The Beth Book
question; "and she was the youngest, and desired to learn all we knew,
so we each did our best to impart our special knowledge to her. _I_
taught her French."
"How strange," said Beth; "and out of this very book? And she is dead.
And now you are teaching _me_."
The feeling in the child's voice, and the humble emphasis on the
pronoun _me_, touched the old lady; something familiar too in the tone
caused her to look up quickly and kindly over her spectacles, and it
seemed to her for a moment as if the little, long-lost sister sat
opposite to her--great grey eyes, delicate skin, bright brown hair,
expression of vivid interest, and all.
"Strange! strange!" she muttered to herself several times.
"I am supposed to be like grandmamma, am I not?" said Beth, as if she
read her thoughts.
"You _are_ like her," Aunt Victoria rejoined.
"But you can be a plain likeness of a good-looking person, I suppose?"
Beth said tentatively.
"Certainly you can," Miss Victoria answered with decision; and the
spark of pleasure in her own personal appearance, which had recently
been kindled in Beth, instantly flickered and went out.
Their little sitting-room had a bow-window down to the ground, the
front part of which formed two doors with glass in the upper part and
wood below, leading out into the garden. On fine days they always
stood wide open, and the warm summer air scented with roses streamed
in. Both Beth and Aunt Victoria loved to look out into the garden.
From where Beth sat to do her French at the end of the table, she
could see the soft green turf, a bright flower-border, and an old
brick wall, mellowed in tone by age, behind it; and a little to the
left, a high, thick screen of tall shrubs of many varieties, set so
close that all the different shades of green melted into each other.
The irregular roof of a large house, standing on lower ground than the
garden, with quaint gables and old chimneys, rose above the belt of
shrubs; the tiles on it lay in layers that made Beth think of a wasp's
nest, only that they were dark-red instead of grey; but she loved the
colour as it appeared all amongst the green trees and up against the
blue sky. She often wondered what was going on under that roof, and
used to invent stories about it. She did not write anything in these
days, however, but stored up impressions which were afterwards of
inestimable value to her. The smooth grey boles of the beeches, the
green down on the larches, the dark, blue-green crown which the Scotch
fir held up, as if to accentuate the light blue of the sky, and the
wonderful ruddy-gold tones that shone on its trunk as the day
declined; these things she felt and absorbed rather than saw and
noted, but because she felt them they fired her soul, and resolved
themselves into poetic expression eventually.
They dined early, and on the hot afternoons they sat and worked
together after dinner, Beth sewing and Aunt Victoria knitting, until
it was cool enough to go out. Aunt Victoria was teaching Beth how to
make some new underclothing for herself, to Beth's great delight. All
of her old things that were not rags were patches, and the shame of
having them so was a continual source of discomfort to her; but Aunt
Victoria, when she discovered the state of Beth's wardrobe, bought
some calico out of her own scanty means, and set her to work. During
these long afternoons, they had many a conversation that Beth
recollected with pleasure and profit. She often amused and interested
the old lady; and sometimes she drew from her a serious reprimand or a
solemn lecture, for both of which she was much the better. Aunt
Victoria was severe, but she was sympathetic, and she was just; she
seldom praised, but she showed that she was satisfied, and that was
enough for Beth; and she never scolded or punished, only spoke
seriously when she was displeased, and then Beth was overwhelmed.
One very hot day when they were working together, Aunt Victoria
sitting on a high-backed chair with her back to the open doors because
the light was too much for her eyes, and Beth sitting beside her on a
lower seat, but so that she could look up at her, and also out into
the garden, it occurred to her that once on a time, long ago, Aunt
Victoria must have been young, and she tried artfully to find out
first, if Aunt Victoria remembered the fact, and secondly, what little
girls were like at that remote period.
"Was your mamma like mine, Aunt Victoria?" she asked.
Aunt Victoria had just made a mistake in her knitting, and answered
shortly: "No, child."
"When you were all children," Beth pursued, "did you play together?"
"Not much," Aunt Victoria answered grimly.
"Did you quarrel?"
"My dear child! what could put such a notion into your head?"
"What did you do then?" said Beth. "You couldn't have been all the
time learning to sit upright on a high-backed chair; and I am trying
so hard to think what your home was like. I wish you would tell me."
"It was not at all like yours," Aunt Victoria replied with emphasis.
"We were most carefully brought up children. Our mother was an
admirable person. She lived by rule. If one of her children was born
at night, it was kept in the house until the morning, and then sent
out to nurse until it was two years old. If it was born by day, it was
sent away at once."
"And didn't great-grandmamma ever go to see it?"
"Yes, of course; twice a year."
"I think," said Beth, reflecting, "I should like to keep my babies at
home. I should want to put their little soft faces against mine, and
kiss them, you know."
"Your great-grandmamma did her duty," said Aunt Victoria with grim
approval. "She never let any of us loll as you are doing now, Beth.
She made us all sit up, as _I_ always do, and as I am always telling
you to do; and the consequence was our backs grew strong and never
ached."
"And were you happy?" Beth said solemnly.
Aunt Victoria gazed at her vaguely. She had never asked herself the
question. Then Beth sat with her work on her lap for a little, looking
up at the summer sky. It was an exquisite deep blue just then, with
filmy white clouds drawn up over it like gauze to veil its brightness.
The red roofs and gables and chimneys of the old house below, the
shrubs, the dark Scotch fir, the copper-beech, the limes and the
chestnut stood out clearly silhouetted against it; and Beth felt the
forms and tints and tones of them all, although she was thinking of
something else.
"Mamma's back is always aching," she observed at last, returning to
her work.
"Yes, that is because she was not so well brought up as we were," Aunt
Victoria rejoined.
"_She_ says it is because she had such a lot of children," said Beth.
"Did you ever have any children, Aunt Victoria?"
Miss Victoria Bench let her knitting fall on her
lap--"My--dear--child!" she gasped, holding up both her hands in
horror.
"Oh, I forgot," said Beth. "Only married ladies have children.
Servants have them, though, sometimes before they are married, Harriet
says, and then they call them bad girls. Grandmamma wasn't as wise as
great-grandmamma, I suppose, but perhaps great-grandmamma had a good
husband. Grandpapa was an awful old rip, you know."
Aunt Victoria stared at her aghast.
"He used to drink," Beth proceeded, lowering her voice, and glancing
round mysteriously as the old servants at Fairholm did when they
discussed these things; "and grandmamma couldn't bear his ways or his
language, and used to shut herself up in her own room more and more,
and they never agreed, and at last she went quite mad, so the saying
came true. Did you never hear the saying? Why, you know her father's
crest was a raven, and grandpapa's crest was a bee, and for
generations the families had lived near each other and never been
friends; and it was said, if the blood of the bees and the ravens were
ever put in the same bowl it wouldn't mingle. Do you say 'if it were,'
or 'if it was,' Aunt Victoria? Mamma says 'if it were.'"
"_We_ were taught to say 'if it was,'" Aunt Victoria answered stiffly;
"but your mamma may know better."
Beth thought about this for a minute, then set it aside for further
inquiry, and dispassionately resumed. "That was a mean trick of Uncle
James's, but it was rather clever too; I should never have thought of
it. I mean with the fly, you know. When grandpapa died, Uncle James
got his will and altered it, so that mamma mightn't have any money;
and he put a fly in grandpapa's mouth, and swore that the will was
signed by his hand while there was life in him."
"My dear child," said Aunt Victoria sharply, "who told you such a
preposterous story?"
"Oh, I heard it about the place," Beth answered casually; "everybody
knows it." She took another needleful of thread, and sewed on steadily
for a little, and Aunt Victoria kept glancing at her meanwhile, with a
very puzzled expression.
"But what I want to know is _why_ did grandmamma stay with grandpapa
if he were, or was, such a very bad man?" Beth said suddenly.
"Because it was her duty," said Aunt Victoria.
"And what was his duty?"
"I think, Beth," said the old lady, "you have done sewing enough for
this afternoon. Run out into the garden."
Beth knew that this was only an excuse not to answer her, but she
folded her work up obediently, observing as she did so, however, with
decision, "If _I_ ever have a bad husband, I shall _not_ stay with
him, for I can't see what good comes of it."
"Your grandmamma had her children to think of," said Aunt Victoria.
"But what good did she do them?" Beth wanted to know. "She devoted
herself to Uncle James, but she didn't make much of a man of him! And
she had no influence whatever with mamma. Mamma was her father's
favourite, and he taught her to despise grandmamma because she
couldn't hunt, and shrieked if she saw things killed. I think that's
silly myself, but it's better than being hard. Of course mamma is
worth a dozen of Uncle James, but--" Beth shrugged her shoulders, then
added temperately, "You know mamma has her faults, Aunt Victoria, it's
no use denying it. So what good did grandmamma do by staying? She just
went mad and died! If she'd gone away, and lived as you do, she might
have been alive and well now."
"Ah, my dear child," said the old lady sorrowfully, "that never could
have been; for I have observed that no woman who marries and becomes a
mother can ever again live happily like a single woman. She has
entered upon a different phase of being, and there is no return for
her. There is a weight of meaning in that expression: 'the ties of
home.' It is 'the ties of home' that restrain a loving woman, however
much she suffers; there are the little daily duties that no one but
herself can see to; and there is always some one who would be worse
off if she went. There is habit too; and there are those small
possessions, each one with an association of its own perhaps, that
makes it almost a sacred thing; but above all, there is hope--the hope
that matters may mend; and fear--the fear that once she deserts her
post things will go from bad to worse, and she be to blame. In your
grandmamma's day such a thing would never have been thought of by a
good woman; and even now, when there are women who actually go away
and work for themselves, if their homes are unhappy--" Aunt Victoria
pursed up her lips, and shook her head. "It may be respectable, of
course," she concluded magnanimously; "but I cannot believe it is
either right or wise, and certainly it is not loyal."
"Loyal!" Beth echoed; "that was my father's word to me: 'Be loyal.'
We've got to be loyal to others; but he also said that we must be
loyal to ourselves."
Aunt Victoria had folded up her knitting, and now rose stiffly, and
went out into the garden with an old parasol, and sat meditating in