and dropped it.
“i have no wish to ‘give hearty thanks unto god,’” she said, looking almost fiercely at the worthy pair. “i’m very sorry to offend your prejudices, but it seems to me absurd that i should prostrate myself in gratitude to god.”
“oh, mrs. craddock, i trust you don’t mean what you say,” said the vicar.
“this is what i told you, charles,” said miss glover. “i don’t think bertha is well, but still this seems to me dreadfully wicked.”
bertha frowned, finding it difficult to repress the sarcasm which rose to her lips; her forbearance was sorely tried. but mr. glover was a little undecided.
“we must be as thankful to god for the afflictions he sends as for the benefits,” he said at last.
“i am not a worm to crawl upon the ground and give thanks to the foot that crushes me.”
“i think that is blasphemous, bertha,” said miss glover.
“oh, i have no patience with you, fanny,” said bertha, raising herself, a flush lighting up her face. “can you realise what i’ve gone through, the terrible pain of it? oh, it was too awful. even now when i think of it i almost scream.”
“it is by suffering that we rise to our higher self,” said miss glover. “suffering is a fire that burns away the grossness of our material natures.”
“what rubbish you talk,” cried bertha, passionately. “you can say that when you’ve never suffered. people say that suffering ennobles one; it’s a lie, it only makes one brutal.... but i would have borne it—for the sake of my child. it was all useless—utterly useless. dr. ramsay told me the child had been dead the whole time. oh, if god made me suffer like that, it’s infamous. i wonder you’re not ashamed to put it down to god. how can you imagine him to be so stupid, so cruel! why, even the vilest beast in the slums wouldn’t cause a woman such frightful and useless agony for the mere pleasure of it.”
miss glover sprang to her feet. “bertha, your illness is no excuse for this. you must either be mad, or utterly depraved and wicked.”
“no, i’m more charitable than you,” cried bertha. “i know there is no god.”
“then i, for one, can have nothing more to do with you.” miss glover’s cheeks were flaming, and a sudden indignation dispelled her habitual shyness.
“fanny, fanny!” cried her brother, “restrain yourself.”
“oh, this isn’t a time to restrain one’s self, charles. it’s one’s duty to speak out sometimes. no, bertha, if you’re an atheist, i can have nothing more to do with you.”
“she spoke in anger,” said the vicar. “it is not our duty to judge her.”
“it’s our duty to protest when the name of god is taken in vain, charles. if you think bertha’s position excuses her blasphemies, charles, then i think you ought to be ashamed of yourself.... but i’m not afraid to speak out. yes, bertha, i’ve known for a long time that you were proud and headstrong, but i thought time would change you. i have always had confidence in you, because i thought at the bottom you were good. but if you deny your maker, bertha, there can be no hope for you.”
“fanny, fanny,” murmured the vicar.
“let me speak, charles; i think you’re a bad and wicked woman—and i can no longer feel sorry for you, because everything that you have suffered i think you have thoroughly deserved. your heart is absolutely hard, and i know nothing so thoroughly wicked as a hard-hearted woman.”
“my dear fanny,” said bertha, smiling, “we’ve both been absurdly melodramatic.”
“i refuse to laugh at the subject. i see nothing ridiculous in it. come, charles, let us go, and leave her to her own thoughts.”
but as miss glover bounded to the door the handle was turned from the outside and mrs. branderton came in. the position was awkward, and her appearance seemed almost providential to the vicar, who could not fling out of the room like his sister, but also could not make up his mind to shake hands with bertha, as if nothing had happened. mrs. branderton entered, all airs and graces, smirking and ogling, and the gew-gaws on her brand-new bonnet quivered with every movement.
“i told the servant i could find my way up alone, bertha,” she said. “i wanted so much to see you.”
“mr. and miss glover were just going. how kind of you to come!”
miss glover bounced out of the room with a smile at mrs. branderton that was almost ghastly; and mr. glover, meek, polite, and as antiseptic as ever, shaking hands with mrs. branderton, followed his sister.
“what queer people they are!” said mrs. branderton, standing at the window to see them come out of the front door. “i really don’t think they’re quite human.... why, she’s walking on in front—she might wait for him—taking such long steps; and he’s trying to catch her up. i believe they’re having a race. ha! ha! what ridiculous people! isn’t it a pity she will wear short skirts—my dear, her feet and ankles are positively awful. i believe they wear one another’s boots indiscriminately.... and how are you, dear? i think you’re looking much better.”
mrs. branderton sat in such a position as to have full view of herself in a mirror.
“what nice looking-glasses you have in your room, my love. no woman can dress properly without them. now, you’ve only got to look at poor fanny glover to know that she’s so modest as never even to look at herself in the glass to put her hat on.”
mrs. branderton chattered on, thinking that she was doing bertha good. “a woman doesn’t want one to be solemn when she’s ill. i know when i have anything the matter, i like some one to talk to me about the fashions. i remember in my young days, when i was ill, i used to get old mr. crowhurst, the former vicar, to come and read the ladies’ papers to me. he was such a nice old man, not a bit like a clergyman; and he used to say i was his only parishioner whom he really liked visiting.... i’m not tiring you, am i, dear?”
“oh, dear, no!” said bertha.
“now i suppose the glovers have been talking all sorts of stuff to you. of course one has to put up with it, i suppose, because it sets a good example to the lower orders; but i must say i do think the clergy nowadays sometimes forget their place. i consider it most objectionable when they insist on talking religion with you, as if you were a common person.... but they’re not nearly so nice as they used to be. in my young days the clergy were always gentlemen’s sons—but then they weren’t expected to trouble about the poor. i can quite understand that now a gentleman shouldn’t like to become a clergyman; he has to mix with the lower classes, and they’re growing more familiar every day.”
but suddenly bertha, without warning, burst into tears. mrs. branderton was flabbergasted!
“my dear, what is the matter? where are your salts? shall i ring the bell?”
bertha, sobbing violently, begged mrs. branderton to take no notice of her. that fashionable creature had a sentimental heart, and would have been delighted to weep with bertha; but she had several calls to make, and could not risk a disarrangement of her person. she was also curious, and would have given much to find out the cause of bertha’s outburst. she comforted herself, however, by giving the hancocks, whose at home day it was, a detailed account of the affair; and they, shortly afterwards, recounted it with sundry embellishments to mrs. mayston ryle.
mrs. mayston ryle, magnificently imposing as ever, snorted like a charger eager for battle.
“mrs. branderton sends me to sleep frequently,” she said; “but i can quite understand that if the poor thing isn’t well, mrs. branderton would make her cry. i never see her myself unless i’m in the most robust health, otherwise i know she’d simply make me howl.”
“but i wonder what was the matter with poor mrs. craddock,” said miss hancock.
“i don’t know,” answered mrs. mayston ryle in her majestic manner. “but i’ll find out. i dare say she only wants a little good society. i shall go and see her.”
