Somerset Maugham - The Collected Works of W. Somerset Maugham (33 Works in One Edition)

Arriving 7.25 to-night.—BERTHA.

41 Rue des Ecoliers, Paris.

My dear young Friend,—I am perturbed. Bertha, as you know, has for the last six weeks lived with me, for reasons the naturalness of which aroused my strongest suspicions. No one, I thought, would need so many absolutely conclusive motives to do so very simple a thing. I resisted the temptation to write to Edward (her husband—a nice man, but stupid!) to ask for an explanation, fearing that the reasons given me were the right ones (although I could not believe it); in which case I should have made myself ridiculous. Bertha in London pretended to go to a physician, but never was seen to take medicine, and I am certain no well-established specialist would venture to take two guineas from a malade imaginaire and not administer copious drugs. She accompanied me to Paris, ostensibly to get dresses, but has behaved as if their fit were of no more consequence than a change of ministry. She has taken great pains to conceal her emotions and thereby made them the more conspicuous. I cannot tell you how often she has gone through the various stages from an almost hysterical elation to an equal despondency. She has mused as profoundly as was fashionable for the young ladies of fifty years ago (we were all young ladies then—not girls!); she has played Tristan and Isolde to the distraction of myself; she has snubbed an amorous French artist to the distraction of his wife; finally she has wept, and after weeping over-powdered her eyes, which in a pretty woman is an infallible sign of extreme mental prostration.

This morning when I got up I found at my door the following message: “Don’t think me an utter fool, but I couldn’t stand another day away from Edward. Leaving by the 10 o’clock train.—B.” Now at 10.30 she had an appointment at Paquin’s to try on the most ravishing dinner-dress you could imagine.

I will not insult you by drawing inferences from all these facts: I know you would much sooner draw them yourself, and I have a sufficiently good opinion of you to be certain that they will coincide with mine.—Yours very sincerely,

MARY LEY.

P.S.— I am sending this to await you at Seville. Remember me to Mrs. J.

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Bertha’s relief was unmistakable when she landed on English soil; at last she was near Edward, and she had been extremely sea-sick. Though it was less than thirty miles from Dover to Blackstable the communications were so bad that it was necessary to wait for hours at the port, or take the boat-train to London and then come sixty miles down again. Bertha was exasperated at the delay, forgetting that she was now (thank Heaven!) in a free country, where the railways were not run for the convenience of passengers, but the passengers necessary evils to create dividends for an ill-managed company. Bertha’s impatience was so great that she felt it impossible to wait at Dover; she preferred to go the extra hundred miles and save herself ten minutes rather than spend the afternoon in the dreary waiting-room, or wandering about the town. The train seemed to crawl; and her restlessness became quite painful as she recognized the Kentish country, the fat meadows with trim hedges, the portly trees, and the general air of prosperity.

Bertha’s thoughts were full of Edward, and he was the whole cause of her impatience. She had hoped, against her knowledge of him, that he would meet her at Dover, and it had been a disappointment not to see him. Then she thought he might have come to London, though not explaining to herself how he could possibly have divined that she would be there. Her heart beat absurdly when she saw a back which might have been Edward’s. Still later, she comforted herself with the idea that he would certainly be at Faversley, which was the next station to Blackstable. When they reached that place she put her head out of window, looking along the platform—but he was nowhere.

“He might have come as far this,” she thought.

Now, the train steaming on, she recognised the country more precisely, the desolate marsh and the sea—the line ran almost at the water’s edge; the tide was out, leaving a broad expanse of shining mud, over which the seagulls flew, screeching. Then the houses were familiar, cottages beaten by wind and weather, the Jolly Sailor , where in the old days many a smuggled keg of brandy had been hidden on its way to the cathedral city of Tercanbury. The coastguard station was passed, a long building, trim and low. Finally they rattled across the bridge over the High Street; and the porters with their Kentish drawl, called out, “Blackstable, Blackstable.”

Bertha’s emotions were always uncontrolled, and so powerful as sometimes to unfit her for action: now she had hardly strength to open the carriage door.

“At last!” she cried, with a gasp of relief.

She had never adored her husband so passionately as then, and her love was a physical sensation that turned her faint. The arrival of the moment so anxiously awaited left her half-frightened; she was of those who eagerly look for an opportunity and then can scarcely seize it.

Bertha’s heart was so full that she was afraid of bursting into tears when she at last she should see Edward walking towards her; she had pictured the scene so often, her husband advancing with his swinging stride, waving his stick, the dogs in front, rushing towards her and barking furiously. The two porters waddled with their seaman’s walk to the van to get out the luggage; people were stepping from the carriages. Next to her a pasty-faced clerk descended, in a dingy black, with a baby in his arms; and he was followed by a haggard wife with another baby and innumerable parcels. A labourer sauntered down the platform, three or four sailors, and a couple of infantry-men. They all surged for the wicket, at which stood the ticket-collector. The porters got out the boxes, and the train steamed off; an irascible city man was swearing volubly because his luggage had gone to Margate. (It’s a free country, thank Heaven!) The station-master, in a decorated hat and a self-satisfied air, strolled up to see what was the matter. Bertha looked along the platform wildly. Edward was not there.

The station-master passed, and nodded patronisingly.

“Have you seen Mr. Craddock?” she asked.

“No, I can’t say I have. But I think there’s a carriage below for you.”

Bertha began to tremble. A porter asked whether he should take her boxes; she nodded, unable to speak. She went down and found the brougham at the station door; the coachman touched his hat and gave her a note.

Dear Bertha,—Awfully sorry I can’t come to meet you. I never expected you, so accepted an invitation of Lord Philip Dirk to a tennis tournament, and a ball afterwards. He’s going to sleep me, so I shan’t be back till to-morrow. Don’t get in a wax. See you in the morning.

E. C.

Bertha got into the carriage and huddled herself into one corner so that none should see her. At first she scarcely understood; she had spent the last hours at such a height of excitement that the disappointment deprived her of the power of thinking. She never took things reasonably, and was now stunned; what had happened seemed impossible. It was so callous that Edward should go to a tennis-tournament when she was coming home—looking forward eagerly to seeing him. And it was no ordinary home-coming; it was the first time she had ever left him; and then she had gone, hating him, as she thought, for good. But her absence having revived her love, she had returned, yearning for reconciliation. And he was not there; he acted as though she had been to town for a day’s shopping.

“Oh, God, what a fool I was to come!”