The Beth Book
gives you double the amount for a month, and then goes off with the
blankets."
"You don't deceive me a bit," said Beth, sitting down opposite to her
on a cane-bottomed chair. "Your good-heartedness shines out of your
face. But I'm not going to take a mean advantage of it. There's an
honest atmosphere in this house that would suit me, I feel, and I am
sure I shall do well here; but all the same I won't come unless you
make a bargain with me. If I take the rooms for such a small sum now,
while I am poor, will you let me make it up to you when I succeed? I
shall succeed!" The last words burst from her involuntarily, forced
from her with emphasis in spite of herself.
"That's what _I_ like to hear; that's spirit, that is!" Ethel Maud
Mary exclaimed, nodding approvingly. "You'll do all right. So it's a
bargain. Washing's included, you know. You didn't bring your box, did
you?"
"No, I left my luggage at Charing Cross when I arrived last night. I
slept at the hotel," Beth answered.
"At the Charing Cross Hotel? Gracious! that must have cost you a small
fortune."
"I didn't know what to do," Beth explained apologetically.
"You should have tried the Strand, Surrey Street, and there. You'd
have got bed and breakfast for five shillings, and that's more than
enough. However, it's no use crying over spilt milk. You'll have to
fetch your luggage, I suppose. You can go by train from Nottinghill
Gate to Charing Cross. It's about as cheap as the 'bus, and much
quicker. I'll come with you, and show you the way, if you like. A
breath of fresh air will do me good."
"Yes, do come," Beth answered gratefully, glad of the kindly human
fellowship. "What is your name, may I ask?"
"Ethel Maud Mary Gill; and what is yours, if you please?"
"Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure."
Beth had emptied her secret chamber and packed all her little
possessions before she left Slane. She had sometimes suspected that
Dan would be glad of an excuse to get rid of her, to relieve himself
of the cost of her keep; and that he would do it in some gross way,
and so as to put all the blame of it upon her, if possible, she also
expected. She was therefore prepared to consider the matter settled
the moment he threatened her, and would have felt it useless to
remonstrate even had she been inclined. But she was not inclined. She
had for years done everything patiently that any one in any code of
morality could expect of her in such a marriage, and no good had come
of it. As Daniel Maclure was, so would he remain for ever; and to
associate with him intimately without being coarsened and corrupted
was impossible. Beth had fought hard against that, and had suffered in
the struggle; but she had been lowered in spite of herself, and she
knew it, and resented it. She was therefore as glad to leave Maclure
as he was to get rid of her; and already it seemed as if with her
married life a great hampering weight had fallen from her, and left
her free to face a promising future with nothing to fear and
everything to hope. Poverty was pleasant in her big bright attic,
where all was clean and neat about her. There she could live serenely,
and purify her mind by degrees of the garbage with which Dan's
habitual conversation had polluted it.
The settling-in occupied her for some days, and the housekeeping was a
puzzle when she first began. She had only been able to bring the most
precious of her possessions, her books and papers, and clothes enough
for the moment, away with her from Slane; the rest she had left ready
packed to be sent to her when she should be settled. When she wrote to
Maclure for them, she sent him some housekeeping keys she had
forgotten to leave behind, and an inventory of everything she had had
charge of, which she had always kept carefully checked. He
acknowledged the receipt of this letter, and informed her that he had
gone over the inventory himself, and found some of the linen in a bad
state and one silver teaspoon missing. Beth replied that the linen had
been fairly worn out, but she could not account for the missing spoon,
and offered to pay for it. Dr. Maclure replied by return of post on a
post-card that the price was seven shillings. Beth sent him a postal
order for that amount. He then wrote to say that the cost of the
conveyance of the luggage to the station was half-a-crown. Beth sent
him half-a-crown, and then the correspondence ended. She received
letters from some of her relations, however, to whom Maclure had
hastened to send his version of the story. Poor old Aunt Grace Mary
was the only one, who did not accept it. "Write and tell me the truth
of the matter, my dear," she said. The others took it for granted that
Beth could have nothing to say for herself, and her brother Jim was
especially indignant and insulting, his opinion of her being couched
in the most offensive language. Having lived with disreputable women
all his life, he had the lowest possible opinion of the whole sex, his
idea being that any woman would misconduct herself if she had the
chance and was not well watched. He warned Beth not to apply to him if
she should be starving, or to claim his acquaintance should she meet
him in the street. Beth's cheeks burned with shame when she read this
letter and some of the others she received, and she hastened to
destroy them; but the horror they set up in her brought on a nervous
crisis such as she had suffered from in the early days when Dan first
brought her down to his own low level of vice and suspicion, and
turned her deadly sick. She answered none of these letters, and, by
dint of resolutely banishing all thought of them and of the writers,
she managed in time to obliterate the impression; but she had to live
through some terrible hours before she succeeded.
Once settled in her attic home, she returned to the healthy, regular,
industrious habits which had helped her so much in the days when she
had been at her best. Her life was of the simplest, but she had to do
almost everything for herself, such time as Gwendolen could command
for attendance being wholly insufficient to keep the attic in order.
Her daily duties kept her in health, however, by preventing indolence
either of mind or body, and so were of infinite use. She had added a
few things to the scanty furniture of her attic--a new bath, a
second-hand writing-table, book-shelves with a cupboard beneath for
cups, saucers, and glasses, and a grandfather chair--all great
bargains, as Ethel Maud Mary assured her. Ethel Maud Mary's kindness
was inexhaustible. She took Beth to the second-hand shop herself, and
showed her that the writing-table and book-shelves would be as good as
new when they were washed and rubbed up a bit; and all the grandfather
chair wanted was a new cretonne cover at sixpence a yard--four yards,
two shillings, and she could make it herself. She also advised Beth to
buy a little oil-stove, the only one she knew of that really didn't
smell if you attended to it yourself; and a tin to hold oil for
it--crystal oil at sevenpence a gallon, the best.
"You can do all you want with that, and keep yourself warm enough too
when the weather's bad," she said; "and there's no waste, for you can
turn it out when you've done with it. Fires are too dear for you at
sixpence a scuttle for coals, and they're dirtier besides, and a
trouble to light and look after. You'll find it as good as a lamp,
too, if you're doing nothing particular at night."
When Beth had made a cosy corner of the window for work, arranged her
books, put her ornaments about on mantelpiece and brackets, hung her
pictures and the draperies she had used in her secret chamber, spread
the rugs and covered the grandfather chair, her attic looked inviting.
The character of her little possessions gave the poor place a
distinction which enchanted Ethel Maud Mary.
Beth fetched up the water overnight for her bath in the morning, and
made coffee for her breakfast on the little oil-stove. She lived
principally on bread and butter, eggs, sardines, salad, and slices of
various meats bought at a cook-shop and carried home in a paper.
Sometimes, when she felt she could afford it, she had a hot meal at an
eating-house for the good of her health; but she scarcely required it,
for she never felt stronger in her life, and so long as she could get
good coffee for her breakfast and tea for her evening meal, she missed
none of the other things to which she had been accustomed. She made
delicious coffee in a tin coffee-pot, and brewed the best tea she had
ever drunk in brown earthenware, which Ethel Maud Mary considered the
best thing going for tea. She used to join Beth in a cup up in the
attic, but she never came empty-handed. Dull wet days, likely to be
depressing, were the ones on which her yellow head appeared oftenest
at the top of the attic stairs.
"Miss Maclure, may I come in?" she would say, after knocking.
And Beth would answer, rising from her work with a smile of welcome,
"Yes, by all means. I'm delighted to see you. You take the big chair
and I'll make the tea. I'm dying for a cup."
Then Ethel Maud Mary would uncover something she held in her hand,
which would prove to be cakes, or hot buttered toast and watercresses,
or a bag of shrimps and some thin bread and butter; and Beth,
sparkling at the kindness, would exclaim, "I never was so spoilt in my
life!" to which Ethel Maud Mary would rejoin, "There'll not be much to
boast about between two of us."
Beth was busy with another book by this time, but found the work more
of a task and less of a pleasure than it used to be. Ethel Maud Mary
still took it for granted that she was a journalist, and showed no
interest in her work beyond hoping that she got her pay regularly, and
would soon be making more. Beth wondered sometimes when the little
book which had been accepted in the summer would appear, and what she
would get for it, if anything, and she thought of inquiring, but she
put it off. Her new work took all her time and strength, and wearied
her, so that nothing else seem to signify.
Besides Ethel Maud Mary and Gwendolen, the only person she had to talk
to was Arthur Milbank Brock, the young American, her neighbour in the
next attic. She met him coming upstairs with his hat in his hand soon
after her instalment, and was even more attracted by his face than she
had been when she first saw him in the street.
"You've settled in by this time, I hope," he said.
"Yes, and very comfortably too, thanks to you," Beth answered.
"Ah, Ethel Maud Mary's a good sort," he replied, "golden hair, blue
eyes, and all. She has the looks of a lady's novel and the heart of a
holy mother. Her grammar and spelling are defective, but her sense is
sound. I wouldn't give much for her opinion of a work of art, but I'd
take her advice in a difficulty if it came anywhere within range of
her experience. She knows this world well, but picks her steps through
it in such a way that I guess she'll reach the threshold of the next
with nice clean shoes."
He stepped aside for Beth to pass when he had spoken, and stood a
moment watching her thoughtfully as she descended. "And may you too,"
he said to himself as he turned to go up, then, perceiving that the
hope implied a doubt, he began to wonder whence it came.
As Beth went out, she reflected on his face, on a certain gravity
which heightened its refinement. It was a young face, but worn, as by
some past trial or present care, and with an habitually sober
expression which contrasted notably with the cheery humour of his
speech, adding point to it, as is frequently the case with his
countrymen. He wore his thick brown hair rather longer than is usual,
but was clean shaven. His features were delicate and regular, his
eyes deep and dark, his head large and finely formed. In figure he was