The Beth Book
Her note to Sammy was as follows:--
DEAR SAMMY,--Come and talk to me. Do not be afrade. I do
not mind rows, being always in them. And she can't do
anything to you. I miss you. I want to tell you things.
Such nice things keep coming to me. They make me feel all
comfortable inside. I looked out of the window in the
dark last night. There was a frost. The sky was dark dark
blue like sailor's suits only bright and the stars looked
like holes bored in the floor of heaven to let the light
through. It was so white and bright it must have been the
light of heaven. I never saw such light on earth.
Sunshine is more buffy. Do come Sammy I want you so Beth.
P.S. I can't stop right yet; but I'm trying. It seems
rather difficult to stop: but nobody can write without
stops. I always look at stops in books when I read but
sometimes you put a coma and sometimes a semicollon. I
expect you know but I don't so you must teach me. Its so
nice writing things down. Come to the back gait tonight.
When the letter was written in queer, crabbed characters, on one side
of a half-sheet of paper, then folded so that she could write the
address on the other side, because she had no envelope--she wondered
how she should get it delivered. There was a coolness between her and
Harriet. Beth resented the coarse insinuation about having a
sweetheart, and shrank from hearing any more remarks of a like nature
on the subject. And she couldn't send the letter by post because she
had no stamp. Should she lay it on his doorstep. No, somebody else
might get it. How then? She was standing on her own doorstep with the
letter in her pocket when she asked herself the question, and just at
the moment Sammy himself appeared, coming back from school. Quick as
thought, Beth ran across the road, whipped out the letter and gave it
to him. Sammy stood still in astonishment with his mouth open, gazing
at it when he found it in his hand, as if he could not imagine how it
got there.
As soon as it was dark, Beth stationed herself at the back gate, which
looked out into Orchard Street, and waited and waited, but Sammy did
not come. He had not been able to get out; that was it--she was sure
of it; yet still she waited, although the evening was very cold. Her
mother and Aunt Victoria had gone to dine with Lady Benyon. She did
not know what Harriet was doing, but she had disposed of Bernadine
for some time to come by lending her her best picture-book to daub
with paint; so it was pretty safe to wait; and at first the hope of
seeing Sammy come running round the corner was pleasure enough. As the
time went on, however, she became impatient, and at last she ventured
a little way up the street, then a little farther, and then she ran on
boldly into Orchard Row. As she approached the Lees' back-gate, she
became aware of a round thing that looked like a cannon-ball glued to
the top, and her fond heart swelled, for she knew it must be Sammy's
head.
"O Sammy! why didn't you come?" she cried.
"I didn't like," said Sammy.
"I've been waiting for hours," Beth expostulated with gentle reproach.
"So have I, and it's cold," said Sammy disconsolately.
"Come now. She's out," Beth coaxed.
"So she was the other day," Sammy reminded her.
"But we'll go into the garden. She can't catch us there. It's too
dark."
Sammy, half persuaded, ventured out from the gateway, then hesitated.
"But is it _very_ dark?" he said.
"Not so very, when you're used to it," Beth answered. "But it's nice
when it's dark. You can fancy you see things. Come! run!" She seized
his hand as she spoke, and set off, and Sammy, overborne by the
stronger will, kept pace with her.
"But I don't want to see things," he protested, trying to hold back
when they came to the dark passage which led into the garden.
"Don't be a fool, Sammy," said Beth, dragging him on. "I believe
you're a girl."
"I'm not," said Sammy indignantly.
"Then come and sit on the see-saw."
"Oh, have you a see-saw?" he asked, immediately diverted.
"Yes--this way--under the pear-tree. It's a swing, you know, tied to
the branch, and I put this board across it. I pulled the board up out
of the floor of the wood-house. Do you like see-sawing?"
"Yes," said Sammy with animation.
"Catch hold, then," said Beth, tipping up the board at her end. "What
are you doing, butter-fingers?" she cried, as Sammy failed to catch
hold. "I'm sorry I said you were a girl. You're much too clumsy."
She held the board until Sammy got astride of it at one end, then she
bestrode it herself at the other, and started it with a vigorous kick
on the ground. Up and down they went, shaking showers of leaves from
the old tree, and an occasional winter pear, which fell with a thud,
being hard and heavy.
"Golly! this is fine!" Sammy burst out. "I say, Beth, what a jolly
sort of a girl you are!"
"Do you think so?" said Beth, amply rewarded for all her trouble.
"Yes. And you _can_ write a letter! My! What a time it must 'a' took
you! But, I say, it's all rot about stops, you know. Stops is things
in books. _You'd_ never learn stops."
"How do you know?" Beth demanded, bridling.
"Men write books," said Sammy, proud of his sex, "not women, let alone
gels!"
"That's all you know about it, then!" cried Beth, better informed.
"Women _do_ write books, and girls too. Jane Austen wrote books, and
Maria Edgeworth wrote books, and Fanny Burney wrote a book when she
was only seventeen, called 'Evelina' and all the great men read it."
"Oh!" said Sammy, jeering, "so you're as clever as they are, I
suppose!"
Sammy was up in the air as he spoke; the next moment he came down bump
on the ground.
"There," said Beth, "that'll teach you. You be rude again if you
dare."
"I'll not come near you again, spit-cat," cried Sammy, picking himself
up.
"I know you won't," Beth rejoined. "You daren't. You're afraid."
"Who's afraid?" said Sammy, blustering.
"Sammy Lee," said Beth. "Oh, Sammy Lee's afraid of me, riding the
see-saw under the tree."
"I say, Beth," said Sammy, much impressed, "did you make that
yourself?"
"Make what myself? Make you afraid? Yes, I did."
"No, you didn't," said Sammy, plucking up spirit. "I'm not afraid."
"Then don't be a fool," said Beth.
"Fool yourself," Sammy muttered, but not very valiantly.
The church-clock struck nine. They were standing about, Beth not
knowing what to do next, and Sammy waiting for her to suggest
something; and in the meantime the night became colder and the
darkness more intense.
"I think I'd better take you home," Beth said at last. "Here, give me
your hand."
She dragged him out of the garden in her impetuous way, and they
scampered off together to Orchard Row, and when they reached the
Lees' house they were so warmed and cheered by the exercise that they
parted from each other in high good-humour.
"I'll come again," said Sammy.
"Do!" said Beth, giving him a great push that sent him sprawling up
the passage. This was the kind of attention he understood, so he went
to bed satisfied.
There was only one great interest in life for the people at
Rainharbour. Their religion gave them but cold comfort; their labour
was arduous and paid them poorly; they had no books, no intellectual
pursuits, no games to take them out of themselves, nothing to expand
their hearts as a community. There were the races, the fair, and the
hirings for excitement, but of pleasure such as satisfies because it
is soul-sustaining and continuous enough to be part of their lives,
they knew nothing. The upper classes were idle, self-satisfied,
selfish, and sensual; the lower were industrious enough, but ignorant,
superstitious, and depressed. The gentry gave themselves airs of
superiority, really as if their characters were as good as their
manners; but they did not impose upon the people, who despised them
for their veneer. Each class displayed its contempt for the other
openly when it could safely do so, but was ready to cringe when it
suited its own convenience, the workers for employment, and the gentry
for political purposes. But human beings are too dependent on each
other for such differences to exist without detriment to the whole
community. Society must cohere if it is to prosper; individuals help
themselves most, in the long run, when they consider each other's
interests. At Rainharbour nothing was done to promote general good
fellowship; the kind of Christianity that was preached there made no
mention of the matter, and society was disintegrated, and would have
gone to pieces altogether but for the one great interest in life--the
great primitive interest which consists in the attraction of sex to
sex. The subject of sweethearts was always in the air. The minds of
boys and girls, youths and maidens, men and women were all full of it;
but it was not often openly discussed as a pleasant topic--in fact,
not much mentioned at all except for fault-finding purposes; for it
was the custom to be censorious on the subject, and naturally those
were most so who knew most about it, like the vicar, who had married
four times. He was so rabid that he almost went the length of
denouncing men and maidens by name from the pulpit if he caught them
strolling about together in pairs. His mind was so constituted that he
could not believe their dalliance to be innocent, and yet he did not
try to introduce any other interest or pleasure into their lives to
divert them from the incessant pursuit of each other.
It was the grown-up people who were so nasty on the subject of
sweethearts; the boys and girls never could understand why. Their own
inclination was to go about together openly in the most public places;
that was how they understood sweethearting; part of the pleasure of it
consisted in other people seeing them, and knowing that they were
sweethearts, and smiling upon them sympathetically. This, however, the
grown-up people never did; on the contrary, they frowned and jeered;
and so the boys and girls kept out of their way, and sought secret
sympathy from each other.
Any little boy at the Mansion-House School who secured a sweetheart
enjoyed a proud distinction, and Sammy soon found that his
acquaintance with Beth placed him in quite an enviable position. He
therefore let his fear of Mrs. Caldwell lapse, and did his best to be
seen with Beth as much as possible. And to her it was a surprise as
well as a joy to find him hanging about, waiting to have a word with
her. Her mother's treatment of her had so damaged her self-respect
that she had never expected anybody to care for her particularly, and
Sammy's attentions, therefore, were peculiarly sweet. She did not
consider the position at all, however. There are subjects about which
we think, and subjects upon which we feel, and the two are quite
distinct and different. Beth felt on the subject of Sammy. The fact of
his having a cherubic face made her feel nice inside her chest--set up
a glow there which warmed and brightened her whole existence--a glow
which never flickered day or night, except in Sammy's presence, when
it went out altogether more often than not; only to revive, however,
when the real Sammy had gone and the ideal Sammy returned to his place
in her bosom. For Sammy adored at a distance and Sammy within range of
criticism were two very different people. Sammy adored at a distance
was all-ready response to Beth's fine flights of imagination; but
Sammy on the spot was dull. He was seldom on the spot, however, so
that Beth had ample leisure to live on her love undisturbed, and her
mind became extraordinarily active. Verse came to her like a
recollection. On half-holidays they sometimes went for a walk together