The Beth Book
"Bad luck to yerself, Pat Murphy," Beth rejoined promptly. "It's a
foine cheek ye have to be spakin' to a gentleman's daughter, an' you
not a man uv yer wurrd."
"Not a man o' me wurrd! what d'ye mane?" said Murphy, firing.
"Look at that wall," Beth answered; "didn't ye promise ye'd build it?"
"An' so I will when yer father gives me the stones he promised me,"
Murphy replied. "It's a moighty foine mon uv his wurrd he is."
"Is it my father yer maning, Pat Murphy?" Beth asked.
"It is," he said, sticking his spade in the ground emphatically.
"Ye know yer lying," said Beth. "My father promised you no stones.
He's not a fool."
"I niver met a knave that was," Pat observed, turning over a huge
spadeful of earth, and then straightening himself to look up at her.
Beth's instinct was always to fight when she was in a rage; words
break no bones, and she preferred to break bones at such times. It was
some seconds before she saw the full force of Pat's taunt, but the
moment she did, she seized the largest loose stone within reach on the
top of the wall, and shied it at him. It struck him full in the face,
and cut his cheek open.
"That'll teach ye," said Beth, blazing.
The man turned on her with a very ugly look.
"Put yer spade down," she said. "I'm not afraid of you."
"Miss Beth! Miss Beth!" some one called from the end of the garden.
Murphy stuck his spade in the ground, and wiped his jaw. "Ye'll pay
for this, ye divil's limb," he muttered, "yew an' yours."
"Miss Beth! Miss Beth!"
"I'm coming!" Beth rejoined irritably, and slid from the wall to the
ground regardless of the rough loose stones she scattered in her
descent. "Ye'll foind me ready to pay when ye send in yer bill, Pat,"
she called out as she ran down the garden.
The children were to have tea at the vicarage that day, and Anne had
been sent to fetch her.
In the drawing-room at the vicarage there was a big bay-window which
looked out across a desolate stretch of bog to a wild headland,
against which the waves beat tempestuously in almost all weathers. The
headland itself was high, but the giant breakers often dashed up far
above it, and fell in showers of spray on the grass at the top. There
was a telescope in the window at the vicarage, and people used to come
to see the sight, and went into raptures over it. Beth, standing out
of the way, unnoticed, would gaze too, fascinated; but it was the
attraction of repulsion. The cruel force of the great waves agitated
her, and at the same time made her unutterably sad. Her heart beat
painfully when she watched them, her breath became laboured, and it
was only with an effort that she could keep back her sobs. It was not
fear that oppressed her, but a horrible sort of excitement, which so
gained upon her on that afternoon in particular that she felt she must
shriek aloud, or make her escape. If she showed any emotion she would
be laughed at, if she made her escape she would probably be whipped;
she preferred to be whipped; so, watching her opportunity, she quietly
slipped away.
At home the window of the sitting-room was still wide open, and as she
ran down the street she noticed some country people peeping in
curiously, and apparently astonished by the luxury they beheld. Beth,
who was picking up Irish rapidly, understood some exclamations she
overheard as she approached, and felt flattered for the furniture.
She ran up the steps and opened the front door: "Good day to ye all,"
she said sociably; "will ye not come in and have a look round? now
do!"
She led the way as she spoke, and the country people followed her, all
agape. In the hall they paused to wonder at the cocoanut matting; but
when they stood on the soft pile carpet, so grateful to their bare
feet, in the sitting-room, and looked round, they lowered their voices
respectfully, and this gave Beth a sudden sensation of superiority.
She began to show them the things: the pictures on the walls, the
subjects of which she explained to them; the egg-shell china, which
she held up to the light that they might see how thin it was; and some
Eastern and Western curios her father had brought home from various
voyages. She told them of tropical heat and Canadian cold, and began
to be elated herself when she found all that she had ever heard on the
subject flowing fluently from her lips.
The front door had been left open, and the passers-by looked in to see
what was going on, and then entered uninvited. Neighbours, too, came
over from the Irish side of the road, so that the room gradually
filled, and as her audience increased, Beth grew excited and talked
away eloquently.
"Lord," one man exclaimed with a sigh, on looking round the room, "it's
aisy to see why the likes of these looks down on the likes of us."
"Eh, dear, yes!" a woman with a petticoat over her head solemnly
responded.
"The durrty heretics," a slouching fellow, with a flat white face,
muttered under his breath. "But if they benefit here, they'll burn
hereafter, holy Jasus be praised."
"Will they?" said Beth, turning on him. "Will they burrn hereafter,
Bap-faced Flanagan? No, they won't! They'll hunt ye out of heaven as
they hunted ye out o' Maclone.
"Oh, the Orange militia walked into Maclone,
And hunted the Catholics out of the town.
Ri' turen nuren nuren naddio,
Right tur nuren nee."
She sang it out at the top of her shrill little voice, executing a
war-dance of defiance to the tune, and concluding with an elaborate
curtsey.
As she recovered herself, she became aware of her father standing in the
doorway. His lips were white, and there was a queer look in his face.
"Oh! So this is _your_ party, is it, Miss Beth?" he said. "You ask
your friends in, and then you insult them, I see."
Beth was still effervescing. She put her hands behind her back and
answered boldly--
"'Deed, thin, he insulted me, papa. It was Bap-faced Flanagan. He
said we were durrty heretics, and--and--I'll not stand that! It's
a free country!"
Captain Caldwell looked round, and the people melted from the room
under his eye. Then Anne appeared from somewhere.
"Anne, do you teach the children party-songs?" he demanded.
"Shure, they don't need taching, yer honour," said Anne, disconcerted.
"Miss Beth knows 'em all, and she shouts 'em at the top of her voice
down the street till the men shake their fists at her."
"Why do you do that, Beth?" her father demanded.
"I like to feel," Beth began, gasping out each word with a mighty
effort to express herself--"I like to feel--that I can _make_ them
shake their fists."
Her father looked at her again very queerly.
"Will I take her to the nursery, sir?" Anne asked.
Beth turned on her impatiently, and said something in Irish which made
Anne grin. Beth did not understand her father in this mood, and she
wanted to see more of him.
"What's that she's saying to you, Anne?" he asked.
"Oh--sure, she's just blessin' me, yer honour," Anne answered
unabashed.
"I believe you!" Captain Caldwell said dryly, as he stretched himself
on the sofa. "Go and fetch a hair-brush."
While Anne was out of the room he turned to Beth. "I'll give you a
penny," he said, "if you'll tell me what you said to Anne."
"I'll tell you for nothing," Beth answered. "I said, 'Yer soul to the
devil for an interfering hussy.'"
Captain Caldwell burst out laughing, and laughed till Anne returned
with the brush. "Now, brush my hair," he said to Beth; and Beth went
and stood beside the sofa, and brushed, and brushed, now with one
hand, and now with the other, till she ached all over with the effort.
Her father suffered from atrocious headaches, and this was the one
thing that relieved him.
"There, that's punishment enough for to-day," he said at last.
Beth retired to the foot of the couch, and leant there, looking at him
solemnly, with the hair-brush still in her hand. "That's no
punishment," she observed.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"I mean I like it," she said. "I'd brush till I dropped if it did you
any good."
Captain Caldwell looked up at her, and it was as if he had seen the
child for the first time.
"Beth," he said, after a while, "would you like to come out with me on
the car to-morrow?"
"'Deed, then, I would, papa," Beth answered eagerly.
Then there was a pause, during which Beth rubbed her back against the
end of the couch thoughtfully, and looked at the wall opposite as if
she could see through it. Her father watched her for a little time
with a frown upon his forehead from the pain in his head.
"What are you thinking of, Beth?" he said at last.
"I've got to be whipped to-night," she answered drearily; "and I wish
I hadn't. I do get so tired of being whipped and shaken."
Her little face looked pinched and pathetic as she spoke, and for the
first time her father had a suspicion of what punishment was to this
child--a thing as inevitable as disease, a continually recurring
torture, but quite without effect upon her conduct--and his heart
contracted with a qualm of pity.
"What are you going to be whipped for now?" he asked.
"We went to tea at the vicarage, and I ran away home."
"Why?"
"Because of the great green waves. They rush up the rocks--wish--st--st!"
(she took a step forward, and threw up her little arms in
illustration)--"then fall, and roll back, and gather, and come rushing
on again; and I feel every time--every time--that they are coming right
at me!"--she clutched her throat as if she were suffocating; "and if I
had stayed I should have shrieked, and then I should have been whipped.
So I came away."
"But you expect to be whipped for coming away?"
"Yes. But you see I don't have the waves as well. And mamma won't say
I was afraid."
"Were you afraid, Beth?" her father asked.
"No!" Beth retorted, stamping her foot indignantly. "If the waves did
come at me, I could stand it. It's the coming--coming--coming--I can't
bear. It makes me ache here." She clutched at her throat and chest
again.
Captain Caldwell closed his eyes. He felt that he was beginning to
make this child's acquaintance, and wished he had tried to cultivate
it sooner.
"You shall not be whipped to-night, Beth," he said presently, looking
at her with a kindly smile.
Instantly an answering smile gleamed on the child's face, transfiguring
her; and, by the light of it, her father realised how seldom he had seen
her smile.
Unfortunately for Beth, however, while her countenance was still
irradiated, her mother swooped down upon her. Mrs. Caldwell had come
hurrying home in a rage in search of Beth; and now, mistaking that
smile for a sign of defiance, she seized upon her, and had beaten her
severely before it was possible to interfere. Beth, dazed by this
sudden onslaught, staggered when she let her go, and stretched out her
little hands as if groping for some support.
"It wasn't your fault!--it wasn't your fault!" she gasped, her first
instinct being to exonerate her father.
Captain Caldwell had started up and caught his wife by the arm.
"That's enough," he said harshly. "You are going altogether the wrong
way to work with the child. Let this be the last time, do you
understand? Beth, go to the nursery, and ask Anne to get you some tea."
A sharp pain shot through his head. He had jumped up too quickly, and
now fell back on the sofa with a groan.
"Oh, let me brush it again," Beth cried, in an agony of sympathy.
Her father opened his haggard eyes and smiled.
"Go to the nursery, like a good child," he said, "and get some tea."
Beth went without another word. But all that evening her mind was with
her parents in the sitting-room, wondering--wondering what they were
saying to each other.
CHAPTER VIII