The Beth Book
"What's the matter with you, you tiresome child?" Mrs. Caldwell
exclaimed, shaking Beth by the arm. Beth only sobbed the more. "Look,"
said her mother, pointing to a small lake left by the sea on the shore
when the tide went out, where the children used to wade knee-deep, or
bathe when it was too rough for them to go into the sea; "look,
there's the pond, that bright round thing over there. And look below,
near the Castle--that great green mound is the giant's grave. When the
giant died they buried him there, and he was so big, he reached all
that length when they laid him in the ground."
"And when he stood up where did he reach to?" said Beth, interested in
a moment.
"Oh, when he sat here, I should think he could make a footstool of his
own grave, and when he stood up he could look over the Castle."
Beth, with big dilated eyes and wet cheeks, saw him do both, and was
oppressed to tears no more that day by delight and wonder of the
beautiful; but she was always liable to these paroxysms, the outcome
of an intensity of pleasure which was positive pain. So, from the
first, she was keenly susceptible to outdoor influences, and it was
now that her memory was stored with impressions which were afterwards
of inestimable value to her, for she never lived amongst the same kind
of scenery again.
The children had the run of some gentleman's grounds, which they
called The Walks. There were banks of flowers, and sidewalks where the
London pride grew, and water, and great trees with hollows in them
where the water lodged. Beth called these fairy wells, and put her
fingers in to see how deep they were, and there were dead leaves in
them; and there, on a memorable occasion, she found her first
skeleton leaf, and told Jane Nettles she really didn't know before
that there were such things. Once there was a wasp's nest hanging from
a branch, and they met a young man coming away from it, holding a
handkerchief to his face. He stopped to tell Jane Nettles how he had
been stung, and the children wandered off unheeded to look at the
nest. It was all grey and gossamer, like cobwebs laid in layers. Beth
was an Indian scout inspecting it from behind a neighbouring tree; and
then she shelled it with sticks, but did not wait to see it surrender.
They picked up horse-chestnuts from under the trees, in the season,
and hammered the green rind off with stones for the joy of seeing the
beautiful shining, slippery, dark brown, or piebald, polished fruit
within; and also, when there were wet leaves on the ground, they
gathered walnuts from out of the long tangled grass, and stained their
fingers picking off the covering, which was mealy-green when it burst,
and smelt nice; but the nut itself, when they came to it, was always
surprisingly small. There were horrid mahogany-coloured pieces of
liver put about the walks on sticks sometimes. Jane Nettles said they
were to poison the dogs because they came in and destroyed the
flowers. Beth wondered how it was people could eat liver if it
poisoned dogs, and was careful afterwards not to touch it herself.
Most children would have worried the reason out of their nurse, but
Jane Nettles was not amiable, and Beth could never bring herself to
ask a question of any one who was likely either to snub her for
asking, or to jeer at her for not knowing. There are unsympathetic
people who have a way of making children feel ashamed of their
ignorance, and rather than be laughed at, a sensitive child will
pretend to know. Beth was extraordinarily sensitive in this respect,
and so it happened that, in later life, she sometimes found herself in
ignorance of things which less remarkable people had learnt in their
infancy for the asking.
These were certainly days of delight to Beth, but the charm of them was
due less to people than to things--to some sight or scent of nature, the
smell of new-mown hay from a waggon they had stood aside to let pass in
a narrow lane, a glimpse of a high bank on the other side of the road--a
high grassy bank, covered and crowned with trees, chiefly chestnuts, on
which the sun shone; hawthorn hedgerows from which they used to pick the
green buds children call bread-and-butter, and eat them; and one
privet-hedge in their own garden, an impenetrable hedge, on the other
side of which, as Beth imagined, all kinds of wonderful things took
place. The flowers of those early days were crocuses, snowdrops, white
roses, a little yellow flower they called ladies' fingers, sea-pinks,
and London pride--particularly London pride. In the walks Jane Nettles
used to teach her the wonderful rhyme of--
"London Bridge is broken down,
Grand, said the little Dee,
London Bridge is broken down,
Fair-Lade-ee."
And so the rhyme, London pride amongst the rock-work, the ornamental
water, a rustic bridge, shining laurel leaves, mahogany-coloured
liver, warmth, light, and sweet airs all became mingled in one
gracious memory.
People, however, as has been already shown, also came into her
consciousness, but with less certainty of pleasing, wherefore she
remembered them less, for it was always her habit to banish a
disagreeable thought if she could. One day she went into the garden
with her spade and an old tin biscuit-box. She put the box on the
ground beside her, with the lid off, and began to dig. By-and-by the
kitten came crooning and sidling up to her, and hopped into the box.
Beth instantly put on the lid, and the kitten was a corpse which must
be buried. She hurriedly dug its grave, put in the box, and covered it
up with earth. Just as she had finished, a gruff voice exclaimed:
"What are ye doing there, ye little divil?" and there was old Krangle
the gardener, looking at her over the hedge. "Dig it up again
directly," he said, and Beth, much startled, dug it up quicker than
she had buried it. The kitten had been but loosely covered, and was
not much the worse, but had got some earth in its eye, which was very
sore afterwards. People wondered what had hurt it, and Beth looked
from one to the other and listened with grave attention to their
various suppositions on the subject. She said nothing, however, and
Krangle also held his peace, which led to a very good understanding
between them. Krangle had a cancer on his lip, and Beth was forbidden
to kiss him for fear of catching it. He had a garden of his own too,
and a pig, and little boiled potatoes in his cottage. The doctor's
brother died of cancer, and Beth supposed he had been naughty and
kissed old Krangle, though she wondered he cared to, as Krangle had a
very prickly chin. The doctor often came to see papa. He used to talk
about the Bible, and then the children were sent out of the room. Once
Beth hid under the table to hear what he said. It was all about God,
whom it appeared that he did not like. He had a knob at the end of his
nose, and Beth laughed at it, in punishment of which, as she used to
believe, her own nose developed a little knob at the end. Her mind was
very much exercised about the doctor and his household. He and his
brother and sister used to live together, but now he lived alone, and
on a bed in one of the rooms, according to Jane Nettles, there were
furs, and lovely silks, satins, and laces, all being eaten by moths
and destroyed because there was no one to look after them. It seemed
such a pity, but whose were they? Where was the lady?
Bridget used to come up to the nursery when the children were in bed,
to talk to Jane Nettles, and look out of the window. Those gossips in
the nursery were a great source of disturbance to Beth when she ought
to have been composing herself to sleep. She recollected nothing of
the conversations more corrupting than that ghastly account of how the
girl was exhumed, so it is likely that the servants exercised some
discretion when they dropped their voices to a whisper, as they often
did; but these whispered colloquies made her restless and cross, and
brought down upon her a smart order to go to sleep, to which she used
to answer defiantly, "I will if you'll ask me a riddle." One of the
riddles was: "Between two sticks, between two stones, between two old
men's shin-bones. What's that?" The answer had something to do with a
graveyard, but Beth could not remember what.
She used to suffer a small martyrdom in her little crib on those
evenings from what she called "snuff up her nose," a hot, dry, burning
sensation which must have been caused by a stuffy room, and the
feverish state she tossed herself into when she was kept awake after
her regular hour for sleep. Sometimes she sat up in bed suddenly, and
cried aloud. Then Jane Nettles would push her down again on her pillow
roughly, and threaten to call mamma if she wasn't good directly.
Occasionally mamma heard her, and came up of her own accord, and shook
her by the shoulder, and scolded her. Then Beth would lie still
sobbing silently, and wretched as only a lonely, uncomprehended, and
uncomplaining child can be. No one had the faintest conception of what
she suffered. Her naughtinesses were remembered against her, but her
latent tenderness was never suspected. Once the old Doctor said:
"That's a peculiarly sensitive, high-strung, nervous child; you must
be gentle with her," and both parents had stared at him. They were
matter-of-fact creatures themselves, comparatively speaking, with a
notion that such nonsense as nervousness should be shaken out of a
child.
At dinner, one day, Beth saw little creatures crawling in a piece of
cheese she had on her plate, and uttered an exclamation of disgust.
"Those are only mites, you silly child," her father said, and then to
her horror, he took up the piece, and ate it. "Do look at that child,
Caroline!" he exclaimed, "she's turned quite pale."
Beth puzzled her head for long afterwards to know what it meant to
turn pale.
Little seeds of superstition were sown in her mind at this time, and
afterwards flourished. She found a wedding-ring in her first piece of
Christmas cake, and was told she would be the first of the party to
marry, which made her feel very important.
Being so sensitive herself, she was morbidly careful of the feelings
of others, and committed sins of insincerity without compunction in
her efforts to spare them. She and Mildred were waiting ready dressed
one day to go and pay a call with mamma. Beth had her big bonnet on,
and was happy; and Mildred also was in a high state of delight. She
said Beth's breath smelt of strawberries, and wanted to know what her
own smelt of.
"Raspberries," Beth answered instantly. It was not true, but Beth felt
that something of the kind was expected of her, and so responded
sympathetically. When they got to the house, they were shown into an
immense room, and wandered about it. Beth upset some cushions, and had
awful qualms, expecting every moment to be pounced upon, and shaken;
but she forgot her fright on approaching her hostess, and discovering
to her great surprise that she was busy doing black monkeys on a grey
ground in woolwork. She was astonished to find that it was possible to
do such wonderful work, and she wanted to be taught immediately; but
her mother made her ashamed of herself for supposing that _she_ could
do it, silly little body. They stayed dinner, and Beth cried with rage
because the servant poured white sauce over her fish, and without
asking her too. The fish was an island, and Beth was the hungry sea,
devouring it bit by bit. Of course if you put white sauce over it, you
converted it into a table with a white cloth on, or something of that
kind, which you could not eat, so the fish was spoilt. She got into a
difficulty, too, about Miss Deeble's drawing-room, which was upstairs,
overlooking the bay, and you could only see the water from the window,