Dr. Ramsay arrived and burst at once into a prodigious stream of congratulation, partly jocose, partly grave and sentimental, but entirely distasteful to the fastidiousness of Miss Ley. Bertha’s guardian was a big, broad-shouldered man, with a mane of fair hair, now turning white; Miss Ley vowed he was the last person upon this earth to wear mutton-chop whiskers. He was very red cheeked, and by his size, joviality, and florid complexion, gave an idea of unalterable health. With his shaven chin and his loud-voiced burliness he looked like a yeoman of the old school, before bad times and the spread of education had made the farmer a sort of cross between the city clerk and the Newmarket trainer. Dr. Ramsay’s frock coat and top hat, notwithstanding the habit of many years, sat uneasily upon him with the air of Sunday clothes upon an agricultural labourer. Miss Ley, who liked to find absurd descriptions of people, or to hit upon an apt comparison, had never been able exactly to suit him; and that somewhat irritated her. In her eyes the only link that connected the doctor with humanity was a certain love of antiquities, which had filled his house with old snuff-boxes, china, and other precious things: humanity, Miss Ley took to be a small circle of persons, mostly feminine, middle-aged, unattached, and of independent means, who travelled on the continent, read good literature and abhorred the vast majority of their fellow-creatures, especially when these shrieked philanthropically, thrust their religion in your face, or cultivated their muscle with aggressive ardour!
Dr. Ramsay ate his luncheon with an appetite that Miss Ley thought must be a great source of satisfaction to his butcher. She asked politely after his wife, to whom she secretly objected for her meek submission to the doctor. Miss Ley made a practice of avoiding those women who had turned themselves into mere shadows of their lords, more especially when their conversation was of household affairs; and Mrs. Ramsay, except on Sundays, when her mind was turned to the clothes of the congregation, thought of nothing beyond her husband’s enormous appetite and the methods of subduing it.
They returned to the drawing-room and Dr. Ramsay began to tell Bertha about the property, who this tenant was and the condition of that farm, winding up with the pitiful state of the times and the impossibility of getting rents.
“And now, Bertha, what are you thinking of doing?” he asked.
This was the opportunity for which Bertha had been looking.
“I?” she said quietly—“Oh, I intend to get married.”
Dr. Ramsay, opening his mouth, threw back his head and laughed immoderately.
“Very good indeed,” he cried. “Ha, ha!”
Miss Ley looked at him with uplifted eyebrows.
“Girls are coming on nowadays,” he said, with much amusement. “Why, in my time, a young woman would have been all blushes and downcast glances. If any one had talked of marriage she would have prayed Heaven to send an earthquake to swallow her up.”