The Beth Book
delicious. She had a bad cold after the first ramble, but that was the
only one, strange to relate, for she always went out in her
night-dress, and bare-footed.
During this time her imagination was exceedingly active and her health
improved, but her work was a greater trouble than ever. She had just
been put into the third, but Miss Clifford threatened to put her down
again if she did not do better, and one day she sent for Beth, who
went trembling, under the impression that that was what the summons
was for. She found Miss Clifford and Miss Bey discussing a letter, and
both looking very serious.
"Beth," Miss Clifford began, "a gentleman whom I know well has written
to tell me that he was walking home by the river-path at two o'clock
on Monday morning, and saw a girl here at St. Catherine's with only
her night-dress on, hanging over the railing looking into the river;
and I am sure from the description it was you."
"Yes," said Beth, "I saw him."
Miss Clifford let the letter fall on her lap, and Miss Bey dropped
into a chair. Beth looked on with interest, and wondered about that
accurate description of herself; she would have given anything to see
it.
"What were you doing there?" Miss Clifford asked; and Beth noticed
that she was treating the matter just as her mother had treated the
menagerie business.
"Just looking at the water," Beth said.
"At two o'clock in the morning! How did you get out?"
"By the conservatory window."
"Had you been out before?"
"Oh yes, often."
"Do any of the other girls go out?"
"Not that I know of," said Beth, then added, "No, I'm sure they
don't."
"Thank Heaven for that, at all events!" Miss Clifford ejaculated. Then
she made Beth sit down beside her, and took her hand, and gazed at her
long and sorrowfully.
"Was it such a very dreadful thing to do?" Beth asked at last.
"You have been a great disappointment to me, Beth," Miss Clifford
answered indirectly, "and to Miss Bey. We expected more of you than of
any other girl now in the school--you promised so well in many ways at
one time."
"_Did I?_" said Beth, looking from one to the other in consternation.
"Oh, why didn't you tell me? I thought you all fancied I should never
do anything well, and that disheartened me. If I had known----" She
burst into tears.
Late that night Miss Clifford and Miss Bey sat together discussing
Beth.
"I feel more than ever convinced there is something exceptional about
the child," Miss Clifford declared. "I hope it is not insanity; but,
at all events, it is not sin, and I won't have her punished. I say now
what I said at first, she should have been sent here early, or not at
all. And now she must go."
"What, expel her!" Miss Bey ejaculated.
"No. Didn't I say I would not have her punished? There is some
explanation of her wild escapade besides mere naughtiness, I feel
sure, and she shall have every chance that I can give her. There is no
vice in her of any kind that I can discover, and she is fearlessly
honest. If she were grown-up we should call her eccentric, and be
interested and amused by her vagaries; and I do not see why she should
not be allowed the same excuse as it is, only St. Catherine's is not
the place for her. Here all must move in the common orbit, to save
confusion. So I shall write to her mother, and get her to take her
from the school at the end of the term in the regular way."
"But in the meantime?" Miss Bey asked.
"Beth has given me her word that she will be good, and do nothing I
should disapprove of, and she will keep it."
So Beth's credit was saved by the good judgment of this kind, wise
woman, and her career at St Catherine's ended honourably, if somewhat
abruptly.
CHAPTER XXXIII
When it was rumoured amongst the mistresses that Beth was to leave
that term, Old Tom put her on to play first piano in the first-class
solo, and to lead the treble in the second-class duet at the
examination.
"For I rather like ye, Miss Beth Caldwell," she said. "You're not a
sycophant, whatever else ye are. They've not been able to do much wi'
ye in regard to yer work in the rest of the school, but ye've done
well under me, and I'll let ye have yer chance to distinguish yerself
before ye go."
"Oh, but do you think I can do it?" Beth exclaimed.
"Ye can do anything ye set yerself to do, Beth Caldwell," Old Tom
shouted at her.
Beth set herself accordingly, and when the day came she led the solo
and duet with the precision of a musical box, but with such an
expenditure of nerve-power that she was prostrated by the effort. She
was considered quite a musician at St. Catherine's, but by this time
the dire method of teaching had had its effect. Her confidence and her
memory for music were gone, the beauty of her touch spoilt, and the
further development of her talent effectually checked.
She did not go home for the holidays. Miss Clifford had advised, Lady
Benyon approved, and Mrs. Caldwell decided, that she should be sent
direct to a finishing school in London, and when St. Catherine's broke
up, Miss Bey, who happened to be going that way, good-naturedly
undertook to see Beth safely to her destination.
Miss Clifford held Beth's hand long, and gazed into her face earnestly
when she took leave of her. "I shall hear of you again," she said,
"and I pray God it may be good news; but it depends upon yourself,
Beth. We are free agents. Good-bye, my dear child, and God bless you."
Beth had been eighteen intolerable months at the school, and had been
exceedingly miserable most of the time, yet she left it with tears in
her eyes, melted and surprised by the kindest farewells from every
one. It had never dawned upon her until that moment that she was
really very much liked.
Her new school was a large house in a long wide street of houses, all
exactly alike. When she arrived with Miss Bey, they were shown into a
deliciously cool shady drawing-room, charmingly furnished, and the
effect upon Beth, after the graceless bareness of St. Catherine's, was
altogether reassuring.
In front of the fireplace, which was hidden by ferns and flowering
plants, a slender girl, with thick dark hair down her back, was lying
on the white woolly hearthrug, reading. She got up to greet the
visitors without embarrassment, still holding her book in her hand.
"Miss Blackburne will be here directly," she said. "Will you sit
down?" Then there was a little pause, which Miss Bey broke by asking
in her magisterial way, "What is that you are reading, my dear?"
"The Idylls of the King," the girl answered.
Miss Bey's nostrils flapped.
"Is it not rather advanced for you, my dear?" she said. "We do not
allow it at all, even to our first-class girls."
"Oh, Miss Blackburne likes us to read it," was the easy answer. "She
says that Tennyson and all the good modern writers are a part of our
education."
"Thank goodness!" Beth ejaculated fervently. "At St. Catherine's our
minds were starved on books suited to the capacity of infants and
imbeciles."
"I should think, Beth, you are hardly old enough or educated enough to
be a judge of literature as yet," Miss Bey said severely.
"Nor do I pretend to be a judge. How can I know anything of literature
when literature is unknown at St. Catherine's? But I should think
babes and sucklings would be wise enough to object to the silly trash
we had instead of literature."
Beth spoke emphatically, shaking herself free of the restrictions of
the Royal Service School for Officers' Daughters once for all.
Miss Blackburne came in while she was speaking, and smiled.
"I like to hear a girl express an opinion," she said. "She may be
quite wrong, but she must have some mind if she attempts to think for
herself at all; and mind is material to work upon."
"I'm afraid _I_ haven't much mind," Beth said, sighing, "or manner
either."
Miss Blackburne smiled again, and looked at Miss Bey; but Miss Bey
supported Beth in her self-depreciation by preserving an ominous
silence.
"This is one of your new school-fellows," Miss Blackburne said to
Beth; "let me introduce you to each other. Clara Herring, Beth
Caldwell."
When Miss Bey took her leave, Miss Blackburne left the room with her,
and immediately afterwards another girl came in, clapping her hands.
"Oh, I say!" she exclaimed, "Signor Caponi _is_ a dear! He has the
nicest chocolate eyes, and he says my Italian is wonderful! Now I've
done all my work for to-day."
"Have you?" said Beth. "Why, it isn't five o'clock yet!"
"Miss Blackburne won't let us work long hours," the girl rejoined.
"She says it destroys our freshness. But let us know each other's
names. I am Geraldine Tressillion. Good name for a novel, isn't it?"
and she clapped her little white hands and laughed again.
"That's just what you're made to be--the heroine of a novel," Clara
Herring observed, looking at her admiringly. "I always think of you
when I come across a gay one, with golden hair and blue eyes."
"I have my good points, I know," Geraldine rejoined. "But how about my
hips? Too high, alas!"
"Oh, that won't show much while you're slight," said Clara, looking at
her critically.
"Well, I'll make haste and marry me before I'm afflicted with flesh,
as I'm sure to become. For I deny myself nothing--I live to eat,"
Geraldine rattled on cheerfully. "One can't get very fat before one
comes out; and I hate a thin dowager. I'm engaged already, you know,
but I don't like the man much--don't like him at all, in fact; and my
sister says I can do better. She's been married a year, and has a
baby. She told me all about it. Mamma imagines we're all innocent. A
lady implored her to tell my sister things before she married, but she
said she really could not speak to an innocent girl on such a subject.
I don't believe she was ever so innocent herself. A grown girl can't
be innocent unless she's a fool; but anyway, it's the right pose to
pretend. You've got to play the silly fool to please a man; then he
feels superior."
"But it's hypocritical," said Beth.
"Yes, my dear. But you must be hypocritical if you want to be a man's
ideal of a woman. You must know nothing, do nothing, see nothing, but
just what suits his pleasure and convenience; and in order to answer
to his requirements you must be either a hypocrite, or a blind worm
without eyes or intelligence. Men don't like innocence because it's
holy, but because it whets their appetites, my sister says, and if
they're deceived it serves them right. They work the world for their
own pleasure, not ours; and we must look out for ourselves. If we want
money, liberty, devotion, admiration, and any other luxury, we must
pretend. Don't you see?"
"I don't know," Beth rejoined. "But, personally, I shall never pretend
anything."
"Then you will suffer for your sincerity," Geraldine rejoined.
Beth shrugged her shoulders. The turn the conversation had taken was
distasteful to her, and she would not pursue it.
There was a pause, then Clara observed sententiously:
"Innocence is not impossible, Geraldine. Surely Adelaide is innocent
enough."
"I said innocence and intelligence were incompatible," Geraldine
answered. "You don't call Adelaide intelligent, do you?"
"Who is Adelaide?" Beth asked.
"The daughter of a Roman Catholic peer," Geraldine replied. "She is
eighteen, and her mind is absolutely undeveloped. We think she's in
training for a convent, and that's why they don't let her learn much.
Miss Ella Blackburne is a Roman Catholic, and so also is Adelaide's
maid; They trot her round to all the observances of her Church
regularly, and in the intervals she plays with the kitten. I don't
know why she should have been sent here at all, for this is a regular
forcing-house for the marriage market. Miss Blackburne expects all her