The Beth Book Part 45

"By no means," the little old gentleman answered, looking up at him over his spectacles, and then at Beth. "By no means; let the young lady remain."

Aunt Grace Mary put her arm round Beth. The lawyer broke the seal, unfolded the will, and remarked by way of preface: "The doc.u.ment is in the handwriting of the deceased. Ahem!"

Instantly into every face there came the expression that people wear in church. Mr. Watson proceeded to read; but in a dry, distinct, matter-of-fact tone, devoid of all emotion. A lawyer reading a will aloud is sure of the interest of his audience, and, on this occasion, it was evident that each member of the little group listened with strained attention, but with very different feelings. What they gathered was that Miss Victoria Bench, spinster, being of sound mind, did will and bequeath everything of which she might die possessed to her beloved great-niece, Elizabeth Caldwell, commonly called Beth.

Should Beth marry, the money was to be settled upon her for her exclusive use. The present income from the property, about fifty pounds a year, was to be devoted to the education of the said Elizabeth Caldwell, commonly called Beth.

Uncle James's jaw dropped during the reading. "But," he stammered when it was over, "if the investments recover?"

"Then Miss Elizabeth Caldwell, commonly called Beth, will have an income of between six and seven hundred a year, _at least_," said the lawyer, smiling.

Aunt Grace Mary clasped Beth close in a spasm of congratulation. Mrs.

Caldwell burst into tears. Beth herself, with an unmoved countenance, perceived the disgust of Uncle James, her mother's emotion, and something like amus.e.m.e.nt in Lady Benyon's face; and she also perceived, but at a great distance as it were, that there was a dim prospect of some change for the better in her life.

"Poor little body!" said Aunt Grace Mary, caressing her.

"Rich little body!" said Lady Benyon. "Come and kiss me, Puck, and let me congratulate you."

"It is very nice for you, Beth, I am sure," said Mrs. Caldwell plaintively, holding out her hand to Beth as she pa.s.sed. Beth accepted this also as a congratulation, and stooped and kissed her mother. Then the lawyer got up and shook hands with her, and thereupon Uncle James, feeling forced for decency's sake to do something, observed pointedly: "I suppose Miss Victoria Bench was quite sane when she made this bequest?"

"I should say that your supposition was correct," said the lawyer.

"Miss Victoria Bench always seemed to me to be an eminently sane person."

There was no allusion whatever to Uncle James in Aunt Victoria's will.

She thanked her niece, Caroline Caldwell, kindly for the shelter she had given her in her misfortune, and hoped that by providing for Beth she would relieve her mother's mind of all anxiety about the child, to whom, she proceeded to state, she left all she had in proof of the tender affection she felt for the child, and in return for the disinterested love and duty she had received from Beth. Aunt Victoria wished Beth to have her room when she was gone, in order that Beth might, as she grew up, have proper privacy in her life, with undisturbed leisure for study, reflection, and prayer. She added that she considered Beth a child of exceptional temperament, that peculiar care and kindness would be necessary to develop her character; but Miss Victoria hoped, prayed, and believed that, with the help of the excellent abilities with which she had been endowed, Beth would not only work out her own salvation eventually, but do something notable to the glory of G.o.d and for the good of mankind.

Beth's heart glowed when she heard this pa.s.sage, and ever afterwards, when she recalled it, she felt strangely stimulated.

After the last solemn words of the will had been read, and the little scene of congratulation had been enacted, there was a pause in the proceedings, then Uncle James remarked in his happiest manner: "The importance which old ladies attach to their little bequests is only to be equalled by the strength of their sentiments, and the grandeur of the language in which they are expressed. One would think a princ.i.p.ality was being bequeathed to a princess, instead of a few pounds to an obscure little girl, to judge by the tone of the whole doc.u.ment. Well, well!"

Beth looked at him, then drew down the corners of her mouth impertinently. "There is one thing I can console you with, Uncle James," she said. "You may be quite sure that when I do come into my kingdom, I shall carefully conceal the fact that I am any relation of yours."

Later in the day, Beth found her mother sitting in her accustomed place by the dining-table, rocking herself sideways over her work, and with a worried expression of countenance, as if she were uneasy in her mind.

"Aren't you pleased, mamma," said Beth, "that I should be left the money?"

"Why, yes, of course, my dear child," Mrs. Caldwell rejoined. Her tone to Beth had altered very much since the morning. Even in a few short hours Beth had been made to feel that mere money was making her a person of more importance than she had ever before been considered.

Her mother had stopped short, but Beth waited, and Mrs. Caldwell recommenced: "I am delighted on your account. Only, I was just thinking. The money is of no use to you just now, and it would have made all the difference to Jim. He ought to be making friends now who will last him his life and help him on in his career; but he can do nothing without an allowance, and I cannot make him one. There is no hurry for your education. In fact, I think it would be better for your health if you were not taught too much at present. But you shall have your aunt's room, Beth, to study in if you like. You may even sleep there, although I shall feel it when you leave mine. It will be breaking up the family. That remark in the will about proper privacy seems to me great nonsense, and you know I am not legally bound to give you a room to yourself. However, it was the dear old lady's last request to me, and that makes it sacred, so it shall be carried out to the letter. The room is yours, and I hope you will enjoy your privacy."

"Oh, I _shall_," Beth exclaimed with uncomplimentary fervour.

Mrs. Caldwell sighed and sewed on in silence for a little.

"The dear old lady left you the money because she believed you would do some good with it," she resumed. "'For the good of mankind.' Those are her own words. And I do think that is rather your line, Beth; and what greater good can you do to begin with than help your brother on in the world? To spend the money on him instead of on yourself would really be a fine, unselfish thing to do."

Beth's great grey eyes dilated; the prospect was alluring. "I suppose there would not be enough for both of us?" she ventured tentatively--"enough for me to be taught some _few_ things properly, you know--English, music, French."

"On fifty pounds a year, my dear child!" her mother exclaimed sorrowfully. "Fifty pounds goes no way at all." Beth sighed.

"Besides," Mrs. Caldwell pursued, "_I_ can teach you all these things.

You've got beyond your childish tiresomeness now, and have only to ask, and then I will tell you all you don't know. It would be a pleasure and an occupation for me, and indeed, Beth, I have very little pleasure in life. The days are long and lonely." Beth looked up with sudden sympathy. "But if you will let me give you the lessons, and earn the money, I could send it to Jim, and that would comfort me greatly, and add also to _your_ happiness, I should think."

It was not in Beth to resist such an appeal. She always forgot herself at the first symptom of sorrow or suffering in another, and never considered her own interests if she could help somebody else by sacrificing them.

"It _would_ add to my happiness," she answered brightly. "And if you will just explain to me, mamma, when I don't understand things, I shall remember all right, and not be a bother to you. Will you be kind to me, and not scold me, and jeer at me, and make my life a burden to me? When you do that, I hate you."

Mrs. Caldwell stopped short with her needle up in the air, in the act of drawing the thread through her work. She was inexpressibly shocked.

"Hate your mother, Beth!" she gasped.

"I know it's abominable," said Beth, filled with compunction; "but I can't help it. It's the devil, I suppose. He gets hold of us both, and makes you torment me, and makes me--not like you for it."

Mrs. Caldwell quietly resumed her sewing. She was too much startled by this glimpse of herself from Beth's point of view to say another word on the subject; and a long silence ensued, during which she saw herself as a sadly misunderstood mother. She determined, however, to try and manage Beth on a new principle.

"I should like to help you to make the best of yourself, Beth," she burst out again abruptly; "and I think I can. You are a tall girl for your age, and are beginning to hold yourself well already. Your poor dear aunt was very particular to teach you that. And you have the complexion of the Bench family, if you will take care of it. You should wash your face in b.u.t.termilk at night after being out in the sun. I'll get you some, and I'll get you a parasol for the summer.

Your hands are not nearly so coa.r.s.e as they used to be, and they would really be quite nice if you attended to them properly. All your father's people had good hands and feet. I must see to your gloves and boots. I don't know what your waist is going to be, but you shall have some good stays. A fine shape goes a long way. With your prospects you really ought to make a good match, so do not slouch about any more as if you had no self-respect at all. You can really do a great deal to make yourself attractive in appearance. Your Uncle William Caldwell had a very ugly nose, but he pinched it, and pinched it every day to get it into shape, until at last he made it quite a good one."

Bernadine came into the room in time to hear this story, and was so impressed by it that she tried the same experiment on her own nose without asking if it were ugly or not, and pinched it and rubbed it so diligently that by the time it was formed she had thickened it and changed it from a good ordinary nose into something quite original.

This was the kind of thing that happened to ladies in the days when true womanliness consisted in knowing nothing accurately, and always taking advice. Efforts to improve themselves in some such way were common enough among marriageable maidens, and their mothers helped them to the best of their ability with equally happy hints. Because small feet were a beauty, therefore feet already in perfect proportion must be squeezed to reduce their size till they were all deformed; and because slenderness was considered elegant, therefore naturally well-formed women must compress their bodies till they looked like cylinders or hour-gla.s.ses, and lace till their noses swelled and their hair fell out. Never having heard of proportion, all their ambition was to reduce themselves to something less than they were designed to be. Those were the days when women had "no nonsense about them, sir, I tell you," none of those new-fangled ideas about education and that.

It was a new notion to Beth that she could do anything to make herself attractive, and she took a solemn interest in it. She listened with absolute faith to all that her mother said on the subject, and determined to be high-principled and make the most of herself. When her mother talked to her in this genial friendly way, instead of carping at her or ignoring her, Beth's heart expanded and she was ready to do anything to please her. Lessons on the new method went on without friction. Beth never suspected that her mother was unequal to the task of educating her in any true sense of the word; her mother never suspected it, neither did anybody else; and Beth had it all her own way. If she were idle, her mother excused her; if she brought a lesson only half-learnt, her mother prompted her all through; if she asked questions, her mother answered them pleasantly; so that they got on very well together, and everybody was satisfied--especially Jim, who was benefiting by Aunt Victoria's bequest to the extent of being able to keep up with the best of his bar-loafing acquaintances.

CHAPTER XXV

When she did what Aunt Victoria approved, Beth felt that she was making Aunt Victoria happy. Her dead were never far from her, never beyond recall. She conquered her pride for Aunt Victoria's sake, and began to go out again with her mother for the morning walk that winter unasked; but Mrs. Caldwell seemed indifferent to the attention. She let Beth walk beside her day after day, but remained absorbed in her own reflections, and made no effort to talk to Beth and take her out of herself; so that Beth very soon found the duty intolerably irksome.

It irritated her, too, when she caught her mother smiling to herself, and on asking what was amusing her, Mrs. Caldwell replied, still smiling, "Never _you_ mind." With Beth's temperament it was not possible that the sense of duty would long survive such snubs.

Gradually she began to wander off by herself again, leaving her mother pacing up and down the particular sheltered terrace overlooking the sea on which she always walked at that hour, and Bernadine playing about the cliffs or the desolate sh.o.r.e.

The whole place was desolate and melancholy at that time of the year.

The wind-swept streets were generally deserted, and the few people who ventured out looked cold and miserable in their winter wraps. When a gleam of sunshine enlivened the sky, the sailors would stand at the top of the steps that led down on to the pier, with their hands in their trousers-pockets, chewing tobacco, and straining their eyes out seaward as if they were watching for something special; and Beth would stand there among them, and look out too--out, far beyond the range of their mental vision, eastwards, to summer lands whence the swallows came, where the soft air was perfumed with flowers, and there was brightness and warmth and ease, and the sea itself, so full of complaint down below there, raged no more, neither lamented, but sang. And there Aunt Victoria would be, sitting somewhere out of doors under the trees, with good things, books and work and fruit and flowers, piled up on a little table beside her, and every wish of her heart gratified, looking serenely happy, and smiling and nodding and beckoning to Beth. But following fast upon the vision, Aunt Victoria would be beside her in the bitter wind, wearing her old brown dress with white spots that was far too thin, and making believe that she did not shiver; then they had returned from the morning walk, and Aunt Victoria was pausing a moment at the bottom of the stairs to look up, as if measuring her strength and the distance, before she took hold of the bannister and began to mount wearily, but never once trusting herself to glance towards Bernadine and the bread, lest something should be seen in her face which she chose to conceal. From that vision Beth would fly down the steps to the sands, and escape it in a healthy race with the turgid waves that came cresting in and broke on the barren sh.o.r.e.

Then one day, suddenly, as it seemed, a bird sang. The winter was over, spring was upon the land again, and Beth looked up and smiled.

The old pear-tree in the little garden at the back was a white wonder of blossom, and, in front, in the orchard opposite, the apple-trees blushed with a tinge of pink. Beth, seeing them one morning very early from her bed in Aunt Victoria's room, arose at once, rejoicing, and threw the window wide open. Beth might have used the same word to express the good and the beautiful, as the Greeks did, so inseparably were the two a.s.sociated in her mind. At this stage of her development she felt very literally--

"The heavens are telling the glory of G.o.d, The wonder of His works displays the firmament."

"O Lord, how wondrous are Thy works," she chanted to herself softly, as she gazed, awe-stricken, at the loveliness of the rose-tinged foam on the fruit-trees, and her whole being was thrilled with grat.i.tude for the beauty of earth. She took deep draughts of the sweet morning air, and, like the Indian devotee, she breathed a sacred word with every breath. But pa.s.sive ecstasy was not enough for Beth. Her fine feelings strove for expression always in some fine act, and as she stood at the window she made good resolutions. Her life should be ordered to worthy purposes from morning till night. She would in future begin the day by getting up to greet the dawn in an ecstasy of devotion. Not a minute later than daybreak would do for her. All Beth's efforts aimed at an extreme.

She idled most of that day away in contemplation of her project, and she was as dilatory and troublesome as she could be, doing nothing she ought to have done, because her mind was so full of all the things she was going to do. What she feared was that she would never be able to wake herself in time, and she went to bed at a preposterously early hour, and sat long in her night-dress, thinking how to manage it. At last it occurred to her that if she tied her great toe to the bed-post with a piece of string, it would give her a jerk when she moved, and so awake her.

The contrivance answered only too well. She could not sleep for a long time, and when at last she dropped off, she was almost immediately awakened by a pitiless jerk from the string. She had Aunt Victoria's old watch under her pillow, and lighted a match to see the time. It was only twelve. When would the day break? She turned, and tossed, and fidgeted. The string on her toe was very uncomfortable, but nothing would have induced her to be so weak as to take it off. One, two, three, she heard the church-clock strike, but it was still pitch dark.

Then she dozed off again, but in a minute, as it seemed to her, she was re-aroused by the string. She gave a great weary sigh and opened her eyes. It was all grey daylight in the room.

Beth was out of bed as soon as she could get the string off her toe.

The water was very cold, and she shivered and yawned and stretched over it, but washed herself with exaggerated conscientiousness all the same, then huddled on her clothes, and stood awhile, not knowing quite what to do next. She had slept with the window open, and now she drew up the blind. Under the leaden sky the apple-trees showed no tinge of colour, and it was as if white sheets had been spread out over them for the night. Beth thought of curl-papers and rooms all covered up from the dust when Harriet was sweeping, and felt no enthusiasm. She was on the west side of the house, and could not therefore see the sun rise; but she must see the sunrise--sunrise--sunrise. She had never seen the sunrise. The sea was east. It would rise over the sea. The sea at sunrise! The very thought of it took her breath away. She put on her things and slipped into the acting-room. Her mother took the front-door key up to her room with her when she went to bed at night, so that the only way out was by the acting-room window. Beth swung herself round the bar, crept cautiously down the tiles to the pump, jumped to the ground, then ran up the entry, and let herself out by the back-gate into the street. There she was seized upon by a great feeling of freedom. She threw up her arms, filled her lungs with a deep breath, and ran. There was not a soul to be seen. The town was hers!