The Beth Book
Aunt Victoria noticed her depression, but mistook it for fatigue, and
sent her to bed early, which Beth was glad of, because she wanted to
be alone and cry. But one evening, when she was looking particularly
sad, the old lady asked if she did not feel well.
"Yes, I feel quite well, thank you, Aunt Victoria," Beth answered with
a great sigh; "but I know now what you meant about home-ties. They do
pull strong."
"Ah!" said Aunt Victoria, enlightened; "you are homesick, are you?"
And from that day forward, when she saw Beth moping, she took her out
of herself by making her discuss the subject, and so relieved her; but
Beth continued to suffer, although less acutely, until her return.
CHAPTER XXIII
Rainharbour was not yet deserted by summer visitors, although it was
late in the autumn when Beth and Aunt Victoria returned. It had been
such a lovely season that the holiday people lingered, loath to leave
the freshness of the sea and the freedom of the shore for the stuffy
indoor duties and the conventional restrictions of their town lives.
On the day of their arrival, Beth looked about her in amaze. She had
experienced such a world of change in herself since she went away,
that she was surprised to find the streets unaltered; and yet,
although they were unaltered, they did not look the same. It was as if
the focus of her eyes had been readjusted so as to make familiar
objects seem strange, and change the perspective of everything; which
gave the place a different air, a look of having been swept and
garnished and set in order like a toy-town. But the people they passed
were altogether unchanged, and this seemed stranger still to Beth.
There they had been all the time, walking about as usual, wearing the
same clothes, thinking the same thoughts; they had had no new
experiences, and, what was worse, they were not only unconscious of
any that she might have had, but were profoundly indifferent; and to
Beth, on the threshold of life, all eager interest in everything,
caring greatly to know, and ready to sympathise, this vision of the
self-centred with shrivelled hearts was terrible; it gave her the
sensation of being the one living thing that could feel in a world of
automata moved by machinery.
Bernadine and her mother had met them at the station, but Beth was so
busy looking about her, collecting impressions, she had hardly a word
to say to either of them. Mrs. Caldwell set this down as another sign
of want of proper affection, but Aunt Victoria grumped that it was
nothing but natural excitement.
The first thing Beth did after greeting Harriet, who stood smiling at
the door, was to run upstairs to her mother's bedroom to settle the
question of how much of the garden was visible from the window; and
then she rushed on up to the attic, dragged a big box under the
skylight in hot haste, and climbed up on it to look at the sea. It was
the one glimpse of it to be had from the house, just a corner, where
the water washed up against the white cliffs that curved round an
angle of the bay. Beth flung the skylight open, and gazed, then drew
in her breath with a great sigh of satisfaction. The sea! The sea!
Even that glimpse of it was refreshing as a long cool drink to one
exhausted by heat and cruelly athirst.
While she was away, Beth had made many good resolutions about behaving
herself on her return. Aunt Victoria had talked to her seriously on
the subject. Beth could be good enough when she liked: she did all
that her aunt expected of her; why could she not do all that her
mother expected? Beth promised she would; and was beginning already to
keep her promise faithfully by being as troublesome as possible, which
was all that her mother ever expected of her. Whether or not thoughts
are things which have power to produce effects, there are certainly
people who answer to expectation with fatal facility, and Beth was one
of them. Eventually she resisted with all her own individuality, but
at this time she acted like an instrument played upon by other
people's minds. This peculiar sensitiveness she turned to account in
after life, using it as a key to character; she had merely to make
herself passive, when she found herself reflecting the people with
whom she conversed involuntarily; and not as they appeared on the
surface, but as they actually were in their inmost selves. In her
childhood she unconsciously illustrated the thoughts people had in
their minds about her. Aunt Victoria believed in her and trusted her,
and when they were alone together, Beth responded to her good opinion;
Mrs. Caldwell expected her to be nothing but a worry, and was not
disappointed. When Beth was in the same house with both aunt and
mother, she varied, answering to the expectation that happened to be
strongest at the moment. That afternoon Aunt Victoria was tired after
her journey, and did not think of Beth at all; but Mrs. Caldwell was
busy in her own mind anticipating all the trouble she would have now
Beth was back; and Beth, standing on the box under the attic skylight,
with her head out, straining her eyes to seaward, was seized with a
sudden impulse which answered to her mother's expectation. That first
day she ought to have stayed in, unpacked her box, exhibited her
beautiful needlework, got ready for dinner in good time, and proved
her affection for her mother and sister by making herself agreeable to
them; but instead of that, she stole downstairs, slipped out by the
back-gate, and did not return until long after dinner was over.
She did not enjoy the scamper, however. Her home-sickness was gone,
but her depression returned nevertheless, as the day declined, only in
another form. She had still that curious sensation of being the only
living thing in a world of figures moved by mechanism. She stood at
the top of the steps which led down on to the pier, where the sailors
loitered at idle times, and was greeted by those she knew with slow
smiles of recognition; but she had nothing to say to any of them.
The tide was going out, and had left some of the ships in the harbour
all canted to one side; cobles and pleasure-boats rested in the mud; a
cockle-gatherer was wading about in it with his trousers turned up
over his knees, and his bare legs so thickly coated, it looked as if
he had black leggings on. Beth went to the edge of the pier, and stood
for a few minutes looking down at him. She was facing west, but the
sun was already too low to hurt her eyes. On her right the red-roofed
houses crowded down to the quay irregularly. Fishing-nets were hanging
out of some of the windows. Here and there, down in the harbour, the
rich brown sails had been hoisted on some of the cobles to dry. There
were some yachts at anchor, and Beth looked at them eagerly, hoping to
find Count Bartahlinsky's _Seagull_ amongst them. It was not there;
but presently she became conscious of some one standing beside her,
and on looking up she recognised Black Gard, the Count's confidential
man. He was dressed like the fishermen in drab trousers and a dark
blue jersey, but wore a blue cloth cap, with the name of the yacht on
it, instead of a sou'wester.
"Has your master returned?" she said.
"No, miss," he answered. "He's still abroad. He'll be back for the
hunting, though."
"I doubt it," said Beth, resentful of that vague "abroad," which
absorbed him into itself the greater part of the year. When she had
spoken, she turned her back on Gard and the sunset, and wandered off
up the cliffs. She had noticed a sickly smell coming up from the mud
in the harbour, and wanted to escape from it, but somehow it seemed to
accompany her. It reminded her of something--no, that was not it. What
she was searching about in her mind for was some way, not to name it,
but to express it. She felt there was a formula for it within reach,
but for some time she could not recover it. Then she gave up the
attempt, and immediately afterwards she suddenly said to herself--
"... the smell of death
Came reeking from those spicy bowers,
And man, the sacrifice of man,
Mingled his taint with every breath
Upwafted from the innocent flowers."
She did not search for any occult meaning in the lines, nor did they
convey anything special to her; but they remained with her for the
rest of the day, haunting her, in among her other thoughts, and
forcing themselves upon her attention with the irritating persistency
of a catchy tune.
On the cliffs she paused to look about her. It was a desolate scene.
The tide was so far out by this time it looked as if there were more
sand than sea in the bay. The water was the cloudy grey colour of
flint, with white rims where the waves broke on the shore. The sky was
low, level, and dark; where it met the water there was a heavy bank of
cloud, from which an occasional flash of summer lightning, dimmed by
daylight, shot along the horizon. The air was peculiarly clear, so
that distant objects seemed nearer than was natural. The sheltering
headland on the left, which formed the bay, stood out bright white
with a crown of vivid green against the sombre sea and sky; while, on
the right, the old grey pier, which shut in the view in that
direction, and the red-roofed houses of the town crowding down to it,
showed details of design and masonry not generally visible to the
naked eye from where Beth stood. There were neither ships nor boats in
the bay; but a few cobles, with their red-brown sails flapping limp
against their masts, rocked lazily at the harbour-mouth waiting for
the tide to rise and float them in. Beth heard the men on them
shouting an occasional remark to one another, and now and then one of
them would sing an uncouth snatch of song, but the effort was
spiritless, and did not last.
Leaving the harbour behind, Beth walked on towards the headland.
Presently she noticed in front of her the dignified and pathetic
figure of an old man, a Roman Catholic priest, Canon Hunter, who,
sacrificing all worldly ease or chance of advancement, had come to
minister to the neglected fisherfolk on the coast, most of whom were
Roman Catholics. He led the life of a saint amongst them, living in
dire poverty, his congregation being all of the poorest, with the
exception of one lady in the neighbourhood, married to a man whose
vices were too expensive to leave him much to spare for his wife's
charities. She managed, however, to raise enough money for the rent of
the top room in the public hall, which they used as a chapel, and so
kept the flickering flame of the old religion alight in the place; but
it was a severe struggle. It was whispered, indeed, that more of the
gentry in the neighbourhood sympathised with the Catholics than was
supposed, and would have helped them but for the discredit--did help
them, in fact, when they dared; but no one outside the communion knew
how true this report might be, and the fisherfolk loyally held their
peace.
It was natural that Beth as she grew up should be attracted by the
mystery that surrounded the Roman Catholics, and anxious to comprehend
the horror that Protestants had of them. She knew more of them herself
than any of the people whom she heard pass uncharitable strictures
upon them, and knew nothing for which they could justly be blamed. For
the old priest himself she had a great reverence. She had never spoken
to him, but had always felt strongly drawn towards him; and now, when
she overtook him, her impulse was to slip her hand into his, less on
her own account, however, than to show sympathy with him, he seemed so
solitary and so suffering, with his slow step and bent back; and so
good, with his beautiful calm face.
As she approached, lost in her own thoughts, she gazed up at him
intently.
"What is it, my child?" he asked, with a kindly smile. "Can I do