The Beth Book
Beth reflected. "Oh, just whistle as you pass," she said at last, in
an offhand way, "and I'll come out if I feel inclined."
* * * * *
The next evening Mrs. Caldwell was taking her accustomed nap after
dinner in her arm-chair by the fire in the dining-room, and Beth was
sitting at the table dreaming, when she was suddenly startled by a
long, loud, shrill whistle. Another and another of the most piercing
quality followed in quick succession. Swiftly but cautiously she
jumped up, and slipped into the drawing-room, which was all in
darkness. There were outside shutters to the lower windows, but the
drawing-room ones were not closed, so she looked out, and there was
Sammy, standing with his innocent fat face as close to the dining-room
shutters as he could hold it, with his fingers in his mouth, uttering
shrill whistles loud and long and hard and fast enough to rouse the
whole neighbourhood. Beth, impatient of such stupidity, returned to
the dining-room and sat down again, leaving Sammy to his fate.
Presently Mrs. Caldwell started wide awake.
"What _is_ that noise, Beth?" she exclaimed.
"It seems to be somebody whistling outside," Beth answered in deep
disgust. Then her exasperation got the better of her self-control, and
she jumped up, and ran out to the kitchen.
"Harriet," she said between her clenched teeth, "go out and send that
silly fool away."
Harriet hastened to obey; but at the opening of the front door, Sammy
bolted.
The next evening he began again, however, as emphatically as before;
but Beth could not stand such imbecility a second time, so she ran out
of the back-gate, and seized Sammy.
"What are you doing there?" she cried, shaking him.
"Why, you told me to whistle," Sammy remonstrated, much aggrieved.
"Did I tell you to whistle like a railway engine?" Beth demanded
scornfully. "You've no sense at all, Sammy. Go away!"
"Oh, do let's come in, Beth," Sammy pleaded. "I've something to tell
you."
"What is it?" said Beth ungraciously.
"I'll tell you if you'll let me come in."
"Well, come then," Beth answered impatiently, and led the way up over
the roof to the acting-room. "What is it?" she again demanded, when
she had lighted a scrap of candle and seated herself on the steps. "I
don't believe it's anything."
"Yes, it is, so there!" said Sammy triumphantly. "But I'll lay you
won't guess what it is. Mrs. Barnes has got a baby."
Mrs. Barnes was the wife of the head-master of the Mansion-House
School, and all the little boys, feeling that there was more in the
event than had been explained to them, were vaguely disgusted.
"I don't call that anything," Beth answered contemptuously. "Lots of
people have babies."
"Well," said Sammy, "I wouldn't have thought it of him."
"Thought what of whom?" Beth snapped in a tone which silenced Sammy.
He ventured to laugh, however.
"Don't laugh in that gigantic way, Sammy," she exclaimed, still more
irritated. "When you throw back your head and open your mouth so wide,
I can see you have no wisdom-teeth."
"You're always nasty now, Beth," Sammy complained.
Which was true. Love waning becomes critical. Beth's own feeling for
Sammy had been a strong mental stimulant at first, and, in her
enjoyment of it, she had overlooked all his shortcomings. There was
nothing in him, however, to keep that feeling alive, and it had
gradually died of inanition. His slowness and want of imagination
first puzzled and then provoked her; and, little-boy-like, he had not
even been able to respond to such tenderness as she showed him--not
that she had ever showed him much tenderness, for they were just like
boys together. She had kissed him, however, once or twice, after a
quarrel, to make it up; but she did not like kissing him: little boys
are rank. His pretty colouring was all that he had had to attract her,
and that, alas! had lost its charm by this time. For a little longer
she looked out for him and troubled about him, then let him go
gradually--so gradually, that she never knew when exactly he lapsed
from her life altogether.
CHAPTER XX
For two years after Beth was outlawed by her mother, Great-Aunt
Victoria Bench was her one link with the civilised world. The intimacy
had lapsed a little while Sammy was the prevailing human interest in
Beth's life, but gradually as he ceased to be satisfactory, she
returned to the old lady, and hovered about her, seeking the
sustenance for which her poor little heart ached on always, and for
want of which her busy brain ran riot; and the old lady, who had not
complained of Beth's desertion, welcomed her back in a way which
showed that she had felt it.
For Great-Aunt Victoria Bench was lonely in the days of her poverty
and obscurity. Since the loss of her money, there had been a great
change in the attitude of most of her friends towards her, and such
attentions as she received were of a very different kind from those to
which she had been accustomed. Mrs. Caldwell had been the most
generous to her, for at the time that she had offered Aunt Victoria a
home in her house, she had not known that the old lady would be able
to pay her way at all. Fortunately Aunt Victoria had enough left for
that, but still her position in Mrs. Caldwell's house was not what it
would have been had she not lost most of her means. Mrs. Caldwell was
not aware of the fact, but her manner had insensibly adjusted itself
to Aunt Victoria's altered circumstances, her care and consideration
for her being as much reduced in amount as her income; and Aunt
Victoria felt the difference, but said nothing. Slowly and painfully
she learnt to realise that it was for what she had had to bestow, and
not for what she was, that people used to care; they had served her as
they served their God, in the hope of reaping a rich reward. Like many
other people with certain fine qualities of their own, Aunt Victoria
knew that there was wickedness in the outside world, but never
suspected that her own immediate circle, the nice people with whom she
talked pleasantly every day, could be tainted; and the awakening to
find that her friends cared less disinterestedly for her than she did
for them was a cruel disillusion. Her first inclination was to fly far
from them all, and spend the rest of her days amongst strangers who
could not disappoint her because she would have nothing to expect of
them, and who might perhaps come to care for her really. Long hours
she sat and suffered, shut up in her room, considering the matter,
yearning to go, but restrained by the fear that, as an old woman, she
would be unwelcome everywhere. In Aunt Victoria's day old people were
only too apt to be selfish, tyrannical, narrow, and ignorant, a terror
to their friends; and they were nearly always ill, the old men from
lives of self-indulgence, and the old women from unwholesome restraint
of every kind. Now we are beginning to ask what becomes of the
decrepit old women, there are so few to be seen. This is the age of
youthful grandmothers, capable of enjoying a week of their lives more
than their own grandmothers were able to enjoy the whole of their
declining years; their vitality is so much greater, their appearance
so much better preserved; their knowledge so much more extensive,
their interests so much more varied, and their hearts so much larger.
Aunt Victoria nowadays would have struck out for herself in a new
direction. She would have gone to London, joined a progressive
women's club, made acquaintance with work of some kind or another, and
never known a dull moment; for she would have been a capable woman had
any one of her faculties been cultivated to some useful purpose; but
as it was, she had nothing to fall back upon. She was just like a
domestic animal, like a dog that has become a member of the family,
and is tolerated from habit even after it grows old, and because
remarks would be made if it were put out of the way before its time;
and she had been content with the position so long as much was made of
her. Now, however, all too late, a great yearning had seized upon her
for an object in life, for some pursuit, some interest that would
remain to her when everything else was lost; and she prayed to God
earnestly that He would show her where to go and what to do, or give
her something--something which at last resolved itself into something
to live for.
Then one day there came a little resolute tap at the door, and Beth
walked in without waiting to be asked, and seeing in a moment with
that further faculty of hers into the old lady's heart that it was
sad, she went to her impulsively, and laid her unkempt brown head
against her arm in an awkward caress, which touched the old lady to
tears. Beth was lonely too, thought Aunt Victoria, a strange, lonely
little being, neglected, ill-used, and misunderstood, and the question
flashed through the old lady's mind, if she left the child, what would
become of her? The tangled brown head, warm against her arm, nestled
nearer, and Aunt Victoria patted it protectingly.
"Do you want anything, Beth?" she asked.
"No, Aunt Victoria. I just wanted to see you. I was lying on the
see-saw board, looking up through the leaves, and I suddenly got a
fancy that you were here all by yourself, and that you didn't like
being all by yourself. _I_ feel like that sometimes. So I came to see
you."
"Thank you, Beth," said Aunt Victoria, with her hand still on Beth's
head as if she were blessing her; and when she had spoken she looked
up through the window, and silently thanked the Lord. This was the
sign. He had committed Beth to her care and affection, and she was not
to think of herself, but of the child, whose need was certainly the
greater of the two.
"Have you nothing to do, Beth?" she said after a pause.
"No, Aunt Victoria," Beth answered drearily--"at least there are
plenty of things I could do, but everything I think of makes me
shudder. I feel so sometimes. Do you? There isn't a single thing I
want to do to-day. I've tried one thing after the other, but I can't
think about what I'm doing. Sometimes I like to sit still and do
nothing; but to-day I don't even like that. I think I should like to
be asked to do something. If I could do something for you
now--something to help you----"
"Well, you can, Beth," Aunt Victoria answered, after sitting rigidly
upright for a moment, blinking rapidly. "Help me to unpick an old
gown. I am going to make another like it, and want it unpicked for a
pattern."
"Can you make a gown?" Beth asked in surprise.
Aunt Victoria smiled. Then she took down an old black gown that was
hanging behind the door, and handed it to Beth with a pair of sharp
scissors.
"I'll undo the body part," Beth said, "and that will save your eyes. I
don't think this gown owes you much."
"I do not understand that expression, Beth," said Aunt Victoria.
"Don't you," said Beth, working away with the scissors cheerfully.
"Harriet always says that, when she's got all the good there is to be
got out of anything--the dusters, you know, or the dishcloth. I once
did a piece of unpicking like this for mamma, and she didn't explain
properly, or something--at all events, I took out a great deal too
much, so she----"
"Don't call your mamma 'she.' 'She' is the cat."
"Mamma, then. Mamma beat me."
"Don't say she beat you."
"I said mamma."
"Well, don't talk about your mamma beating you. That is not a nice
thing to talk about."
"It's not a nice thing to do either," said Beth judicially. "And I
never used to talk about it; didn't like to, you know. But now
she--mamma--doesn't beat me any more--at least only sometimes when she
forgets."
"Ah, then, you have been a better girl."
"No, not better--bigger. You see if I struck her back again she
wouldn't like it."