The Beth Book
and constraint made everyone dyspeptic. The dinner consisted of only
one dish, a hash, which Mrs. Caldwell had made because her husband had
liked it so much the last time they had had it. He turned it over on
his plate now, however, ominously, blaming the food for his own want
of appetite. Mrs. Caldwell knew the symptoms, and sighed.
"I can't eat this stuff," he said at last, pushing his plate away from
him.
"There's a pudding coming," his wife replied.
"Oh, a pudding!" he exclaimed. "I know what our puddings are. Why
aren't women taught something sensible? What's the use of all your
accomplishments if you can't cook the simplest dish? What a difference
it would have made to my life if you had been able to make pastry
even."
Mrs. Caldwell thought of the time she had spent on her feet in the
kitchen that morning doing her best, and she also thought how easy it
would have been for him to marry a woman who could cook, if that were
all he wanted; but she had no faint glimmering conception that it was
unreasonable to expect a woman of her class to cook her dinner as well
as eat it. One servant is not expected to do another's work in any
establishment; but a mother on a small income, the most cruelly tried
of women, is too often required to be equal to anything. Mrs. Caldwell
said nothing, however. She belonged to the days when a wife's meek
submission to anything a man chose to say made nagging a pleasant
relaxation for the man, and encouraged him to persevere until he
acquired a peculiar ease in the art, and spoilt the tempers of
everybody about him.
The arrival of the family doctor put an end to the scene. Mrs.
Caldwell told the children to run away, and her husband's countenance
cleared.
"Glad to see you, Gottley," he said. "What will you have?"
"Oh, nothing, thank you. I can't stay a moment. I just looked in to
see how Mrs. Caldwell was getting on."
"Oh, she's all right," her husband answered for her cheerfully. "How
are you all, especially Miss Bessie?"
"Ha! ha!" said the old gentleman, sitting down by the table. "That
reminds me I'm not on good terms with Bessie this morning. I'm generally
careful, you know, but it seems I said something disrespectful about a
Christian brother--a _Christian_ brother, mind you--and I've been had up
before the family tribunal for blasphemy, and condemned to everlasting
punishment. Lord!--But, mark my words," he exclaimed emphatically, "a
time will come when every school-girl will see, what my life is made a
burden to me for seeing now, the absurdity of the whole religious
superstition."
"O doctor!" Mrs. Caldwell cried, "surely you believe in God?"
"God has not revealed Himself to me, madam; I know nothing about Him,"
the old gentleman answered gently.
"Ah, there you know you are wrong, Gottley," Mr. Caldwell chimed in,
and then he proceeded to argue the question. The old doctor, being in
a hurry, said little in reply, and when he had gone Mrs. Caldwell
exclaimed, with wifely tact--
"Well, I think you had the best of that!"
"Well, I think I had, poor old buffer!" her husband answered
complacently, his temper restored. "By the way, I've brought in the
last number of Dickens. Shall I read it to you?"
Her face brightened. "Yes, do," she rejoined. "One moment, till Jane
has done clearing the table. Here's your chair," and she placed the
only easy one in the room for him, in the best light.
These readings were one of the joys of her life. He read to her often,
and read exceedingly well. Books were the bond of union between them,
the prop and stay of their married life. Poor as they were, they
always managed to find money for new ones, which they enjoyed together
in this way. Intellectuality balanced the morbid irritability of the
husband's temperament, and literature made life tolerable to them both
as nothing else could have done. As he read now, his countenance
cleared, and his imaginary cares fell from him; while his wife's very
real ones were forgotten as she listened, and there was a blessed
truce to trouble for a time. Unfortunately, however, as the reading
proceeded, he came to a rasping bit of the story, which began to grate
upon his nerves. The first part had been pleasurably exciting, but
when he found the sensation slipping from him, he thought to stay it
with a stimulant, and went to the sideboard for the purpose. Mrs.
Caldwell's heart sank; the whisky bottle was all but empty.
"Oh, damn it!" he exclaimed, banging it down on the sideboard. "And I
suppose there is none in the house. There never is any in the house.
No one looks after anything. My comfort is never considered. It is
always those damned children."
"Henry!" his wife protested; but she was too ill to defend herself
further.
"What a life for a man," he proceeded; "stuck down in this cursed
hole, without a congenial soul to speak to, in or out of the house."
"That is a cruel thing to say, Henry," she remonstrated with dignity.
"Well, I apologise," he rejoined ungraciously. "But you must confess
that I have some cause to complain."
He was standing behind her as he spoke, and she felt that he eyed her
the while with disapproval of her appearance, and anger at her
condition. She knew the look only too well, poor soul, and her
attitude was deprecating as she sat there gazing up pitifully at the
strip of level greyness above the houses opposite. She said nothing,
however, only rocked herself on her chair, and looked forlornly
miserable; seeing which brought his irritation to a climax. He flung
the book across the room; but even in the act, his countenance
cleared. He was standing in the window, and caught a glimpse of Bessie
Gottley, who was passing at the moment on the opposite side of the
road, and looked across at him, smiling and nodding invitingly. Mrs.
Caldwell saw the pantomime, and her heart contracted with a pang when
she saw how readily her husband responded. It was hard that the evil
moods should not be conquered for her as well as for Bessie Gottley.
Bridget came in just then, bringing the belated whisky.
"Oh, you did order it," he graciously acknowledged. "Why didn't you
say so?" He opened the bottle, and poured some out for himself.
"Here's to the moon-faced Bessie!" he said jocularly.
Mrs. Caldwell went on with the mending. Her husband began to walk up
and down the room, in a good humour again. He walked peculiarly, more
on his toes than his heels, with an odd little spring in each step, as
if it were the first step of a dance. This springiness gave to his
gait a sort of buoyancy which might have seemed natural to him, if
exaggerated, in his youth, but had the air of an affectation in middle
life, as if it were part of an assumption of juvenility.
"Won't you go on with the reading?" his wife said at last. His
restlessness worried her.
"No," he answered; "I shall go out. I want exercise."
"When will you be back?" she asked wistfully.
"Oh, hang it all! don't nag me. I shall come back when I like."
He left the room as he spoke, slamming the door behind him. Mrs.
Caldwell did not alter her attitude, but the tears welled up in her
eyes, and ran down her haggard cheeks unheeded. The children came in,
and finding her so, quietly left the room, all but the eldest girl,
who went and leant against her, slipping her little hand through her
mother's arm. The poor woman kissed the child passionately; then, with
a great effort, recovered her self-control, put her work away, gave
the children their tea, read to them for an hour, and saw them to bed.
The front door was open when she came downstairs, and she went to shut
it. A lady, who knew her, happened to be passing, and stopped to shake
hands. "I saw your husband just now sitting on the beach with Bessie
Gottley," she informed Mrs. Caldwell pleasantly. "They were both
laughing immoderately."
"Very likely," Mrs. Caldwell responded with a smile. "She amuses my
husband immensely. But won't you come in?"
"No, thank you. Not to-night. I am hurrying home. Glad to see you
looking so well;" with which she nodded, and went her way; and Mrs.
Caldwell returned to the little dining-room, holding her head high
till she had shut the door, when she burst into a tempest of tears.
She was a lymphatic woman ordinarily, but subject to sudden squalls of
passion, when she lost all self-control.
She would have sobbed aloud now, when the fit was on her, in the face
of the whole community, although the constant effort of her life was
to keep up appearances. She had recovered herself, however, before the
servant came in with the candles, and was sitting in the window
looking out anxiously. The greyness of the long June day was darkening
down to night now, but there was no change in the sultry stillness of
the air. Summer lightning played about in the strip of sky above the
houses opposite. One of the houses was a butcher's shop, and while
Mrs. Caldwell sat there, the butcher brought out a lamb and killed it.
Mrs. Caldwell watched the operation with interest. They did strange
things in those days in that little Irish seaport, and, being an
Englishwoman, she looked on like a civilised traveller intelligently
studying the customs of a savage people.
But as the darkness gathered, the trouble of her mind increased. Her
husband did not return, and a sickening sensation of dread took
possession of her. Where had he gone? What was he doing? Doubtless
enjoying himself--what bitterness there was in the thought! She did
not grudge him any pleasure, but it was hard that he should find so
little in her company. Why was there no distraction for her? The
torment of her mind was awful; should she try his remedy? She went to
the sideboard and poured herself out some whisky, but even as she
raised it to her lips she felt it unworthy to have recourse to it, and
put the glass down untouched.
After that she went and leant against the window-frame. It was about
midnight, and very few people passed. Whenever a man appeared in the
distance, she had a moment of hope, but only to be followed by the
sickening sensation of another disappointment. The mental anguish was so
great that for some time she paid no attention to physical symptoms
which had now begun. By degrees, however, these became importunate, and
oh the relief of it! The trouble of her mind ceased when the physical
pain became acute, and therefore she welcomed it as a pleasant
distraction. She was obliged to think and be practical too; there was no
one in the house to help her. The sleeping children were of course out
of the question, and the two young servants, maid-of-all-work and
nurse, nearly as much so. Besides, there was the difficulty of calling
them. She felt she must not disturb Jane who was in the nursery, for
fear of rousing the children; but should she ever get to Bridget's room,
which was further off? Step by step she climbed the stairs, clinging to
the banister with one hand, holding the candle in the other. Several
times she sank down and waited silently, but with contracted face, till
a paroxysm had passed. At last she reached the door. Bridget was awake
and had heard her coming. "Holy Mother!" she exclaimed, startled out of
her habitual sullenness by her mistress's agonised face. "Yer ill,
ma'am! Let me help you to your bed!"
"Fetch the doctor and the nurse, Bridget," Mrs. Caldwell was just able
to gasp.
In the urgency and excitement of the moment, there was a truce to
hostilities. Bridget jumped up, in night-dress and bare feet, and
supported her mistress to her room. There she was obliged to leave her
alone; and so it happened that, just as the grey dawn trembled with
the first flush of a new and brighter day, the child arrived
unassisted and without welcome, and sent up a wail of protest. When