The Beth Book
far-away bell_. Then the leaves--it _was_ a long time before anything
came that I could sing about them. I used to try and think it, but you
can't sing a thing you think. It's when a thing comes, you can sing
it. I was always listening to the leaves, and I always felt they were
doing something; then all at once it came one day. Of course they were
whispering--_The whispering leaves on the trees_. That was how they
came, papa. At first I used to sing them by themselves; but now I sing
them all together. You can sing them three different ways--the way I
did first, you know, then you can put _breeze_ first--
The swish of the grass in the breeze,
The whispering leaves on the trees,
The song of the sea in the shell,
The sound of a far-away bell.
Or you can sing--
The sound of a far-away bell,
The whispering leaves on the trees,
The swish of the grass in the breeze,
The song of the sea in the shell.
Which way do you think the nicest?" She had rattled all this off as
fast as she could speak, looking and pointing towards the various
things she mentioned as she proceeded, the sea, the grass, the trees,
the distance; now she looked up to her father for an answer. He was
looking at her so queerly, she was filled with alarm. "Am I naughty,
papa?" she exclaimed.
"Oh no," he said, with a smile that reassured her. "I was just
thinking. I like to hear how 'things come' to you. You must always
tell me--when new things come. By the way, who told you that fuchsia
was salmon-coloured?"
"I _saw_ it was," she said, surprised that he needed to ask such a
question. "I saw it one day when we had boiled salmon for dinner.
Isn't it nice when you see that one thing's like another? I have a
pebble, and it's just the shape of a pear--now you know what shape it
is, don't you?" He nodded. "But if I said it's thick at one end and
thin at another, you wouldn't know what shape it is a bit, would you?"
"No, I should not," he answered, beginning to prune again,
thoughtfully. "Beth," he said presently, "I should like to see you
grow up."
"Shan't I grow up?" said Beth in dismay.
"Oh yes--at least I should hope so. But--it's not likely that _I_
shall be--looking on. But, Beth, I want you to remember this. When you
grow up, I think you will want to do something that only a few other
people can do well--paint a picture, write a book, act in a theatre,
make music--it doesn't matter what; if it comes to you, if you feel
you can do it, just do it. You'll not do it well all at once; but try
and try until you _can_ do it well. And don't ask anybody if they
think you can do it; they'll be sure to say no; and then you'll be
disheartened--What's disheartened? It's the miserable feeling you
would get if I said you would never be able to learn to play the
piano. You'd try to do it all the same, perhaps, but you'd do it
doubtfully instead of with confidence."
"What's confidence?" said Beth.
"You are listening to me now with confidence. It is as if you said, I
believe you."
"But I can't say 'I believe you' to arithmetic, if I want to do it."
"No, but you can say, I believe I can do it--I believe in myself."
"Is that confidence in myself?" Beth asked, light breaking in upon
her.
"That's it. You're getting quite a vocabulary, Beth. A vocabulary is
all the words you know," he added hastily, anticipating the inevitable
question.
Beth went on with her weeding for a little.
"And there is another thing, Beth, I want to tell you," her father
recommenced. "Never do anything unless you are quite sure it is the
right thing to do. It doesn't matter how much you may want to do it,
you mustn't, if you are not quite, quite sure it is right."
"Not even if I am just half sure?"
"No, certainly not. You must be quite, quite sure."
Beth picked some more weeds, then looked up at him again: "But, papa,
I shall never want to do anything I don't think right when I'm grown
up, shall I?"
"I'm afraid you will. Everybody does."
"Did _you_ want to, papa?" Beth asked in amazement.
"Yes," he answered.
"And did you do it?"
"Yes," he repeated.
"And what happened?"
"Much misery."
"Were you miserable?"
"Yes, very. But that wasn't the worst of it."
"What was the worst of it?"
"The worst of it was that I made other people miserable."
"Ah, that's bad," said Beth, with perfect comprehension. "That makes
you feel so horrid inside yourself."
"Well, Beth, just you remember that. You can't do wrong without making
somebody else miserable. Be loyal, be loyal to yourself, loyal to the
best that is in you; that means, be as good as your friends think you,
and better if you can. Tell the truth, live openly, and stick to your
friends; that's the whole of the best code of morality in the world.
Now we must go in."
As they walked down the garden together, Beth slipped her dirty little
hand into his, and looked up at him: "Papa," she said solemnly, "when
you want to be with somebody always, more than with anybody else; and
want to look at him, and want to talk to him, and you find you can
tell him lots of things you couldn't tell anybody else if you tried,
you know; what does it mean?"
"It means you love him very much."
"Then I love you, papa, very much," she said, nestling her head
against his arm. "And it does make me feel so nice inside. But it
makes me miserable too," she added, sighing.
"How so?"
"When you have a headache, you know. I used only to be afraid you'd be
angry if I made a noise. But now I'm always thinking how much it hurts
you. I wake up often and often at night, and you are in my mind, and I
try and see you say, 'It's better,' or 'It's quite well.'"
"And what then, Beth?" her father asked, in a queer voice.
"Then I don't cry any more, you know."
She looked up at her father as she spoke, and saw that his eyes were
full of tears.
CHAPTER X
That was almost the last of those happy autumn days. Winter fell upon
the country suddenly with nipping cold. The mountains, always sombre,
lowered in great tumbled masses from under the heavy clouds that
seldom rose from their summits. Terrible gales kept the sea in
torment, and the voice of its rage and pain filled Castletownrock
without ceasing. Torrents of rain tore up the roads, and rendered them
almost impassable. There was stolid endurance and suffering written on
every face out of doors, while within the people cowered over their
peat fires, a prey to hunger, cold, and depression. Draughts made
merry through the large rooms and passages in Captain Caldwell's
house; the wind howled in the chimneys, rattled at the windows, and
whistled at the keyholes, especially at night, when Beth would hide
her head under the bed-clothes to keep out the racket, or, in another
mood, lie and listen to it, and imagine herself out in the storm, till
her nerves were strung to a state of ecstatic tension, and her mind
fairly revelled in the sense of danger. When her father was at home in
the evening, she would sit still beside the fire in the sitting-room,
listening in breathless awe, and excitement wholly pleasurable, to the
gale raging without; but if Captain Caldwell had not returned, as
frequently happened now that the days were short, and the roads so
bad, well knowing the risks he ran, she would see the car upset a
hundred times, and hear the rattle of musketry in every blast that
shook the house, and so share silently, but to the full, the terrible
anxiety which kept her mother pacing up and down, up and down, unable
to settle to anything until he entered and sank into a seat, often so
exhausted that it was hard to rouse him to change his dripping
clothes. His duties, always honourably performed whatever the risk to
himself, were far too severe for him, and he was rapidly becoming a
wreck;--nervous, liverish, a martyr to headache, and a slave to
stimulants, although not a drunkard--he only took enough to whip him
up to his work. His digestion too had become seriously impaired, and
he had no natural appetite for anything. He was fond of his children,
and proud of them, but had hitherto been too irritable to contribute
anything to their happiness; on the contrary, his name was a terror to
them, and "Hush, papa has come in!" was enough at any time to damp
their wildest spirits. Now, however, he suffered more from depression
than from irritability, and would cower over the fire on stormy days
in a state of despondency which was reflected in every face, taking
no notice of any of them. The children would watch him furtively in
close silent sympathy, sitting still and whispering for fear of
disturbing him; and if perchance they saw him smile, and a look of
relief came into their mother's anxious face, their own spirits went
up on the instant. But everything was against him. The damp came up
from the flags in the sitting-room through the cocoanut matting and
the thick carpet that covered it, which it defaced in great patches.
Close to the fire the wires of the piano rusted, and had to be rubbed
and rubbed every day, or half the notes went dumb. The paper, a rare
luxury in those parts, began to drop from the walls. Great turf-fires
were constantly kept up, but the damp stole a march on them when they
smouldered in the night, and made mildew-marks upon everything.
Good food and cooking would have helped Captain Caldwell, but the food
was indifferent, and there were no cooks to be had in the country.
Biddy had never seen such a thing as a kitchen-range before she took
the situation, and when she first had to use the oven, she put the
turf on the bottom shelf in order to heat the top one. Mrs. Caldwell
made what were superhuman efforts to a woman of her training and
constitution, to keep the servants up to the mark, and grew grey in
the endeavour; but Mrs. Caldwell in the kitchen was like a racehorse
at the plough; and even if she had been a born housewife, she could
have done little with servants who would do nothing themselves except
under her eyes, and stole everything they could lay their hands on,
including the salt out of the salt-cellars between meals, if it were
not locked up.
Towards the end of January, Captain Caldwell was ill in bed; he had
wet cloths on his head, and seemed as if he could hardly speak. Beth
hung about his door all day, watching for opportunities to steal in.
Mamma always sent her away if she could, but if papa heard her, he
would whisper, "Let the child come in," and then mamma would let her
in, but would still look cross. And Beth sat at one side of the bed,
and mamma sat on the other, and no one spoke except papa sometimes;
only you could seldom understand what he said. And mamma cried, but
Beth did not. She ached too much inside for that. You can't cry when
you ache so much.
Beth day after day sat with her hands folded on her lap, and her feet
dangling from a chair that was much too high for her, watching her
father with an intensity of silent anxiety that was terrible to
witness in so young a child. Her mother might have beaten her to
death, but she could never have dislodged her from the room once she
had her father's leave to stay there. Mrs. Caldwell rarely beat her
now, however; she generally ignored her; so Beth came and went as she
chose. She would climb up on to the bed when there was nobody in the
room, and kiss the curls of papa's thick glossy black hair so softly
that he never knew, except once, when he caught her, and smiled. His
dark face grew grey in bed, and his blue eyes sunken and haggard; but
he battled it out that time, and slowly began to recover.
Beth was sitting in her usual place beside her father's bed one day
when the doctor came and discovered her. He was standing on the other
side of the bed, and exclaimed, "Why, it's all eyes!"