The Beth Book
that saddened her for a moment, was the worst she knew of the great
wicked city; but now, with Dan for a companion, the realities of vice
and crime were brought home to her; she learnt to read signs of
depravity in the faces of men and women, and to associate certain
places with evil-doers as their especial haunts. Her husband's
interest in the subject was inexhaustible; he seemed to think of
little else. He would point out people in places of public amusement,
and describe in detail the loathsome lives they led. Every
well-dressed woman he saw he suspected. He would pick out one because
she had yellow hair, and another because her two little children were
precocious and pretty, and declare them to be "kept women." That a
handsome woman could be anything but vicious had apparently never
occurred to him. He was very high-minded on the subject of sin if the
sinner were a woman, and thought no degradation sufficient for her. In
speaking of such women he used epithets from which Beth recoiled. She
allowed them to pass, however, in consideration of the moral
exasperation that inspired them, and the personal rectitude his
attitude implied. The subject had a horrible kind of fascination for
her; she hated it, yet she could not help listening, although her
heart ached and her soul sickened. She listened in silence, however,
neither questioning nor discussing, but simply attending; collecting
material for which she had no use at the moment, and storing it
without design--material which she would find herself forced to turn
to account eventually, but in what way and to what purpose there was
no knowing as yet.
They were to live at Slane, an inland town near Morningquest, where
modern manufactures had competed successfully with ancient
agricultural interests, and altered the attitude of the landed gentry
towards trade, and towards the townspeople, beguiling them to be less
exclusive because there was money in the town, self-interest weighing
with them all at once in regard to the neighbours whom Christian
precept had vainly urged them to recognise.
Dr. Maclure had taken an old-fashioned house in a somewhat solitary
position on the outskirts of Slane, but near enough to the town to
secure paying patients, as he hoped, while far enough out of it to
invite county callers. It stood just on the highroad, from which it
was only divided by a few evergreen shrubs and an iron railing; but it
was picturesque, nevertheless, with creepers--magnolia, wisteria, and
ivy--clustering on the dark red bricks. At the back there was a good
garden, and in front, across the road, were green meadows with
hedgerows--a tangle of holly, hawthorn, and bramble--and old trees,
surviving giants of a forest long uprooted and forgotten. It was a
rich and placid scene, infinitely soothing to one fresh from the
turmoil of the city, and weary of the tireless motion, the incessant
sound and tumult of the sea. When Beth looked out upon the meadows
first, she sighed and said to herself, "Surely, surely one should be
happy here!"
The house was inconveniently arranged inside, and had less
accommodation than its outside pretensions promised; but Beth was
delighted with it all, and took possession of her keys with pride. She
was determined to be a good manager, and make her housekeeping money
go a long way. Her dream was to save out of it, and have something
over to surprise Dan with when the bills were paid. To her chagrin,
however, she found that she was not to have any housekeeping money at
all.
"You are too young to have the care of managing money," said Dan.
"Just give the orders, and I'll see about paying the bills."
But the system did not answer. Beth had no idea what she ought to be
spending, and either the bills were too high or the diet was too low,
and Dan grumbled perpetually. If the housekeeping were at all frugal,
he was anything but cheery during meals; but if she ordered him all he
wanted, there were sure to be scenes on the day of reckoning. He
blamed her bad management, and she said nothing; but she knew she
could have managed on any reasonable sum to which he might have
limited her. She had too much self-respect to ask for money, however,
if he did not choose to give it to her.
It surprised her to find that what he had to eat was a matter of great
importance to him. He fairly gloated over things he liked, and in
order to indulge him, and keep the bills down besides, she went
without herself; and he never noticed her self-denial. He was apt to
take too much of his favourite dishes, and was constantly regretting
it. "I wish I had not eaten so much of that cursed _vol au vent_; it
never agrees with me," he would say; but he would eat as much as ever
next time. Beth could not help observing such traits. She did not set
them down to his personal discredit, however, but to the discredit of
his sex at large. She had always heard that men were self-indulgent,
and Dan was a man; that was the nearest she came to blaming him at
first. Being her husband had made a difference in her feeling for him;
before their marriage she was not so tolerant.
Her housekeeping duties by no means filled her day. An hour or so in
the morning was all they occupied at most, and the time must have hung
heavy on her hands had she had no other pursuit to beguile her.
Fortunately she had no intention of allowing her plans for the
improvement of her mind to lapse simply because she had married. On
the contrary, she felt the defects of her education more keenly than
ever, and expected Dan to sympathise with her in her efforts to remedy
them. He came in one day soon after they were settled, and found her
sitting at the end of the dining-room table with her back to the
window and a number of books spread out about her.
"This looks learned," he said. "What are you doing?"
"I am looking for something to study," she answered. "What writers
have helped you most?"
"Helped me most!--how do you mean?"
"Well, helped you to be upright, you know, to make good resolutions
and keep straight."
"Thank you," he said; "I have not felt the need of good resolutions,
and this is the first hint I have had that I require any. If you will
inquire among my friends, I fancy you will find that I have the credit
of going pretty straight as it is."
"O Dan!" Beth exclaimed, "you quite misunderstand me. I never meant to
insinuate that you are not straight. I was only thinking of the way in
which we all fall short of our ideals."
"Ideals be hanged!" said Dan. "If a man does his duty, that's ideal
enough, isn't it?"
"I should think so," Beth said pacifically.
Dan went to the mantelpiece, and stood there, studying himself with
interest in the glass. "A lady told me the other day I looked like a
military man," he said, smoothing his glossy black hair and twisting
the ends of his long moustache.
"Well, I think you look much more military than medical," Beth
replied, considering him.
"I'm glad of that," he said, smiling at himself complacently.
"Are you?" Beth exclaimed in surprise. "Why? A medical man has a finer
career than a military man, and should have a finer presence if
ability, purpose, and character count for anything towards
appearance. Personally I think I should wish to look like what I am,
if I could choose."
"So you do," he rejoined, adjusting his hat with precision as he
spoke, and craning his neck to see himself sideways in the glass. "You
look like a silly little idiot. But never mind. That's all a girl need
be if she's pretty; and if she isn't pretty, she's of no account, so
it doesn't matter what she is."
When he had gone, Beth sat for a long time thinking; but she did no
more reading that day, nor did she ever again consult Dan about the
choice of books, or expect him to sympathise with her in her work.
For the first few months of her married life, she had no pocket-money
at all. Aunt Grace Mary slipped two sovereigns into her hand when they
parted, but these Beth kept, she hardly knew why, as she had her
half-year's dividend to look forward to. About the time that her money
was due, Dan began to talk incessantly of money difficulties. Bills
were pressing, and he did not know where on earth to look for a
five-pound-note. He did not think Beth too young to be worried
morning, noon, and night on the subject, although she took it very
seriously. One morning after he had made her look anxious, he suddenly
remembered a letter he had for her, and handed it to her. It was from
her lawyer, and contained a cheque for twenty-five pounds, the
long-looked-forward-to pocket money.
"Will this be of any use to you?" Beth asked, handing him the cheque.
His countenance cleared. "Of use to me? I should think it would!" he
exclaimed. "It will just make all the difference. You must sign it,
though."
When she had signed it, he put it in his pocket-book, and his spirits
went up to the cheery point. He adjusted his hat at the glass over the
dining-room mantelpiece, lit a shilling cigar, and went off to his
hospital jauntily. Beth was glad to have relieved him of his anxiety.
She half hoped he might give her something out of the cheque, if it
were only a pound or two, she wanted some little things so badly; but
he never offered her a penny. She thought of Aunt Grace Mary's two
sovereigns, but the dread of having nothing in case of an emergency
kept her from spending them.
There was one thing Dan did which Beth resented. He opened her
letters.
"Husband and wife are one," he said. "They should have no secrets from
each other. I should like you to open my letters, too, but they
contain professional secrets, you see, and that wouldn't do."
He spoke in what he called his cheery way, but Beth had begun to feel
that there was another word which would express his manner better, and
now it occurred to her.
"You have no right to open my letters," she said; "and being facetious
on the subject does not give you any."
"But if I chose to?" he asked.
"It will be a breach of good taste and good feeling," she answered.
No more was said on the subject, and Dan did not open her letters for
a little, but then he began again. He had always some excuse,
however--either he hadn't looked at the address, or he had been
impatient to see if there were any message for himself, and so on; but
Beth was not mollified although she said nothing, and her annoyance
made her secretive. She would watch for the postman, and take the
letters from him herself, and conceal her own, so that Dan might not
even know that she had received any.
She had a difficulty with him about another matter too. His lover-like
caresses while they were engaged had not been distasteful to her; but
after their marriage he kept up an incessant billing and cooing, and
of a coarser kind, which soon satiated her. She was a nicely balanced
creature, with many interests in life, and love could be but one among
the number in any case; but Dan almost seemed to expect it to be the
only one.
"Oh dear! must I be embraced again?" she exclaimed one day, with quite
comical dismay on being interrupted in the middle of a book that was
interesting her at the moment.
Dan looked disconcerted. In his cheerful masculine egotism it had not
occurred to him that Beth might find incessant demonstrations of
affection monotonous. He would smile at pictures of the waning of the
honeymoon, where the husband returns to his book and his dog, and the
wife sits apart sad and neglected; it was inevitable that the man
should tire, he had other things to think of; but that the wife should
be the first to be bored was incredible, and worse: it was unwomanly.
Dan went to the mantelpiece, and stood looking down into the fire, and
his grey-green eyes became suffused.