The Beth Book Part 28

The same faculty made Beth either the naughtiest or the best of children; the difference depended on her heart: if that were touched, she was all sympathy; but if no appeal was made to her feelings, her daily doings were the outcome of so many erratic impulses acted on without consideration, merely to vary the disastrous monotony of those long idle afternoons.

The day after she had surprised her mother fretting over her letters, another packet arrived. Beth happened to be early up that morning, and opened the door to the postman. She would like to have given the packet back to him, but that being impossible, she carried it up to the acting-room and hid it in the roof. When her mother came down, however, she found to her consternation that the fact of there being no letter at all that morning was a greater trouble if anything than the arrival of the one the day before; so she boldly brought it down and delivered it, quite expecting to be whipped. But for once Mrs.

Caldwell asked for an explanation, and the child's motive was so evident that even her mother was more affected by her sympathy than enraged by the inconvenient expression of it.

The next day she was playing on the pier with Bernadine. Her mother and Aunt Victoria were walking up and down, not paying much attention to the children. First they swung on a chain that was stretched from post to post down the middle of the pier to keep people from being washed off in stormy weather; but Bernadine tumbled over backwards and hurt her head, and was jeered at besides by some rude little street children, who could not understand why the little Caldwells, who were as shabby as themselves, should look down on them, and refuse to a.s.sociate with them.

It was not Beth's nature to be exclusive. She had no notion of differences of degree. Any pleasant person was her equal. She was as much gratified by friendly notice from the milkman, the fishwoman, and the sweep as from Lady Benyon or Count Bartahlinsky; and very early thought it contemptible to jeer at people for want of means and defects of education. She never talked of the "common people," after she found that Harriet was hurt by the phrase; and she would have been on good terms with all the street children had it not been for what Mrs.

Caldwell called "Bernadine's superior self-respect." Bernadine told if Beth spoke to one of them, and as Beth had no friends amongst them as yet, she did not feel that their acquaintance was worth fighting for.

But the street children resented the att.i.tude of the two shabby little ladies, and were always watching for opportunities to annoy them.

Accordingly, when Bernadine tumbled off the chain head-over-heels backwards, there was a howl of derision. "Oh my! Ain't she getten thin legs!" "Ah say, Julia, did you see that big 'ole i' her stockin'?" "Naw, but ah seed the patch on 'er petticoat!" "Eh--an' she's on'y getten one on, an' it isn't flannel." "An' them's ladies!"

Bernadine's pride came to her rescue on these occasions. At home she howled when she was hurt, but now she affected to laugh, and both sisters strolled off with their little heads up, and an exasperating air of indifference to the enemy. The tide was out, and they went down into the harbour and found a large oyster among the piles of the wooden jetty. When they got home, the difficulty was how to open it; but they managed to make it open itself by holding it over the kitchen fire on the shovel. When it began to lift its lid, Beth sent Bernadine for a fork, and while she was getting it Beth ate the oyster. But Bernadine could not see the joke, and her rage was not to be appeased even by the oyster-sh.e.l.l, which Beth said she might have the whole of.

The battle came off after dinner that evening. But it was a day of disaster. Harriet was out of temper; and Mrs. Caldwell appeared mysteriously, just as Beth knocked Bernadine down and sat on her stomach.

They were reading a story of French life at that time, and something came into it about snail-broth as a cure for consumption, and snail-oil as a remedy for rheumatism. The next day there was a most extraordinary smell all over the house. Mrs. Caldwell, Aunt Victoria, Harriet, and Bernadine went sniffing about, but could find nothing to account for it. Beth sat at the dining-table with a book before her, taking no notice. At last Harriet had occasion to open the oven door, and just as she did so there was a loud explosion, and the kitchen wall opposite was bespattered with boiling animal matter. Beth had got up early, and collected snails enough in the garden to fill a blacking-bottle, corked them up tight, and put them into the darkest corner of the oven, her idea being to render them into oil, as Harriet rendered suet into fat, and go and rub rheumatic people with it. As usual, however, her motive was ignored, while a great deal was made of the mess on the kitchen wall--which disheartened her, especially as several other philanthropic enterprises happened to fail about the same time.

Emily appeared with a bad toothache one day, and finding a remedy for it gave Beth a momentary interest in life. She told Emily she had a cure for toothache, and Emily, never doubting, let her put some soft substance into the tooth with the end of a match.

"It won't taste very nice," said Beth; "but you mustn't mind that. You just go home, and you'll find it won't ache any more."

When Emily returned next day she gratefully proclaimed herself cured, and her mother wanted to know "whatever the stuff was."

"Soap," said Beth.

"Oh, you mucky thing!" Emily exclaimed. She resented the application of such a substance to the inside of her person. Her plebeian mind was too narrow to conceive a second legitimate use for soap, and from that day Beth's influence declined. Emily's attendance became irregular, then gradually ceased altogether; not, however, before Beth's own interest in the lessons was over, and her mind much occupied with other things.

CHAPTER XVII

The dower-house of the Benyon family stood in a street which was merely an extension of Orchard Street, and could be seen from Mrs.

Caldwell's windows. Lady Benyon, having produced a huge family, and buried her husband, had done her day's work in the world, as it were, and now had full leisure to live as she liked; so she "lived well"; and in the intervals of living, otherwise eating, she sat in the big bow-window of her sitting-room, digesting, and watching her neighbours. From her large old-fashioned house she commanded a fine view down the wide irregular front street to the sea, with a diagonal glimpse down two other streets which ran parallel with the front street; while on the left she could see up Orchard Street as far as the church; so that everybody came under her observation sooner or later, and, to Beth, it always seemed that she dominated the whole place. Most of the day her head could be seen above the wire-blind; but, as she seldom went out, her acute old face and the four dark sausage-shaped curls, laid horizontally on either side of it, were almost all of her that was known to the inhabitants.

Mrs. Caldwell went regularly to see Lady Benyon, and sometimes took the children with her. On one occasion when she had done so, Lady Benyon made her take a seat in the window where she was sitting herself, so that they could both look out. Beth and Bernadine sat in the background with a picture-book, in which they seemed so absorbed that the conversation flowed on before them with very little constraint. Beth's ears were open, however, as usual.

"After twenty-two children," Lady Benyon remarked, "one cannot expect to be as active as one was."

"No, indeed," Mrs. Caldwell answered cheerfully. "_I_ have only had as good as fourteen, and I'm quite a wreck. I don't know what it is to pa.s.s a day free from pain. But, however, it is so ordered, and I don't complain. If only they turn out well when they do come, that's everything."

"Ah, you're right there," Lady Benyon answered.

"You know _my_ trial," Mrs. Caldwell pursued--Beth's face instantly became a blank. "I am afraid she cares for no one but herself. It shows what spoiling a child does. Her father could never make enough of her."

"Well, I suppose she's naughty," Lady Benyon rejoined with a laugh; "but she's promising all the same--and not only in appearance. The things she says, you know!"

"Oh, well, yes," Mrs. Caldwell allowed. "She certainly says things sometimes, but that's not much comfort when you never know what she'll be doing. Now Mildred has never given me a moment's anxiety in her life, except on account of her delicate health, poor little body; and Bernadine is a dear, sweet little thing. _She_ is the only one who is thoroughly unruly and selfish."

Beth's blood boiled at the accusation.

"How does the old aunt get on?" Lady Benyon asked presently.

"Oh, she seems to be very well."

"Don't you find it rather a trial to have her about always?"

Mrs. Caldwell shrugged her shoulders with an air of resignation. "Oh, you know, she means well," she replied, "and there really was nothing else for it. But I must say I have no patience with cant."

Beth, in opposition, still smarting from her mother's accusation of selfishness, determined at once to inquire into Aunt Victoria's religious tenets, with a view to approving of them.

"Well, James Patten played a mean part in that business," Lady Benyon observed. "But I always say, beware of a man who does his own housekeeping. When they keep the money in their own hands, and pay the bills themselves, don't trust them. That sort of man is a cur at heart, you may be sure. And as for a man who takes possession of his wife's money, and doles it out to her a little at a time--! I know one such--without a penny of his own, mind you! He gives his wife a cheque for five pounds a month; the rest goes on other women, and she never suspects it! He's one of those plausible gentlemen who's always looking for a post that will pay him, and never gets it--you know the kind of thing." Here the old lady caught Beth's eye. "You take my advice," she said. "Don't ever marry a man who does his own housekeeping. He's a crowing hen, that sort of man, you may be sure. I warn you against the man who does a woman's work."

"And if a woman does a man's work?" said the intelligent Beth.

"It is often a very great help," Mrs. Caldwell put in, with a quick mental survey of the reams of official letters she had written for her husband.

Lady Benyon pursed up her mouth.

Aunt Victoria was one of those forlorn old ladies who have n.o.body actually their own to care for them, although they may have numbers of relations, and acquire odd habits from living much alone. She was a great source of interest to Beth, who would sit silently watching her by the hour together, her bright eyes steady and her countenance a blank. The intentness of her gaze fidgeted the old lady, who would look up suddenly every now and then and ask her what she was staring at. "Nothing, Aunt Victoria; I was only thinking," Beth always answered; and then she affected to occupy herself until the old lady returned to her work or her book, when Beth would resume her interrupted study. But she liked Aunt Victoria. The old lady was sharp with her sometimes, but she meant to be kind, and was always just; and Beth respected her. She had more faith in her, too, than she had in her mother, and secretly became her partisan on all occasions. She had instantly detected the tone of detraction in the allusions Lady Benyon and her mother had made to Aunt Victoria that afternoon, and stolidly resented it.

When they went home, she ran upstairs and knocked at Aunt Victoria's door. It was immediately opened, and Beth, seeing what she took for an old gentleman in a short black petticoat and loose red jacket, with short, thick, stubbly white hair standing up all over his head, started back. But it was only Aunt Victoria without her cap and front.

When she saw Beth's consternation, the old lady put her hand up to her head. "I had forgotten," she muttered; then she added severely, "But you should never show surprise, Beth, at anything in anybody's appearance. It is very ill-bred."

"I don't think I shall ever be surprised again," Beth answered quaintly. "But I want you to tell me, Aunt Victoria. What do you believe in?"

"What do you mean, child?"

"Oh, you know, about G.o.d, and the Bible, and cant, and that sort of thing," Beth answered evenly.

"Come in and sit down," said Aunt Victoria.

Beth sat on a cla.s.sical piece of furniture that stood in the window, a sort of stool or throne, with ends like a sofa and no back. It had belonged to Aunt Victoria's father, and she valued it very much.

Beth's feet, as she sat on it, did not touch the ground. Aunt Victoria stood for a moment in the middle of the room reflecting, and, as she did so, she looked, with her short, thick, stubbly white hair, more like a thin old gentleman in a black petticoat and loose red jacket than ever.

"I believe, Beth," she said solemnly, "I believe in G.o.d the Father Almighty. I believe that if we do His holy will here on earth, we shall, when we die, be received by Him into bliss everlasting; but if we do not do His holy will, then He will condemn us to the bad place, where we shall burn for ever."

"But what _is_ His holy will?" Beth asked.

"It is His holy will that we should do right, and that we should not do wrong. But this is a big subject, Beth, and I can only unfold it to you bit by bit."

"But will you unfold it?"

"I will, as best I can, if you will listen earnestly."