The Beth Book Part 56

"What is to be done with such a child?" she exclaimed in despair.

"Send her to school," Aunt Grace Mary gasped.

"She would be expelled in a month," Mrs. Caldwell averred.

"Possibly; but it would be worth the trial," Aunt Grace Mary rejoined in her breathless way.

"Yes," Lady Benyon agreed. "She has been at home far too long, running wild, and it's the only thing to be done. But let it be a strict school."

"How am I to afford it?" Mrs. Caldwell wailed, rocking herself on her chair.

"Well, there's the Royal Service School for Officers' Daughters; you can get her in there for next to nothing, and it's strict enough,"

Lady Benyon suggested.

And finally, after the loss of some more precious time, and with much reluctance, Mrs. Caldwell yielded to public opinion, and decided to deprive Jim of Beth's little income, and send Beth to school, some new enormities of Beth's having helped considerably to hasten her mother's decision.

CHAPTER XXIX

Mrs. Caldwell's married life had been one long sacrifice of herself, her health, her comfort, her every pleasure, to what she conceived to be right and dutiful. Duty and right were the only two words approaching to a religious significance that she was not ashamed to use; to her all the other words savoured of cant, and even these two she p.r.o.nounced without emphasis or solemnity, lest the sense in which she used them might be mistaken for a piece of religiosity. Of the joy and gladness of religion the poor lady had no conception.

Nevertheless, as has already been said, Mrs. Caldwell was an admirable person, according to the light of her time. To us she appears to have been a good woman marred, first of all, by the narrow outlook, the ignorance and prejudices which were the result of the mental restrictions imposed upon her s.e.x; secondly, by having no conception of her duty to herself; and finally, by those mistaken notions of her duty to others which were so long inflicted upon women, to be their own curse and the misfortune of all whom they were designed to benefit. She had sacrificed her health in her early married life to what she believed to be her duty as a wife, and so had left herself neither nerve nor strength enough for the never-ending tasks of the mistress of a household and mother of a family on a small income, the consequence of which was that shortness of temper and querulousness which spoilt her husband's life and made her own a burden to her. She was highly intelligent, but had carefully preserved her ignorance of life, because it was not considered womanly to have any practical knowledge of the world; and she had neglected the general cultivation of her mind partly because intellectual pursuits were a pleasure, and she did not feel sufficiently self-denying if she allowed herself any but exceptional pleasures, but also because there was a good deal of her husband's work in the way of letters and official doc.u.ments that she could do for him, and these left her no time for anything but the inevitable making and mending. Busy men take a sensible amount of rest and relaxation, of food and fresh air, and make good speed; but busy women look upon outdoor exercise as a luxury, talk about wasting time on meals, and toil on incessantly yet with ever-diminishing strength, because they take no time to recoup; therefore they recede rather than advance; all the extra effort but makes for leeway.

The consequence of Mrs. Caldwell's ridiculous education was that her judgment was no more developed in most respects than it had been in her girlhood, so that when she lost her husband and had to act for her children, she had nothing better to rely on for her guidance than time-honoured conventions, which she accepted with unquestioning faith in their efficacy, even when applied to emergencies such as were never known in the earlier ages of human evolution to which they belonged. She had starved herself and her daughters in mind and body in order to sc.r.a.pe together the wherewithal to send her sons out into the world, but she had let them go without making any attempt to help them to form sound principles, or to teach them rules of conduct such as should keep them clean-hearted and make them worthy members of society; so that all her privation had been worse than vain, it had been mischievous; for the boys, unaided by any scheme or comprehensive view of life, any knowledge of the meaning of it to show them what was worth aiming at, and also unprotected by positive principles, had drifted along the commonest course of self-seeking and self-indulgence, and were neither a comfort nor a credit to her. However, she was satisfied that she had done her best for them, and therefore, being of the days when the woman's sphere was home exclusively, and home meant, for the most part, the nursery and the kitchen, she sat inactive and suffered, as was the wont of old-world women, while her sons were sinning all the sins which she especially should have taught them to abhor; and, with regard to her girls, she was equally satisfied that she had done the right thing by them under the circ.u.mstances. She could not have been made to comprehend that Beth, a girl, was the one member of the family who deserved a good chance, the only one for whom it would have repaid her to procure extra advantages; but having at last been convinced that there was nothing for it but to send Beth to school, she set to work to prepare her to the best of her ability. Her own clothes were in the last stage of shabbiness, but what money she had she spent on getting new ones for Beth, and that, too, in order that she might continue the allowance to Jim as long as possible. She made a mighty effort also to teach Beth all that was necessary for the entrance examination into the school, and sewed day and night to get the things ready--in all of which, be it said, Beth helped to the best of her ability, but without pride or pleasure, because she had been made to feel that she was robbing Jim, and that her mother was treating her better than she deserved, and the feeling depressed her, so that the much-longed-for chance, when it came, found her with less spirit than she had ever had to take advantage of it.

"Ah, Beth!" her mother said to her, seeing her so subdued, "I thought you would repent when it was too late. You won't find it so easy and delightful to have your own way as you suppose. When it comes to leaving home and going away among strangers who don't care a bit about you, you will not be very jubilant, I expect. You know what it is when Mildred leaves home, how she cries!"

"Summer showers, soft, warm, and refreshing," Beth snapped, irritated by the I-told-you-so tone of superiority, which, when her mother a.s.sumed it, always broke down her best resolutions, and threw her into a state of opposition. "Mildred the Satisfactory has the right thing ready for all occasions."

The result of this encounter was an elaborate pose. In dread of her mother's comments, should she betray the feeling expected of her, she set herself to maintain an unruffled calm of demeanour, whatever happened.

Autumn was tinting the woods when Beth packed up. The day before her departure she paid a round of visits, not to people, but to places, which shows how much more real the life of her musings was to her at that time than the life of the world. She got up at daybreak and went and sat on the rustic seat at the edge of the cliff where the stream fell over on to the sand, and thought of the first sunrise she had ever seen, and of the puritan farmer who had come out and reprimanded her ruggedly for being there alone at that unseemly hour. Poor man!

His little house behind her was shut up and deserted, the garden he had kept so trim was all bedraggled, neglect ruled ruin all over his small demesne, and he himself was where the worthy rest till their return. The thought, however, at that hour and in that heavenly solitude, where there was no sound but the sea-voice which filled every pause in an undertone with the great song of eternity it sings on always, did not sadden Beth, but, on the contrary, stimulated her with some singular vague perception of the meaning of it all. The dawn was breaking, and the spirit of the dawn all about her possessed and drew her till she revelled in an ecstasy of yearning towards its crowning glory--Rise, Great Sun! When she first sat down, the hollow of the sky was one dark dome, only relieved by a star or two; but the darkness parted more rapidly than her eyes could appreciate, and was succeeded, in the hollow it had held, by rolling clouds monotonously grey, which, in turn, ranged themselves in long low downs, irregularly ribbed, and all unbroken, but gradually drawing apart until at length they were gently riven, and the first triumphant tinge of topaz colour, pale pink, warm and clear, like the faint flush that shyly betrays some delicate emotion on a young cheek, touched the soft gradations of the greyness to warmth and brightness, then mounted up and up in shafts to the zenith, while behind it was breathed in the tenderest tinge of turquoise blue, which shaded to green, which shaded to primrose low down on the horizon, where all was shining silver.

Then, as the grey, so was the colour riven, and rays of light shot up, crimson flashes of flame, which, while Beth held her breath, were fast followed from the sea by the sun, that rose enwrapt in their splendour, while the water below caught the fine flush, and heaved and heaved like a breast expanding with delight into long deep sighs.

Beth cried aloud: "O Lord of Loveliness! how mighty are Thy manifestations!"

Later in the day she climbed to the top of the hill where Charlotte had kept her faithful watch for the dark-brown horse, and there, beneath the firs, she sat looking out, with large eyes straining far into the vague distance where Hector had been.

The ground was padded with pine-needles, briony berries shone in the hedgerows below, and hips and haws and rowans also rioted in red.

Brambles were heavy with blue-black berries, and the bracken was battered and brown on the steep hill-side. Down in the road a team of four horses, dappled bays with black points and coats as glossy as satin, drawing a waggon of wheat, curved their necks and tossed their heads till the burnished bra.s.ses of their harness rang, and pacing with pride, as if they rejoiced to carry the harvest home. On the top of the wheat two women in coloured cotton frocks rested and sang--sang quite blithely.

Beth watched the waggon out of sight, then rose, and turning, faced the sea. As she descended the hill she left that dream behind her.

Hector, like Sammy and Arthur, pa.s.sed to the background of her recollections, where her lovers ceased from troubling, and the Secret Service of Humanity, superseded, was no more a living interest.

Beth went also to the farther sands to visit the spot where she had been surprised in the water by the girls, and had become the white priestess of their bathing rites, and taught that girls had a strength as great as the strength of boys, but different, if only they would do things. Mere mental and physical strength were what Beth was thinking of; she knew nothing of spiritual force, although she was using it herself at the time, and doing with it what all the boys in the diocese, taken together, could not have done. She had heard of works of the Spirit, and that she should pray to be imbued with it; but that she herself was pure spirit, only waiting to be released from her case of clay, had never been hinted to her.

The next day she travelled with her mother from the north to the south, and during the whole long journey there was no break in the unruffled calm of her demeanour. Her mother wondered at her, and was irritated, and fussed about the luggage, and fumed about trains she feared to miss; but Beth kept calm. She sat in her corner of the carriage looking out of the window, and the world was a varied landscape, to every beauty of which she was keenly alive, yet she gave no expression to her enthusiasm, nor to the discomfort she suffered from the August sun, which streamed in on her through the blindless window, burning her face for hours, nor to her hunger and fatigue; and when at last they came to the great house by the river, and her mother, having handed her over to Miss Clifford, the lady princ.i.p.al, said, somewhat tearfully, "Good-bye, Beth! I hope you will be happy here. But be a good girl." Beth answered, "Thank you. I shall try, mamma," and kissed her as coolly as if it were her usual good-night.

"We do not often have young ladies part from their mothers so placidly," Miss Clifford commented.

"I suppose not," Mrs. Caldwell said, sighing.

Beth felt that she was behaving horridly. There was a lump in her throat, and she would liked to have shown more feeling, but she could not. Now, when she would have laid aside the mask of calmness which she had voluntarily a.s.sumed, she found herself forced to wear it.

Falsifications of our better selves are easily entered upon, but hard to shake off. They are evil things that lurk about us, ready but powerless to come till we call them; but, having been called, they hold us in their grip, and their power upon us to compel us becomes greater than ours upon them.

Mrs. Caldwell felt sore at heart when she had gone, and Beth was not less sore. Each had been a failure in her relation to the other. Mrs.

Caldwell blamed Beth, and Beth, in her own mind, did not defend herself. She forbore to judge.

CHAPTER x.x.x

St. Catherine's Mansion, the Royal Service School for Officers'

Daughters, had not been built for the purpose, but bought, otherwise it would have been as ugly to look at as it was dreary to live in. As it was, however, the house was beautiful, and so also were the grounds about it, and the views of the river, the bridge with its many arches, and the grey town climbing up from it to the height above.

Beth was still standing at the top of the steps under the great portico, where her mother had left her, contemplating the river, which was the first that had flowed into her experience.

"Come, come, my dear, come in!" some one behind her exclaimed impatiently. "You're not allowed to stand there."

Beth turned and saw a thin, dry, middle-aged woman, with keen dark eyes and a sharp manner, standing in the doorway behind her, with a gentler-looking lady, who said, "It is a new girl, Miss Bey. I expect she is all bewildered."

"No, I am not at all bewildered, thank you," Beth answered in her easy way. As she spoke she saw two grown-up girls in the hall exchange glances and smile, and wondered what unusual thing she had done.

"Then you had better come at once," Miss Bey rejoined drily, "and let me see what you can do. Please to remember in future that the girls are not allowed to come to this door."

She led the way as she spoke, and Beth followed her across the hall, up a broad flight of steps opposite the entrance, down a wide corridor to the right, and then to the right again, into a narrow cla.s.s-room, and through that again into another inner room.

"These are the fifth and sixth rooms," Miss Bey remarked,--"fifth and sixth cla.s.ses."

They were furnished with long bare tables, forms, hard wooden chairs, a cupboard, and a set of pigeon-holes. Miss Bey sat down at the end of the table in the "sixth," with her back to the window, and made Beth sit on her left. There were some books, a large slate, a slate pencil, and damp sponge on the table.

"What arithmetic have you done?" Miss Bey began.

"I've scrambled through the first four rules," Beth answered.

"Set yourself a sum in each, and do it," Miss Bey said sharply, taking a piece of knitting from a bag she held on her arm, and beginning to knit in a determined manner, as if she were working against time.

Beth took up the slate and pencil, and began; but the sharp click-click of the needles worried her, and her brain was so busy studying Miss Bey she could not concentrate her mind upon the sums.

Miss Bey waited without a word, but Beth was conscious of her keen eyes fixed upon her from time to time, and knew what she meant.

"I'm hurrying all I can," she said at last.