The Beth Book
it's difficult. Aunt Grace Mary, do you know what Neptune would say if
the sea dried up?" Aunt Grace Mary smiled and shook her head. "I
haven't an ocean," Beth proceeded. "You don't see it? Well, I didn't
at first. You see _an ocean_ and _a notion_ sound the same if you say
them sharp. Now, do you see? They call that a pun."
"Who told you that?"
"A gentleman in the train."
Beth put her pencil in her mouth, and gazed up at the sky. "I don't
suppose he'd be such a black-hearted villain as to break his word,"
she said at last.
"Who?" Aunt Grace Mary asked, in a startled tone.
"Uncle James--about leaving Jim the place, you know. Why, don't you
know? Mamma is the eldest, and ought to have had Fairholm, but she was
away in Ireland, busy having me, when grandpapa died, and couldn't
come; so Uncle James frightened the old man into leaving the place to
him, and mamma only got fifty pounds a year, which wasn't fair."
"Who told you this, Beth?"
"Mildred. Mamma told her. And Horner said the other day to cook--I'll
have to say it the way Horner says it. If I said it my way, you know,
then it wouldn't be Horner--Horner said to cook as 'ow Captain
Caldwell 'ud 'a' gone to law about it, but squire 'e swore if 'e'd let
the matter drop, 'e'd make 'is nevee, Master Jim, as is also 'is
godson, 'is heir, an' so square it; and Captain Caldwell, as was a
real gen'lmon, an' fond of the ladies, tuk 'im at 'is word, an'
furgiv' 'im. But, lardie! don't us know the worth o' Mr. James
Patten's word!"
Aunt Grace Mary had turned very pale.
"Beth," she gasped, "promise me you will never, never, _never_ say a
word about this to your uncle."
"Not likely," said Beth.
"How do you remember these things you hear?"
"Oh, I just think them over again when I go to bed, and then they
stay," Beth answered. "I wouldn't tell you half I hear, though--only
things everybody knows. If you tell secrets, you know, you're a
tell-pie. And I'm not a tell-pie. Now, Bernadine is. She's a regular
tell-pie. It seems as if she couldn't help it; but then she's young,"
Beth added tolerantly.
"Were you ever young, I wonder?" Aunt Grace Mary muttered to herself.
CHAPTER XIII
Meanwhile the English spring advanced in the beautiful gardens of
Fairholm, and was a joy to Beth. Blossoms showered from the
fruit-trees, green leaves unfurled, the birds were in full song, and
the swans curved their long necks in the sunshine, and breasted the
waters of the lake, as if their own grace were a pleasure to them.
Beth was enchanted. Every day she discovered some new wonder--nests in
the hedgerows, lambs in the fields, a foal and its mother in the
paddock, a calf in the byre--more living interests in one week than
she had dreamt of in the whole of her little life. For a happy
interval the scenes which had oppressed her--the desolation, the
sombre colours of the great melancholy mountains, the incessant sound
of the turbulent sea, the shock and roar of angry breakers warring
with the rocks, which had kept her little being all a-throb, braced to
the expectation of calamity--lapsed now into the background of her
recollection, and under the benign influence of these lovelier
surroundings her mind began to expand in the most extraordinary way,
while her further faculty awoke, and gave her glimpses of more
delights than mortal mind could have shown her. "Such nice things," as
she expressed it, "keep coming into my head, and I want to write them
down." Books she flung away impatiently; but the woods and streams,
and the wild flowers, the rooks returning to roost in the trees at
sunset, the horses playing in the paddocks, the cows dawdling back
from their pastures, all sweet country scents and cheerful country
sounds she became alive to and began to love. There would be trouble
enough in Beth herself at times, wherever she was; it was hard that
she could not have been kept in some such paradise always, to ease the
burden of her being.
One morning her mother told her that Uncle James was extremely
displeased with her because he had seen her pelting the swans.
"He didn't see me pelting the swans," Beth asseverated. "I was feeding
them with crusts. And how did he see me, any way? He wasn't there."
"He sees everything that's going on," Mrs. Caldwell assured her.
"He's only pretending," Beth argued, "or else he must be God."
But she kept her eyes about her the next time she was in the grounds,
and at last she discovered him, sitting in the little window of his
dressing-room with a book before him, and completely blocking the
aperture. She had never noticed him there before, because the panes
were small and bright, and the shine on them made it difficult to see
through them from below. After this discovery she always felt that his
eyes were upon her wherever she went within range of that window. Not
that that would have deterred her had she wanted to do anything
particularly; but even a child feels it intolerable to be spied upon;
and as for a spy! Beth scorned the creature.
That day at luncheon Uncle James made an announcement.
"Lady Benyon is going to honour us with a visit," he began in his most
impressive manner. There is no snob so inveterate as your snob of good
birth; and Uncle James said "Lady" as if it were a privilege just to
pronounce the word. "She will arrive this afternoon at a quarter to
four."
"But you will be practising," Beth exclaimed.
"The rites of hospitality must be observed," he condescended to inform
her.
"Lady Benyon is my mother, Beth," Aunt Grace Mary put in irrelevantly.
"I know," Beth answered. "Your papa was a baronet; Uncle James loves
baronets; that was why he married you." Having thus disposed of Aunt
Grace Mary, Beth turned to the other end of the table, and resumed:
"But you went on practising when _we_ arrived, Uncle James."
Uncle James gazed at her blandly, then looked at his sister with an
agreeable smile. "Lady Benyon will probably like to see the children.
You do not dress them in the latest fashion, I observe."
"They _are_ shabby," Mrs. Caldwell acknowledged with a sigh,
apologetically.
Beth shovelled some spoonfuls of pudding into her mouth very quickly.
"That's the money bother again," she said, and then she sang out at
the top of her voice--
"Bryan O'Lynn had no breeches to wear,
He bought a sheepskin for to make him a pair,
With the skinny side out, and the woolly side in,
'They're warm in the winter,' said Bryan O'Lynn."
"I suppose it would be quite impossible to suppress this child?" Uncle
James lisped with deceptive mildness. "I observe that she joins in the
conversation always, with great intelligence and her mouth full. It
might be better, perhaps, if she emptied her mouth. However, I suppose
it would be impossible to teach her."
"Not at all," Beth answered for herself, cheerfully. "I'm not too
stupid to empty my mouth! Only just you tell me what it is you want.
Don't bottle things up. I expect I've been speaking with my mouth full
ever since I came, and you've been hating me for it; but you never
told me."
"May I ask," said Uncle James politely, "by whom you were informed
that I 'bottled things up'?"
"Ah, that would be telling," said Beth, and recommenced gobbling her
pudding, to the intense relief of some of the party.
Great-Aunt Victoria Bench, sitting upright opposite, looked across the
table at the child, and a faint smile flickered over her wrinkled
rose-leaf cheek.
Beth finished her pudding, dropped her spoon on her plate with a
clatter, leant back in her chair, and sighed with satisfaction. She
possessed a horrid fascination for Uncle James. Almost everything she
did was an offence to him, yet he could not keep his eyes off her or
let her alone.
"Pudding seems to be a weakness of hers," he now observed. "I hope her
voracity is satisfied. I should say that it resembles the voracity of
the caterpillar."
"What's voracity, Aunt Victoria?" Beth asked.
"Greediness," Aunt Victoria rejoined sententiously.
"He means I'm greedy for pudding? I just _am_! I'd like to be a
caterpillar for pudding. Caterpillars eat all day. But then God's good
to them. He puts them on a tree with lots of leaves. I wish He'd put
me in a pantry with lots of puddings! My vorass--vor--what is it? Any
way, it's satisfied now, Uncle James, and if you'll let me go, I'll
wash myself, and get ready for Lady Benyon."
Rather than let her go when she wanted to, however, Uncle James sat
some time longer at table than he had intended. It was he who always
gave the signal to rise; before he did so on this occasion, he
formally requested his sister to request Beth to be silent during Lady
Benyon's visit.
Lady Benyon was a shrewd, active little old woman, with four dark
curls laid horizontally on either side of her forehead. She had bright
black sparkling eyes that glanced about quickly and seemed to see
everything. Before she arrived, Uncle James assembled his family in
the drawing-room, and set the scene, as it were, for her reception.
"Sit here, facing the window, Caroline," he said. "It will interest
Lady Benyon to see how you have aged. And, Aunt Victoria, this
Chippendale chair, so stiff and straight, is just like you, I think;
so oblige me by sitting on it. Grace Mary, take this easy lounge; it
suits your yielding nature. Elizabeth"--Beth, who was perched on the
piano-stool, looked up calmly at the clouds through the window
opposite. "Elizabeth," he repeated sharply. Beth made no sign.
"Beth, answer your uncle directly," Mrs. Caldwell exclaimed.
"He has not yet addressed me," Beth rejoined, in the manner of Uncle
James.
"Don't call your uncle 'he,' you naughty girl. You know your name is
Elizabeth."
"Yes, and I know I said I wouldn't answer to it, and I'm not going to
break me oath."
"Me oath!" Uncle James ejaculated.
Beth looked disconcerted. It irked her horribly to be jeered at for
making a mistake in speaking, and Uncle James, seeing she was hurt,
rested satisfied for the moment, and arranged Mildred and Bernadine
together in a group, leaving Beth huddled up on the piano-stool,
frowning.
When Lady Benyon's carriage stopped at the door, Uncle James stood
bareheaded on the steps, ready to receive her.
"So glad to see you, mamma," he lisped, as he handed her out. "_Do_
take my arm."
But the little old lady waved him aside unceremoniously, and hobbled
in with the brisk stiffness of age.
"Gracious!" she exclaimed when she saw the party arranged in the
drawing-room. "You all look as if you were having your likeness
taken--all except Puck there, on the piano-stool."
When Uncle James had manoeuvred Lady Benyon into the seat of honour
he intended her to take in order to complete the picture, she frankly
inspected each member of the group, ending with Beth.
"And who may you be?" she asked.
Beth smiled and shrugged her shoulders.
"Why don't you speak?"
Beth made another gesture.
"Goodness!" Lady Benyon cried; "is the child an idiot?"
"Beth, answer Lady Benyon directly," Mrs. Caldwell angrily commanded.
"Uncle James requested mamma to request me not to speak when you were
present," Beth explained suavely.
The old lady burst out laughing. "Well, that's droll," she
said--"requested mamma to request me--why, it's James Patten all over.
And who may you be, you monkey?"
"I am Elizabeth Caldwell, but I only answer to Beth. Papa called me
Beth."
"Good!" said the little old lady. "And what's Ireland like?"
"Great dark mountains," Beth rattled off, with big eyes dilated and
fixed on space, as if she saw what she described. "Long, long, long,
black bogs; all the poor people starving; and the sea rough--just like
hell, you know, but without the fire."