The Beth Book
Then he sat down beside Beth, and talked to her long and earnestly. He
advised her to give up her rambles with Alfred and Dicksie; but she
assured him that that was impossible.
"Who else have I?" she asked pathetically. "And what am I to do with
my days if they never come into them again?"
"You ought to have been sent to school, Beth, long ago, and I told
your mother so," Count Gustav answered, frowning. "And, by Jove, I'll
tell her again," he thought, "before it's too late."
The encounter with Gard added excitement to the charm of Beth's next
meeting with the boys. It made them all feel rather important. They
discussed it incessantly, speculating as to what the man's object
could have been. Alfred said vulgar curiosity; but Beth suspected that
there was more than that in the manoeuvre; and when Dicksie
suggested acutely that Gard had intended to blackmail them, she and
Alfred both exclaimed that that was it!
They had gone about together all this time in the most open way; now
they began to talk about caution and concealment, like the persecuted
lovers of old romance, who had powerful enemies, and were obliged to
manage their meetings so that they should not be suspected. They
decided not to speak to each other in public, and, consequently, when
they met in the street, they passed with such an elaborate parade of
ignoring each other, and yet with such evident enjoyment of the
position, that people began to wonder what on earth they were up to.
Disguises would have delighted them; but the fashions of the day did
not lend themselves much to disguise, unfortunately. There were no
masks, no sombreros, no cloaks; and all they could think of was false
whiskers for Alfred; but when he tried them, they altered him so
effectually that Dicksie said he could not bear him, and Beth would
not kiss him.
One evening after dinner, when Mrs. Caldwell was reading aloud to Beth
and Bernadine, there came a thundering knock at the front door, which
startled them all. The weather had been bad all day, and now the
shutters were closed, the rain beat against them with a chilly,
depressing effect, inexpressibly dreary. Instead of attending to the
reading, Beth had been listening to the footsteps of people passing in
the street, in the forlorn hope that among them she might distinguish
Alfred's. When the knock came they thought it was a runaway, but
Harriet opened the door all the same, and presently returned, smiling
archly, and holding aloft a beautiful bouquet.
"What's that?" said Mrs. Caldwell. "Give it to me."
Beth's heart stood still.
There was a card attached to the flowers, and Mrs. Caldwell read
aloud, "_Miss Caldwell, with respectful compliments._"
"Who brought this, Harriet?" she asked.
"No one, ma'am," Harriet replied. "It was 'itched on till the
knocker."
"Very strange," Mrs. Caldwell muttered suspiciously. "Beth, do you
know anything about it?"
"Is there no name on the card?" Beth asked diplomatically; and Mrs.
Caldwell looked at the card instead of into Beth's face, and
discovered nothing.
Raindrops sparkled on the flowers, their fragrance filled the room,
and their colours and forms and freshness were a joy to behold. "How
beautiful they are!" Mrs. Caldwell exclaimed.
"May I have them, mamma?" Beth put in quickly.
"Well, yes, I suppose you may," Mrs. Caldwell decided; "although I
must say I do not understand their being left in this way at all. Who
could have sent you flowers?"
"There's the gardener at Fairholm," Beth ventured to suggest.
"Oh, ah, yes," said Mrs. Caldwell, handing the flowers to Beth without
further demur. The gift appeared less lovely, somehow, when she began
to associate it with the gardener's respectful compliments.
Beth took the flowers, and hid her burning face with them. This was
her first bouquet, the most exquisite thing that had ever happened to
her. She carried it off to her room, and put it in water; and when she
went to bed she kept the candle burning that she might lie and look at
it.
The following week a menagerie came to the place. Alfred and Dicksie
went to it, and their description filled Beth with a wild desire to
see the creatures, especially the chimpanzee. The boys were quite
ready to take her, but how was it to be managed? The menagerie was
only to be there that one night more, but it would be open late, and
they would be allowed to go because animals are improving. Could she
get out too? Beth considered intently.
"I can go to bed early," she said at last, "and get out by the
acting-room window."
"But suppose you were missed?" Alfred deprecated.
"Then I should be found out," said Beth; "but you would not."
"How about being recognised in the menagerie, though?" said Dicksie.
"You see there'll be lots of people, and it's all lighted up."
"I can disguise myself to look like an old woman," Beth rejoined,
thinking of Aunt Victoria's auburn front and some of her old things.
"Oh no, Beth!" Alfred protested. "That would be worse than the
whiskers."
"Can't you come as a boy?" said Dicksie.
"I believe I can," Beth exclaimed. "There's an old suit of Jim's
somewhere that would be the very thing--one he grew out of. I believe
it's about my size, and I think I know where it is. What a splendid
idea, Dicksie! I can cut my hair off."
"Oh no! Your pretty hair!" Alfred exclaimed.
"Is it pretty?" said Beth, surprised and pleased.
"_Is_ it pretty!" he ejaculated, lifting it with both hands, and
bathing his face in it; "the brightest, brownest, curliest, softest,
sweetest hair on earth! Turn it up under your cap. These little curls
on your neck will look like short hair."
They were all so delighted with this romantic plan, that they danced
about, and hugged each other promiscuously. But this last piece of
cleverness was their undoing, for Beth was promptly recognised at the
menagerie by some one with a sense of humour, who told Lady Benyon,
who told Mrs. Caldwell.
Mrs. Caldwell came hurrying home from Lady Benyon's a few nights later
with the queerest expression of countenance Beth had ever seen; it was
something between laughing and crying.
"Beth," she began in an agitated manner, "I am told that you went with
two of Mr. Richardson's sons to the menagerie on Tuesday night,
dressed as a boy."
"_One_ of his sons," said Beth, correcting her; "the other boy was his
pupil."
"And you were walking about looking at the animals in that public
place with your arm round the girl from the shoe-shop?"
Beth burst out laughing. "All the boys had their arms round girls,"
she explained. "I couldn't be singular."
Mrs. Caldwell dropped into a chair, and sat gazing at Beth as if she
had never seen anything like her before, as indeed she never had.
"Who is this pupil of Mr. Richardson's?" she asked at last, "and how
did you make his acquaintance?"
"His name is Alfred Cayley Pounce," Beth answered. "We were caught by
the tide and nearly drowned together on the sands, and I've known him
ever since."
"And do you mean to say that you have been meeting this young man in a
clandestine manner--that you hadn't the proper pride to refuse to
associate with him unless he were known to your family and you could
meet him as an equal?"
"He did wish to make your acquaintance, but I wouldn't let him," Beth
said.
"Why?" Mrs. Caldwell asked in amazement.
"Oh, because I was afraid you would be horrid to him," Beth answered.
Mrs. Caldwell was thunderstruck. The whole affair had overwhelmed her
as a calamity which could not be met by any ordinary means. Scolding
was out of the question, for she was not able to utter another word,
but just sat there with such a miserable face, she might have been the
culprit herself, especially as she ended by bursting into tears.
Beth's heart smote her, and she watched her mother for some time,
yearning to say something to comfort her.
"I don't think you need be so distressed, mamma," she ventured at last
"What have I done, after all? I've committed no crime."
"You've done just about as bad a thing as you could do," Mrs. Caldwell
rejoined. "You've made the whole place talk about you. You must have
known you were doing wrong. But I think you can have no conscience at
all."
"I think I have a conscience, only it doesn't always act," Beth
answered disconsolately. "Very often, when I am doing a wrong thing,
it doesn't accuse me; when it does, I stop and repent."
She was sitting beside the dining-table, balancing a pencil on her
finger as she spoke.
"Look at you now, Beth," her mother ejaculated, "utterly callous!"
Beth sighed, and put the pencil down. She despaired of ever making her
mother understand anything, and determined not to try again.
"Beth, I don't know what to do with you," Mrs. Caldwell recommenced
after a long silence. "I've been warned again and again that I should
have trouble with you, and Heaven knows I have. You've done a
monstrous thing, and, instead of being terrified when you're found
out, you sit there coolly discussing it, as if you were a grown-up
person. And then you're so queer. You ought to be a child, but you're
not. Lady Benyon likes you; but even she says you're not a child, and
never were. You say things no sane child would ever think of, and very
few grown-up people. You are _not_ like other people, there's no
denying it."
Beth's eyes filled with tears. To be thought unlike other people was
the one thing that made her quail.
"Well, mamma, what am I to do?" she said. "I hate to vex you, goodness
knows; but I must be doing something. The days are long and dreary."
She wiped her eyes. "When people warned you that you would have
trouble with me, they always said unless you sent me to school."
Mrs. Caldwell rocked herself on her chair forlornly. "School would do
you no good," she declared at last. "No, Beth, you are my cross, and I
must bear it. If I forgive you again this time, will you be a better
girl in future?"
"I don't believe it's my fault that I ever annoy you," Beth answered
drily.
"Whose fault is it, then?" her mother demanded.
Beth shrugged her shoulders and began to balance the pencil on her
fingers once more.
Mrs. Caldwell got up and stood looking at her for a little with a
gathering expression of dislike on her face which it was not good to
see; then she went towards the door.
"You are incorrigible," she ejaculated as she opened it, making the
remark to cover her retreat.
Beth sighed heavily, then resolved herself into a Christian martyr,
cruelly misjudged--an idea which she pursued with much satisfaction to
herself for the rest of the day.
In consequence of that conversation with her mother, when the evening
came her conscience accused her, and she made no attempt to go out.
She was to meet Alfred and Dicksie on Saturday, their next
half-holiday, and she would wait till then. That was Wednesday.
During the interval, however, a strange chill came over her feelings.
The thought of Alfred was as incessant as ever, but it came without
the glow of delight; something was wrong.
They were to meet on the rocks behind the far pier at low water on
Saturday. Few people came to the far pier, and, when they did, it was
seldom that they looked over; and they could not have seen much if
they had, for the rocks were brown with seaweed, and dark figures
wandering about on them became indistinguishable. Beth went long
before the time. It was a beautiful still grey day, such as she loved,
and she longed to be alone with the sea. The tide was going out, and
she had a fancy for following it from rock to rock as it went. Some
of the bigger rocks were flat-topped islands, separated from the last
halting-place of the tide by narrow straits, across which she sprang;
and on these she would lie her length, peering down into the clear