The Beth Book
customary to sacrifice the girls of a family to the boys; to give them
no educational advantages, and then to jeer at them for their
ignorance and silliness. Mrs. Caldwell's own education had been of
the most desultory character, but such as it was, she was content with
it. "The method has answered in my case," she complacently maintained,
without the slightest suspicion that the assertion proved nothing but
extreme self-satisfaction. Accordingly, as she could not afford to
send her daughters to school as well as the boys, she decided to
educate them herself. Everybody who could read, write, and cipher was
supposed to be able to teach in those days, and Mrs. Caldwell
undertook the task without a doubt of her own capacity. But Aunt
Victoria was not so sanguine.
"I hope religious instruction will be a part of their education," she
said, when the subject was first discussed.
"They shall read the Bible from beginning to end," Mrs. Caldwell
answered shortly.
"That, I should think, would be hardly desirable," Aunt Victoria
deprecated gently.
"And I shall teach them their Catechism, and take them to church,"
Mrs. Caldwell proceeded. "That is the way in which _I_ was taught."
"_We_ were instructed in doctrine, and taught to order our conduct on
certain fixed principles, which were explained to us," Aunt Victoria
ventured.
"Indeed, yes, I dare say," Mrs. Caldwell observed politely; so there
the subject had to drop.
But Aunt Victoria was far from satisfied. She shook her head sadly
over her niece's spiritual state, and determined to save the souls of
her great-nieces by instructing them herself as occasion should offer.
"What is education, mamma?" Beth asked.
"Why, learning things, of course," Mrs. Caldwell replied, with a smile
at the child's simplicity.
"I know that," Beth snapped, irritated by her mother's manner.
"Then why did you ask?" Mrs. Caldwell wished to know.
"The child has probably heard that that is not all," said Aunt
Victoria. "'Learning things' is but one item of education--if you mean
by that the mere acquisition of knowledge. A well-ordered day, for
instance, is an essential part of education. Education is a question
of discipline, of regular hours for everything, from the getting up in
the morning to the going to bed at night. No mind can be properly
developed without routine. Teach a child how to order its time, and
its talents will do the rest."
"Get out your books, children," said Mrs. Caldwell, and Aunt Victoria
hurriedly withdrew.
Beth put a large Bible, Colenso's arithmetic, a French grammar, and
Pinnock (an old-fashioned compilation of questions and answers), on
the table, and looked at them despondently. Then she took a slate, set
herself the easiest addition sum she could find in Colenso, and did it
wrong. Her mother told her to correct it.
"I wish you would show me how, mamma," Beth pleaded.
"You must find out for yourself," her mother answered.
This was her favourite formula. She had no idea of making the lessons
either easy or interesting to the children. Teaching was a duty she
detested, a time of trial both to herself and to her pupils, to be got
over as soon as possible. The whole proceeding only occupied two or
three dreadful hours of the morning, and then the children were free
for the rest of the day, and so was she.
After lessons they all went out together to the north cliffs, where
Aunt Victoria and Mrs. Caldwell walked to and fro on a sheltered
terrace, while the children played on the sands below. It was a still
day when Beth first saw the sands, and the lonely level and the
tranquil sea delighted her. On her left, white cliffs curved round the
bay like an arm; on her right was the grey and solid old stone pile,
and behind her the mellow red brick houses of the little town
scrambled up an incline from the shore irregularly. Silver sparkles
brightened the hard smooth surface of the sand in the sunshine. The
tide was coming in, and tiny waves advanced in irregular curves, and
broke with a merry murmur. Joy got hold of Beth as she gazed about
her, feeling the beauty of the scene. With the infinite charity of
childhood, she forgave her mother her trespasses against her for that
day, and her little soul was filled with the peace of the newly
shriven. She flourished a little wooden spade that Aunt Victoria had
given her, but did not dig. The surface of the sand was all unbroken;
no disfiguring foot of man had trodden the long expanse, and Beth
hesitated to be the first to spoil its exquisite serenity. Her heart
expanded, however, and she shouted aloud in a great, uncontrollable
burst of exultation.
A man with a brown beard and moustache, short, crisp, curly hair, and
deep-set, glittering dark grey eyes, came up to her from behind. He
wore a blue pilot-coat, blue trousers, and a peaked cap, the dress of
a merchant-skipper.
"Don't desecrate this heavenly solitude with discordant cries," he
exclaimed.
Beth had not heard him approach, and she turned round, startled, when
he spoke.
"I thought I was singing!" she rejoined.
"Don't dig and disfigure the beautiful bare brown bosom of the shore,"
he pursued.
"I did not mean to dig," Beth said, looking up in his face; and then
looking round about her in perfect comprehension of his mood--"The
beautiful bare brown bosom of the shore," she slowly repeated,
delighting in the phrase. "It's the kind of thing you can sing, you
know."
"Yes," said the man, suddenly smiling; "it is pure poetry, and I make
you a present of the copyright."
"But," Beth objected, "the shore is _not_ brown. I've been thinking
and thinking what to call it. It's the colour--the colour of--the
colour of tarnished silver," she burst out at last triumphantly.
"Well observed," he said.
"Then I make you a present of the copyright," Beth answered readily.
"Thank you," he said; "but it will not scan."
"What is scan?"
"It won't fit into the verse, you know."
"The beautiful bare colour-of-tarnished-silver bosom of the shore,"
she sang out glibly; then agreed, with a wise shake of her head, that
the phrase was impossible; and recurred to another point of interest,
as was her wont--"What is copyright?"
Before he could answer, however, Mrs. Caldwell had swooped down upon
them. She had seen him from the cliff talking to Beth, and hastened
down the steps in her hot-tempered way, determined to rebuke the man
for his familiarity, and heedless of Aunt Victoria, who had made an
effort to stop her.
"May I ask why you are interfering with my child, sir?" she demanded.
The man in the sailor-suit raised his hat and bowed low.
"Excuse me, madam," he said. "I could not possibly have supposed that
she was your child."
Mrs. Caldwell coloured angrily as at an insult, although the words
seemed innocent enough. When he had spoken, he turned to Beth, with
his hat still in his hand, and added--"Good-bye, little lady. We must
meet again, you and I--on the beautiful bare brown bosom of the
shore."
Beth's sympathy shone out in a smile, and she waved her hand
confidingly to him as he turned away. Mrs. Caldwell seized her arm and
hurried her up the steps to Aunt Victoria, who stood on the edge of
the cliff blinking calmly.
"Imagine Beth scraping acquaintance with such a common-looking
person!" Mrs. Caldwell cried. "You must never speak to him or look at
him again--do you hear? I wonder what taste you will develop next!"
"It is a pity that you are so impetuous, Caroline," Aunt Victoria
observed quietly. "That gentleman is the Count Gustav Bartahlinsky,
who may perhaps be considered eccentric here, where noblemen of great
attainments and wealth are certainly not numerous; but is hardly to be
called common-looking."
Beth saw her mother's countenance drop.
"Then I _may_ speak to him," she decided for herself. "What's a
copyright, mamma?"
"Oh, don't bother, Beth!" Mrs. Caldwell exclaimed irritably.
When they went home, Bernadine clamoured for food, and her mother gave
her a piece of bread. They were to have dinner at four o'clock, but no
luncheon, for economy's sake. Beth was hungry too, but she would not
confess it. What she had heard of their poverty had made a deep
impression on her, and she was determined to eat as little as
possible. Aunt Victoria glanced at Bernadine and the bread as she went
up to her room, and Beth fancied she heard her sigh. Was the old lady
hungry too, she wondered, and her little heart sank.
This was Beth's first exercise in self-denial, but she had plenty of
practice, for the scene was repeated day after day.
The children being free, had to amuse themselves as best they could,
and went out to play in the little garden at the back of the house.
Mrs. Caldwell's own freedom was merely freedom for thought. Most of
the day she spent beside the dining-room table, making and mending,
her only distraction being an occasional glance through the window at
the boughs of the apple-trees which showed above the wall opposite, or
at the people passing. Even when teaching the children she made,
mended, and pursued her own thoughts, mapping out careers for her
boys, making brilliant matches for Mildred and Bernadine, and even
building a castle for Beth now and then. She made and mended as badly
as might be expected of a woman whose proud boast it was that when she
was married she could not hem a pocket-handkerchief; and she did it
all herself. She had no notion of utilising the motive-power at hand
in the children. As her own energy had been wasted in her childhood,
so she wasted theirs, letting it expend itself to no purpose instead
of teaching them to apply it. She was essentially a creature of habit.
All that she had been taught in her youth, she taught them; but any
accomplishment she had acquired in later life, she seemed to think
that they also should wait to acquire. She had always dressed for
dinner; so now, at half-past three every day, she put away her work,
went into the kitchen for some hot water, which she carried upstairs
herself, called the children, and proceeded to brush her own hair
carefully, and change her dress. She expected the children to follow
her example, but did not pay much attention to their proceedings, and
they, childlike, constantly and consistently shirked as much of the
ceremony as possible. If their mother caught them with unwashed hands
and half-brushed hair, she thumped them on the back, and made them
wash and brush; but she was generally thinking about something else,
and did not catch them. The rite, however, being regularly although
imperfectly performed, resulted in a good habit.
There was another thing too for which Beth had good reason to be
grateful to her mother. During winter, when the days were short, or
when bad weather made it impossible to go out on summer evenings, Mrs.
Caldwell always read aloud to the children after tea till bed-time.
Most mothers would have made the children read; but there was a great
deal of laxity mixed with Mrs. Caldwell's harshness. She found it
easier to do things herself than to make the children do them for her.
They objected to read, and liked to be read to, so she read to them;
and as, fortunately, she had no money to buy children's books, she
read what there were in the house. Beth's ear was still quicker than
her eye, and she would not read to herself if she could help it; but
before she was fourteen, thanks to her mother, she knew much of Scott,
Jane Austen, Dickens, Thackeray, Bulwer Lytton, and even some of
Shakespeare, well; besides such books as "The Woman in White," "The
Dead Secret," "Loyal Heart; or, The Trappers," "The Scalp Hunters,"
and many more, all of which helped greatly to develop her
intelligence.
CHAPTER XV
During the next two years, Beth continued to look on at life, with