The Beth Book
stroked his dark hair, and as she did so her hand showed white against
it.
The children kissed him; and then Mrs. Ellis persuaded mamma to come
and help her to put them to bed; and mamma taught them to say: "_Yea,
though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear
no evil: for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort
me._" She told them to remember they had learnt it on the day their
father died, and asked them to say it always in memory of him. Beth
believed for a long time that it was he who would walk with her
through the valley of the shadow, and in after years she felt sure
that her mother had thought so too.
Mrs. Ellis stayed all night, and slept with the children.
When their mother left them, Beth could not sleep. She had noticed how
cold her father was when she kissed him, and was distressed to think
he had only a sheet to cover him. The longer she thought of it, the
more wretched she became, especially when she contrasted the warmth
and softness of her own little bed with the hardness and coldness of
the one they had made up for him; and at last she could bear it no
longer. She sat up in bed and listened. She could hear by their
breathing that the other children were asleep, but she was not sure
about Mrs. Ellis. Very stealthily, therefore, she slipped out of bed,
and pulled off the clothes. She could only just clasp them in both
arms, but the nursery door was ajar, and she managed to open it with
her foot. It creaked noisily, and Beth waited, listening in suspense;
but nobody moved; so she slipped out into the passage. It was quite
dark there, and the floor felt very cold to her bare feet. She
stumbled down the passage, tripping over the bed-clothes as she went,
and dreading to be caught and stopped, but not afraid of anything
else. The door was open when she reached it, and there was a dim light
in the room. This was unexpected, and she paused to peep in before she
entered. Two candles were burning on a table at the foot of the bed.
Their flames flickered in a draught, and cast shadows on her father's
face, so that it seemed as if he moved and breathed again. Her mother
was kneeling beside the bed, with her face hidden on her husband's
breast, her left arm round him, while with the fingers of her right
hand she incessantly toyed with his hair. "Only last night," she was
saying, "only last night; oh, I cannot believe it!--perhaps I ought to
be glad--there will be no more pain for you--oh, my darling, I would
have given my life to save you a moment's pain--and I could do so
little--so little. Oh, if only you could come back to tell me that
your life had ever been the better for me, that I had not spoilt it
utterly, that I brought you some happiness." She raised her head and
looked into the tranquil face. The flickering shadows flitted across
it, but did not deceive her. She must ache on always for an answer
now--always, for ever. With a convulsive sob, she crawled up closer on
her knees, and laid her cheek beside his, but no tears came. She had
not wept at all that day.
Beth stood for a long time in the doorway, listening to her mother's
rambling talk, and watching her white fingers straying through her
father's hair. She hugged the bed-clothes close, but she had forgotten
why she came. She felt no cold; she held no thought; her whole being
was absorbed in the scene before her.
Presently, however, something that her mother said aroused her--"Cold,"
she was murmuring, "so cold. How you dreaded it too! You were always
delicate and suffering, yet you did more than the strongest men, for our
sakes. You never spared yourself. What you undertook to do, you did like
an honourable gentleman, neglecting nothing. You have died doing your
duty, as you wished to die. You have been dying all these months--and I
never suspected--I did not know--dying--killed by exposure--and
anxiety--and bad food. You came home hungry, and you could not eat what
I had to give you--cold, and I could not warm you--oh, the cruel, bitter
cold!"
Beth slipped up to her noiselessly.
"Mamma!"
Mrs. Caldwell started.
Beth held out the blankets--"to cover him."
Her mother caught her in her arms. "O my poor little child! my poor
little child!" she cried; and then at last she burst into tears.
* * * * *
During the days that preceded her father's funeral, Beth did not miss
him. It was as if he were somewhere else, that was all--away in the
mountains--and was himself thinking, as Beth did continually, about the
still, cold, smiling figure that reposed, serenely indifferent to them
all, in his room upstairs. One day, what he had said about being laid
out by old women came into her head, and she wondered what he would have
looked like when they laid him out that he should have objected so
strongly to their seeing him. She was near the death-chamber at the
moment, and went in. No one was there, and she stood a long time looking
at the figure on the bed. It was entirely covered, but she had only to
lift the sheet and learn the secret. She turned it back from the placid
face, then stopped, and whispered half in awe, half in interrogation,
"Papa!" As she pronounced the word, the inhuman impulse passed and was
forgotten.
Hours later, Mrs. Ellis found her sitting beside him as she had so
often done during his illness, on that same chair which was too high
for her, her feet dangling, and her little hands folded in her lap,
gazing at him with a face as placidly set, save for the eyes, as his
own.
The next day they had all to bid him the long farewell. Mrs. Caldwell
stood looking down upon him, not wiping the great tears that welled up
painfully into her eyes, lest in the act she should blot out the dear
image and so lose sight of it for one last precious moment. She was an
undemonstrative woman, but the lingering way in which she touched him,
his hair, his face, his waxen hands, was all the more impressive for
that in its restrained tenderness.
Suddenly she uncovered his feet. They were white as marble, and
beautifully formed. "Ah, I feared so!" she exclaimed. "They put them
into hot water that day. I knew it was too hot, and I said so; he
seemed insensible, but I felt him wince--and see!" The scar of a scald
proved that she had been right. This last act, due to the fear that he
had been made to suffer an unnecessary pang, struck Beth in after
years as singularly pathetic.
It was not until after the funeral that Beth herself realised that she
had lost her father. When they returned, the house had been set in
order, and made to look as usual--yet something was missing. The
blinds were up, the sun was streaming in, the "Ingoldsby Legends" lay
on the sofa in the sitting-room. When Beth saw the book her eyes
dilated with a pang. It lay there, just as he had left it; but he was
in the ground. He would never come back again.
Suddenly the child threw herself on the floor in an agony of grief,
sobbing, moaning, writhing, tearing her hair, and calling aloud,
"Papa! papa! Come back! come back! come back!"
Mrs. Caldwell in her fright would have tried her old remedy of shaking
and beating; but Mrs. Ellis snatched the child up and carried her off
to the nursery, where she kept her for the rest of that terrible day,
rocking her on her knee most of the time, and talking to her about her
father in heaven, living the life eternal, yet watching over her
still, and waiting for her, until she fired Beth's imagination, and
the terrible grave was forgotten.
That night, however, and for many nights to come, the child started up
out of her sleep, and wept, and wailed, and tore her hair, and had
again to be nursed and comforted.
CHAPTER XI
Just like the mountains, all jumbled up together when you view them
from a distance, had Beth's impulses and emotions already begun to be
in their extraordinary complexity at this period; and even more like
the mountains when you are close to them, for then, losing sight of
the whole, you become aware of the details, and are surprised at their
wonderful diversity, at the heights and hollows, the barren wastes,
fertile valleys, gentle slopes, and giddy precipices--heights and
hollows of hope and despair, barren wastes of mis-spent time, fertile
valleys of intellectual accomplishment, gentle slopes of aspiration
undefined, and giddy precipices of passionate impulse and desperate
revolt. Genius is sympathetic insight made perfect; and it must have
this diversity if it is ever to be effectual--must touch on every
human experience, must suffer, and must also enjoy; great, therefore,
are its compensations. It feels the sorrows of all mankind, and is
elevated by them; whereas the pain of an individual bereavement is
rather acute than prolonged. Genius is spared the continuous gnawing
ache of the grief which stultifies; instead of an ever-present wearing
sense of loss that would dim its power, it retains only those hallowed
memories, those vivid recollections, which foster the joy of a great
yearning tenderness; and all its pains are transmuted into something
subtle, mysterious, invisible, neither to be named nor ignored--a
fertilising essence which is the source of its own heaven, and may
also contain the salvation of earth. So genius has no lasting griefs.
Beth utterly rejected all thought of her father in his grave, and even
of her father in heaven. When her first wild grief subsided, he
returned to her, to be with her, as those we love are with us always
in their absence, enshrined in our happy consciousness. She never
mentioned him in these days, but his presence, warm in her heart, kept
her little being aglow; and it was only when people spoke to her, and
distracted her attention from the thought of him, that she felt
disconsolate. While she could walk with him in dreams, she cared for
no other companionship.
It was a dreadful position for poor Mrs. Caldwell, left a widow--not
without friends, certainly, for the people were kind--but with none of
her own kith and kin, in that wild district, embarrassed for want of
money, and broken in health. But, as is usual in times of great
calamity, many things happened, showing both the best and the worst
side of human nature.
After Captain Caldwell's death, old Captain Keene, who had once held
the appointment himself, and was indebted to Captain Caldwell for much
kindly hospitality, went about the countryside telling people that
Captain Caldwell had died of drink. Some officious person immediately
brought the story to Mrs. Caldwell.
Mrs. Caldwell had the house on her hands, but the officer who was sent
to succeed Captain Caldwell would be obliged to take it, as there was
no other. He arrived one day with a very fastidious wife, who did not
like the house at all. There was no accommodation in it, no china
cupboard, nothing fit for a lady. She must have it all altered. From
the way she spoke, it seemed to Beth that she blamed her mother for
everything that was wrong.
Mrs. Caldwell said very little. She was suffering from a great
swelling at the back of her neck--an anthrax, the doctor called
it--and was not fit to be about at all, but her indomitable fortitude
kept her up. Mrs. Ellis had stayed to nurse her, and help with the
children. She and Mrs. Caldwell looked at each other and smiled when
the new officer's wife had gone.
"She's a very fine lady indeed, Mrs. Ellis," Mrs. Caldwell said,
sighing wearily.
"Yes, ma'am," Mrs. Ellis answered; "but people who have been used to
things all their lives think less about them."
Mrs. Ellis was very kind to the children, and when wet days kept Beth
indoors, she would stay with her, and study her with interest. She was
thin, precise, low-voiced, quiet in her movements, passionless, loyal;