The Beth Book
"I should think mamma would be only too glad to get rid of me," said
Beth hopefully.
And she was not mistaken.
CHAPTER XXI
The next few weeks, in their effect upon Beth's character, were among
the most important of her life. She did not know until the day before
where she was to go with Aunt Victoria. It was the habit of the family
to conceal all such arrangements from the children, and indeed from
each other as much as possible. Aunt Victoria observed that Caroline
was singularly reticent, and Mrs. Caldwell complained that Aunt
Victoria made a mystery of everything. It was a hard habit, which
robbed Beth of what would have been so much to her, something to look
forward to. Since she knew that she was to go somewhere, however, she
had lived upon the idea; her imagination had been busy trying to
picture the unknown place, and her mind full of plans for the comfort
of Aunt Victoria.
It was after breakfast one day, while her mother and Aunt Victoria
were still at table, that the announcement was made. "You need not do
any lessons this morning, children," Mrs. Caldwell said. "Beth is
going to Harrowgate with Aunt Victoria to-morrow, and I must see to
her things and get them packed."
Aunt Victoria looked round at Beth with a carefully restrained smile,
expecting some demonstration of joy. Beth was standing in the window
looking out, and turned with a frown of intentness on her face when
her mother mentioned Harrowgate, as if she were trying to recall
something.
"Harrowgate!" she said slowly. "_Harrowgate!_"
"Beth, do not frown so," Mrs. Caldwell exclaimed irritably. "You'll be
all wrinkled before you're twenty."
Beth gazed at her solemnly without seeing her, then fixed her eyes
upon the ground as if she were perusing it, and began to walk slowly
up and down with her head bent, her hands clasped behind her, her
curly brown hair falling forward over her cheeks, and her lips moving.
"What is it you're muttering, child?" Aunt Victoria asked.
"I'm trying to think," Beth rejoined.
"''Twas in the prime of summer time,
An evening calm and cool....
* * * * *
"'Two sudden blows with a ragged stick,
And one with a heavy stone....
* * * * *
"'And yet I feared him all the more,
For lying there so still....
* * * * *
"'I took the dreary body up.'...
"Ah, I know--I have it!" she exclaimed joyfully, and with a look of
relief; "Harrowgate--Knaresboro'--the cave there----
"'Two stern-faced men set out from Lynn,
Through the cold and heavy mist;
And Eugene Aram walked between,
With gyves upon his wrist.'"
"My dear child," said Aunt Victoria sternly, "what is it you are
trying to say? and how often are you to be told not to work yourself
up into such a state of excitement about nothing?"
"Don't you know about Eugene Aram, Aunt Victoria?" Beth rejoined with
concern, as if not to know about Eugene Aram were indeed to have
missed one of the great interests of life. Then she sat down at the
table with her elbows resting on it, and her delicate oval face framed
in her slender hands, and gave Aunt Victoria a graphic sketch of the
story from Bulwer Lytton.
"Dear me, Caroline," said Aunt Victoria, greatly horrified, "is it
possible that you allow your children to read such books?"
"I read such books to my children myself when I see fit," Mrs.
Caldwell rejoined. "I may be allowed to judge what is good for them, I
suppose?"
"Good for them!" Aunt Victoria ejaculated. "Accounts of murder, theft,
and executions!"
"But why not, Aunt Victoria?" Beth put in. "Why not read about Eugene
Aram as well as about Barabbas?"
Aunt Victoria looked so shocked, however, at the mention of Barabbas
in this connection, that Beth broke off and hastened to add for the
relief of the old lady's feelings--"Only of course Barabbas was a
sacred sort of thief, and that is different."
On the journey next day a casual remark let fall by a stranger made a
curious impression upon Beth. They were travelling second-class, and
Aunt Victoria, talking to another lady in the carriage, happened to
mention that Beth was twelve years old. A gentleman, the only other
passenger, who was sitting opposite to Beth, looked up at her over his
newspaper when her age was mentioned, and remarked--"Are you only
twelve? I should have thought you were older. Rather nice-looking too,
only freckled."
Beth felt her face flush hotly, and then she laughed. "Nice-looking!
Nice-looking!" She repeated the words to herself again and again, and
every time they recurred to her, she lost countenance in spite of
herself, and laughed and flushed, being strangely surprised and
pleased.
It was that remark that first brought home to Beth the fact that she
had a personal appearance at all. Hitherto she had thought very little
of herself. The world without had been, and always would be, much more
to her than the world within. She was not to be one of those narrow,
self-centred, morbid beings whose days are spent in introspection, and
whose powers are wasted in futile efforts to set their own little
peculiarities forth in such a way as to make them seem of consequence.
She never at any time studied her own nature, except as a part of
human nature, and in the hope of finding in herself some clue which
would help her to a sympathetic understanding of other people.
Great-Aunt Victoria Bench, in these days of her poverty, lodged with
an old servant of the family, who gave her for ten shillings a week a
bedroom at the top of the house, and a little sunny sitting-room on
the ground-floor at the back, looking out into an old-fashioned
garden, full of flowers such as knights in olden times culled for
their ladies. The little sitting-room was furnished with Chippendale
chairs, and a little Chippendale sideboard with drawers, and a
bookcase with glass doors above and a cupboard below, in which Aunt
Victoria used to keep her stores of tea, coffee, sugar, and currants
in mustard-tins. Beth heard with surprise that the hearthrug was one
which Aunt Victoria had worked herself as a present for Prentice when
she married. Prentice was now Mrs. Pearce, but Aunt Victoria always
called her Prentice. The hearthrug was like a Turkey carpet, only
softer, deeper, and richer. Aunt Victoria had sat on Chippendale
chairs in her youth, and she was happy amongst them. When she sat down
on one she drew herself up, disdaining the stiff back and smiled and
felt young again, while her memory slipped away to pleasant days gone
by; and Mrs. Pearce would come and talk to her, standing respectfully,
and reminding her of little things which Aunt Victoria had forgotten,
or alluding with mysterious nods and shakings of the head to other
things which Beth was not to hear about. When this happened Beth
always withdrew. She was becoming shy of intruding now, and delicate
about overhearing anything that was not intended for her; and when she
had gone on these occasions, the two old ladies would nod and smile to
each other, Prentice in respectful approval, and Aunt Victoria in
kindly acknowledgment. Prentice wore a cap and front like Aunt
Victoria, but of a subdued brown colour, as became her humble station.
Beth took charge of the housekeeping as soon as they arrived, made
tea, arranged the groceries in the cupboard, and put the key in her
pocket; and Aunt Victoria, who was sitting upright on a high
Chippendale chair, knitting, and enjoying the dignity of the old
attitude after her journey, looked on over her spectacles in pleased
approval. Before they went to bed, they read the evening psalms and
lessons together in the sitting-room, and Aunt Victoria read prayers.
When they went upstairs they said their private prayers, kneeling
beside the bed, and Aunt Victoria made Beth wash herself in hot water,
and brush her hair for half-an-hour. Aunt Victoria attributed her own
slender, youthful figure and the delicate texture of her skin to this
discipline. She said she had preserved her figure by never relaxing
into languid attitudes, and her complexion by washing her face in hot
water with fine white soap every night, and in cold water without soap
every morning. She did not take her fastidious appetite into
consideration, nor her simple, regular life, nor the fact that she
never touched alcohol in any shape or form, nor wore a tight or heavy
garment, nor lost her self-control for more than a moment whatever
happened, but Beth discovered for herself, as she grew older, that
these and that elevated attitude of mind which is religion, whatever
the form preferred to express it, are essential parts of the
discipline necessary for the preservation of beauty.
In the morning Beth made breakfast, and when it was over, if crusts
had accumulated in the cupboard, she steeped them in hot milk in a
pie-dish, beat them up with an egg, a little butter, sugar, currants,
and candied peel, and some nutmeg grated, for a bread-pudding, which
Prentice took out to bake for dinner, remarking regularly that little
miss promised to be helpful, to which Aunt Victoria as regularly
responded Yes, she hoped Miss Beth would become a capable woman some
day.
After breakfast they read the psalms and lessons together, verse by
verse, and had some "good talk," as Beth called it. Then Aunt Victoria
got out an old French grammar and phrase-book, a copy of "Telemaque,"
and a pocket-dictionary, treasured possessions which she always
carried about with her, and had a kind of pride in. French had been
her speciality, but these were the only French books she had, and she
certainly never spoke the language. She would have shrunk modestly
from any attempt to do so, thinking such a display almost as
objectionable as singing in a loud professional way instead of
quietly, like a well-bred amateur, and showing a lack of that
dignified reserve and general self-effacement which she considered
essential in a gentlewoman.
But she was anxious that Beth should be educated, and therefore the
books were produced every morning. Mrs. Caldwell had tried in vain to
teach Beth anything by rule, such as grammar. Beth's memory was always
tricky. Anything she cared about she recollected accurately; but
grammar, which had been presented to her not as a means to an end but
as an end in itself, failed to interest her, and if she remembered a
rule she forgot to apply it, until Aunt Victoria set her down to the
old French books, when, simply because the old lady looked pleased if
she knew her lesson and disturbed if she did not, she began at the
beginning of her own accord, and worked with a will--toilsomely at
first, but by degrees with pleasure as she proceeded, and felt for the
first time the joy of mastering a strange tongue.
"You learnt out of this book when you were a little girl, Aunt
Victoria, didn't you?" she said, looking up on the day of the first
lesson. She was sitting on a high-backed chair at one end of the
table, trying to hold herself as upright as Aunt Victoria, who sat at
the other and opposite end to her, pondering over her knitting. "I
suppose you hated it."
"No, I did not, Beth," Aunt Victoria answered severely. "I esteemed it
a privilege to be well educated. Our mother could not afford to have
us all instructed in the same accomplishments, and so she allowed us
to choose French, or music, or drawing and painting. _I_ chose
French."
"Then how was it grandmamma learned drawing and painting, and playing,
and everything?" Beth asked. "Mamma knows tunes she composed."
"Your dear grandmamma was an exceedingly clever girl," Aunt Victoria
answered stiffly, as if Beth had taken a liberty when she asked the