The Beth Book
said after a while.
"No, don't tell me," he rejoined quickly. "Your past is nothing to me.
Nothing that you may have done, and nothing that you may yet do, can
alter my feeling--my respect for you. As I have known you, so will you
always be to me--the sweetest, kindest friend I ever had, the best
woman I ever knew."
Men are monotonous creatures. Given a position, and ninety-nine out of
a hundred will come to the same conclusion about it, only by diverse
methods, according to their prejudices; and this is especially the
case when women are in question. Woman is generally out of focus in
the mind of man; he sees her less as she is than as she ought or ought
not to be. Beth did not thank Arthur Brock for his magnanimity. The
fact that he should shrink from hearing the story bespoke a doubt that
made his generous expression an offence. It may be kind to ignore the
past of a guilty person, but the innocent ask to be heard and judged;
and full faith has no fear of revelations.
Beth rose from her knees, and began to prepare the invalid's evening
meal in silence. Usually they chattered like children the whole time,
but that evening they were both constrained. One of those subtle
changes, so common in the relations of men and women, had set in
suddenly since the morning; they were not as they had been with each
other, nor could they continue together as they were; there must be a
readjustment, which was in preparation during the pause.
"You have heard me speak of Gresham Powell?" Brock began at last. "He
was here this afternoon. He thinks I had better go away with him into
the country for a change as soon as I can manage it."
"It is a good idea," said Beth--"inland of course, not near the sea
with your rheumatism. I will get your things ready at once."
This immediate acquiescence depressed him. He played with his supper a
little, pretending to eat it, then forgot it, and sat looking sadly
into the fire. Beth watched him furtively, but once he caught her
gazing at him with concern.
"What's the matter?" he asked, with an effort to be cheerful.
"The matter is the pained expression in your eyes," she answered. "Are
you suffering again?"
"Just twinges," he said, then set his firm full lips, resolute to play
the man.
But the twinges were mental, not bodily, and Beth understood. Their
happy days were done, and there was nothing to be said. They must each
go their own way now, and the sooner the better. Fortunately the old
lawyer had consented without demur to let Beth have her half-year's
dividend in advance, so that there was money for Arthur. He expressed
some surprise that there should be, but took what she gave him without
suspicion, and did not count it. He was careless in money matters, and
had forgotten what he had had when he was taken ill.
"You're a great manager," he said to Beth. "But I suppose you haven't
paid up everything. You must let me know. It _will_ be good to be at
work again!"
"Yes," Beth answered; "but don't worry about it. You won't want money
before you are well able to make it."
"I wish I knew for certain that you would go somewhere yourself to see
the spring come in," he said, looking at her wistfully.
"All in good time," she answered in her sprightliest way.
When the last morning came, Beth attended to her usual duties
methodically. She had made every arrangement for him, packed the
things he was to take, and put away those that were to be left behind.
When the cab was called, she went downstairs with him, and stood with
Ethel Maud Mary and Gwendolen on the doorstep in the spring sunshine,
smiling and waving her hand to him as he drove off. Her last words to
him were, "You will go home before we meet again. Give my love to
America--and may she send us many more such men," Beth added under her
breath.
"Amen!" Ethel Maud Mary and Gwendolen echoed.
When the cab was out of sight, Beth turned and went into the house,
walking wearily. At the foot of the stairs she looked up as if she
were calculating the distance; then she began the long ascent with the
help of the banisters, counting each step she took mechanically. The
attic seemed strangely big and bare when she entered it--it was as if
something had been taken away and left a great gap. There was
something crude and garish about the light in it, too, which gave an
unaccustomed look to every familiar detail. The first thing she
noticed was the chair beside the fire, the old grandfather chair in
which he had been sitting only a few minutes before, resting after the
effort of dressing--the chair in which she had seen him sit and suffer
so much and so bravely. She would never see him there again, nor hear
his voice--the kindest voice she had ever heard. At his worst, it was
always of her he thought, of her comfort, of her fatigue; but all that
was over now. He had gone, and there could be no return--nothing could
ever be as it had been between them, even if they met again; but meet
again they never would, Beth knew, and at the thought she sank on the
floor beside the senseless chair, and, resting her head against it,
broke down and cried the despairing cry of the desolate for whom there
is no comfort and no hope.
The fire she had lighted for Arthur to dress by had gone out; there
were no more coals. The remains of his breakfast stood on the table;
she had not touched anything herself as yet. But she felt neither cold
nor hunger; she was beyond all that. The chair was turned with its
back to the window, and as she cowered beside it, she faced the
opposite whitewashed wall. A ray of sunshine played upon it, wintry
sunshine still, crystal cold and clear. Beth began to watch it. There
was something she had to think about--something to see to--something
she must think about--something she ought to see to, but precisely
what it was she could not grasp. It seemed to be hovering on the
outskirts of her mind, but it always eluded her. However, she had
better not move for fear of making a noise. And there was far too
much noise as it was--the wind rising and the waves breaking
"All down the thundering shores of Bude and Bos----"
No, though; it was a procession of camels crossing the desert, and in
the distance was an oasis surrounded by palms, and there was white
stonework gleaming between the trees in the wonderful light. And those
great doors that opened from within? They were opening although she
had not knocked. She was expected, then--there, where there was no
more weariness, nor care, nor hunger. But that was not where she
wished to go. No! no! that did not tempt her.
"Take me where I shall not remember," she implored.
Poor Beth! the one boon she had to ask of Heaven at five-and-twenty
was oblivion: "Let me be where I shall forget."
Downstairs on the doorstep, Ethel Maud Mary and Gwendolen lingered a
while before they turned to follow Beth into the house, and, as they
did so, they noticed that a lady had stopped her carriage in the
middle of the road, jumped out impetuously, and was running towards
them, regardless of the traffic.
"That was Mrs. Maclure who was standing with you here just now and
went into the house?" she exclaimed.
"_Miss_ Maclure," Ethel Maud Mary corrected her.
"Oh, Miss or Mrs., what does it matter?" the lady cried. "It was
Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure looking like death--where is she? Take me
to her at once!" She emphasised the request with an imperious stamp of
her foot.
A few minutes later, Angelica, kneeling on the attic floor beside
Beth, cried aloud in horror, "Why, she is dead!"
CHAPTER LI
One warm morning when the apple-trees were out, Arthur Brock was
sitting with Gresham Powell in the garden of the farm-house where they
were lodging in the country, turning over a portfolio full of Powell's
sketches, and Powell was looking at them over his shoulder, and
discussing them with him. Arthur had just come upon a clever study of
the head of a girl in a hat, and was looking hard at it.
"That's a study in starvation," Powell explained. "It's an interesting
face, isn't it? She came into a hairdresser's one day when I was
there, and sat down just in that attitude, and I sketched her on the
spot. She was too far through at the moment to notice me. Look at her
pretty hair particularly. You'll see why in the next sketch, which is
the sequel."
Brock took up the next sketch hurriedly. It was the same girl in the
same hat, but with her hair cut short.
"I asked the barber fellow about her when she'd gone," Gresham
pursued. "He'd taken her into an inner room, and when she came out she
was cropped like that. She told him she had come to her last shilling,
and she had an invalid at home depending on her entirely, and she
entreated him to give her all he could for her hair. I believe the
chap did too," he seemed so moved by her suffering and gentleness.
"What's the matter?"
Brock had risen abruptly with the sketches still in his hand. The
colour had left his face, and he looked as pinched and ill as he had
done during the early days of his convalescence.
"The matter!" he ejaculated. "I've just discovered what a blind fool I
am, that's what's the matter; and I'll keep these two studies with
your permission to remind me of the fact. Choose amongst mine any you
like instead of them, old chap, but these you must let me have."
Without waiting for an answer, he took the sketches away with him into
the house. When he returned a short time afterwards, he was dressed
for a journey, and had a travelling bag in his hand.
"I'm going to town," he said, "to see the original of these sketches.
I've run up an account with her I shall never be able to settle, but
at all events I can acknowledge my debt, dolt that I am! _I_ was that
invalid. And I thought myself such a gentleman too! not counting my
change and asking no questions, trusting her implicitly: that was my
pose from the day you came and poisoned my mind. Before that I had
neither trusted nor distrusted, but just taken things for granted as
they came, beautifully. I was too self-satisfied even to suspect that
she might be imposing her bounty upon me, starving herself that I
might have all I required, and sending me off here finally with the
last penny she had in the world. I told you I was wondering she did
not answer my letters. I expect she hadn't the stamp. But you said it
was out of sight out of mind, and she'd be trying it on with some one
else in my absence. If I'd the strength, I'd thrash you, Gresham, for
an evil-minded bounder."
"I'll carry your bag to the station, old chap," Gresham replied with
contrition, "and take the thrashing at your earliest convenience."
Ethel Maud Mary was standing on the steps in the sunshine looking out
when Arthur Brock arrived, just as she had stood to watch him depart,
but in the interval a happy change had pleasantly transformed her. Her
golden hair was brightly burnished again, her blue eyes sparkled, and
her delicate skin had recovered its rose-leaf tinge. She wore a new
frock, a new ring, a new watch and chain, and there was a new look in
her face, one might say, as if the winter of care had passed out of
her life with the snow and been forgotten in the spring sunshine of
better prospects.
"O Mr. Brock!" she exclaimed; "you back! But none too well yet,
judging by appearances."
"Where is Mrs. Maclure?" he demanded.
"I wish I knew!" Ethel Maud Mary rejoined, becoming important all at
once. "She's gone for good, that's all I can tell you. O Mr. Brock!
fancy her being tip-top all the time, and us not suspecting it, though
I might have thought something when I saw the dresses she sold when
you were ill, only I'd got the fashion papers in my mind, and didn't
know but what she'd been paid in dresses! Come into the parlour; you
look faint."