The Beth Book
makes it, is like an aperture that lets in light on the whole
character." He cogitated a little, then added, "Don't let them hurry
you. Take time to know your man, and if you are not satisfied
yourself, if there is anything that jars upon _you_, never mind what
other people think, have nothing to do with him."
When Beth went home, she found her mother sitting by the drawing-room
window placidly knitting and looking out. "I am afraid I am very
late," Beth said. "I have been on the sands with Count Gustav."
"Ah, that was nice, I should think," Mrs. Caldwell observed
graciously. "And what were you talking about?"
"Being married, principally," Beth answered.
Mrs. Caldwell beamed above her knitting. "And what did he say?"
"He strongly advised me not to marry if I didn't want to."
Mrs. Caldwell changed countenance. "Did he indeed?" she observed with
a sniff. Then she reflected. "And what had you been saying to draw
such a remark from him?"
"I said I didn't want to be married," Beth blurted out with an effort.
"How could you tell Count Gustav such a story, Beth?" Mrs. Caldwell
asked, shaking her head reproachfully.
"It was no story, mamma."
"Nonsense, Beth," her mother rejoined. "It is nothing but perverseness
that makes you say such things. You feel more interesting, I believe,
when you are in opposition. If I had refused to allow you to be
married, you would have been ready to run away. _I_ know girls! They
all want to be married, and they all pretend they don't. Why, when I
was a girl I thought of nothing else; but I didn't talk about it."
"Perhaps you had nothing else to think about," Beth ventured.
"And what have you to think about, pray?"
Beth clasped her hands, and her grey eyes dilated.
"Beth, don't look like that," her mother remonstrated. "You are always
acting, and it _is_ such a pity--as you will find when you go out into
the world, I am afraid, and people avoid you."
"I didn't know I was doing anything peculiar," Beth said; "and how am
I to help it if I don't know?"
"Just help it by only doing as you are told until you are able to
judge for yourself. Look at the silly way you have been talking this
afternoon! What must Count Gustav have thought of you? Never be so
silly again. You _must_ be married now, you know. When a girl lets a
man kiss her, she _has_ to marry him."
Beth had been watching her mother's fingers as she knitted until she
was half mesmerised by the bright glint of the needles; but now she
woke up and burst out laughing. "If that be the case," she said, "he
is not the only one that I shall have to marry."
Mrs. Caldwell's hands dropped on her lap, and she looked up at Beth in
dismay. "What do you mean?" she said.
"Just that," Beth answered.
"Do you mean to tell me you have allowed men to kiss you?" Mrs.
Caldwell cried.
Beth looked up as if trying to keep her countenance.
"You wicked girl, how dare you?"
"Well, mamma, if it were wicked, why didn't you warn me?" Beth said.
"How was I to know?"
"Your womanly instincts ought to have taught you better."
Unfortunately for this theory, all Beth's womanly instincts set in the
opposite direction. Her father's ardent temperament warred in her with
Aunt Victoria's Puritan principles, and there was no telling as yet
which would prevail.
Beth made no reply to that last assertion of her mother's, but
remained half sitting on the table, with her feet stretched out in
front of her, and her hands supporting her on either side, which
brought her shoulders up to her ears. It was a most inelegant
attitude, and peculiarly exasperating to Mrs. Caldwell.
"Oh, you wicked--you bad--you _abandoned_ girl!" she exclaimed, losing
her temper altogether. "My heart is _broken_ with you. Go to your
room, and stay there. I feel as if I could never endure the sight of
you again."
Beth gathered herself together slowly, and strolled away with an air
of indifference; but as soon as she found herself alone in her own
room with the door shut, she dropped on her knees and lifted her
clasped hands to heaven in an agony of remorse for having tormented
her mother, and in despair about that wretched engagement. "O Lord,
what am I to do?" she said; "what am I to do?" If she could make up
her mind once for all either way, she would be satisfied; it was this
miserable state of indecision that was unendurable.
Presently in the room below, she thought she heard her mother sob aloud.
She listened, breathless. Her mother was sobbing. Beth jumped up and
opened her door. What should she do? Her unhappy mother--heart-broken,
indeed. What a life hers was--a life of hard privation, of suffering
most patiently borne, of the utmost self-denial for her children's sake,
of loss, of loneliness, of bitter disappointment! First her husband
taken, then her dearest child; her ungrateful boys not over-kind to her;
and now this last blow dealt her by Beth, just when the prospect of
getting her well married was bringing a gleam of happiness into her
mother's life. The piteous sobs continued. Beth stole downstairs, bent
on atoning in her own person by any sacrifice for all the sorrows, no
matter by whom occasioned, which she felt were culminating in this final
outburst of grief. She found her mother standing beside the high
old-fashioned mantelpiece, leaning her poor head against it.
"Mamma," Beth cried, "do forgive me. I never meant to--I never meant
to hurt you so. I will do anything to please you. I was only teasing
you about kissing men. I haven't been in the habit of kissing any one.
And of course I'll marry Dan as soon as you like. And we'll all be
happy--there!"
Mrs. Caldwell held out her arms, and Beth sprang into them, and hugged
her tight and burst into tears.
CHAPTER XXXVII
That autumn Beth was married to Daniel Maclure, M.D., &c., &c. At the
time of her marriage she hardly knew what his full name was. She had
always heard him called "the doctor" or "Dr. Dan," and had never
thought of him as anything else, nor did she know anything else about
him--his past, his family, or his prospects, which, considering her
age, is not surprising; but what did surprise her in after years, when
she discovered it, was to find that her friends who made the match
knew no more about him than she did. He had scraped acquaintance with
her brother Jim in a public billiard-room in Rainharbour, and been
introduced by him to the other members of her family, who, because his
address was good and his appearance attractive, had taken it for
granted that everything else concerning him was equally satisfactory.
Beth decided to keep her surname for her father's sake, and also
because she could not see why she should lose her identity because she
had married. Everybody said it was absurd of her; but she was
determined, and from the time of her marriage she signed herself
Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure.
Dan confided to Mrs. Caldwell that he was troubled by some few small
debts which he was most anxious to pay in order that he might start
his married life clear, and the poor lady generously reduced her
slender income by selling some shares to raise the money for him. When
he accepted it, his eyes filled with tears, as was usual with him in
moments of emotion.
"O mamma!" Beth exclaimed when she heard of the sacrifice, "how could
you? I do not deserve such generosity, for I have never been any
comfort to you; and I shall always be miserable about it, thinking how
badly you want the money."
"There will be one mouth less to feed when you have gone, you know,
Beth," Mrs. Caldwell answered bravely, "and I shall be the happier for
thinking that you start clear. Debt crushed us our whole married life.
I shall be the easier if I know you haven't that burden to bear.
Besides, Dan will repay me as soon as he can. He is a thoroughly good
fellow."
"You shall be repaid, mamma, in more ways than one, if I live," Beth
vowed.
Uncle James Patten doled out a five-pound-note to Beth by way of a
wedding present from the long rent-roll her mother should have
inherited.
"This is to help with your trousseau, but do not be extravagant," he
said in his pleasant way. "As the wife of a professional man, you
will descend from my class to the class below, the middle class, and
you should dress according to your station. But you are doing as well
as we could expect you to do, considering your character and conduct.
Some doubted if you would ever receive an offer of marriage, or have
the sense to accept it if one were made you; but I always said you
would have the doctor if he would have you."
Beth's impulse was to throw the note at him, but she restrained
herself on her brother Jim's account. It was suspected that Uncle
James was only waiting for a plausible excuse to disinherit Jim; and
he found it the next time Jim stayed at Fairholm. They were in the
drawing-room together one day, and a maid was mending the fire. Uncle
James was sitting at a writing-table with a mirror in front of him,
and he declared that in that mirror he distinctly saw his nephew chuck
the maid-servant under the chin, which was conduct such as Mr. James
Patten could not be expected to tolerate in his heir; so he altered
his will, and after that all communication ceased between the two
families, except such as Aunt Grace Mary managed to keep up
surreptitiously.
Aunt Grace Mary was very generous to Beth, and so also was old Lady
Benyon. Had it not been for these two, Beth would have left home
ill-provided for. Thanks to them, however, she was spared that
humiliation, and went with an ample outfit.
In the days preceding her marriage, Beth sometimes thought of
Charlotte, and of the long fiction of that wonderful time when they
were friends. Her busy brain had created many another story since
then, but none that had the fascination of that first sustained
effort. Hector's mysterious establishment on the other side of the
headland, the troubles in Spain, the wicked machinations of their
enemies, the Secret Service of Humanity, the horses, yacht, and useful
doctor--who had not held a high place in their estimation, being
merely looked upon as a trustworthy tool of Hector's; yet it was he
whom Beth was to marry. She wondered what Charlotte would think of her
when she heard it, and of Hector and the whole story; but she never
knew, for Charlotte was at school in France during this period, and
never came into Beth's life again.
During the early days of her married life a sort of content settled
upon Beth; a happy sense of well-being, of rest and satisfaction, came
to her, and that strange vague yearning ache, the presence of which
made all things incomplete, was laid. The atmosphere in which she now
lived was sensuous, not spiritual, and although she was unaware of
this, she felt its influence. Dan made much of her, and she liked
that; but the vision and the dream had ceased. Her intellectual
activity was stimulated, however, and it was not long before she
began to think for herself more clearly and connectedly than she had
ever done before.
They spent the first few weeks in London in a whirl of excitement,
living at sumptuous restaurants, and going to places of amusement
every night, where Beth would sit entranced with music, singing,
dancing, and acting, never taking her eyes from the stage, and
yearning in her enthusiasm to do the same things herself--not doubting
but that she could either, so perfectly had she the power to identify
herself with the performers, and realise, as from within, what their
sensations must be.
When she had been in London as a girl at school, she had seen nothing
but the bright side of life, the wholesome, happy, young side. A poor
beggar to be helped, or a glimpse in the street of a sorrowful face