The Beth Book
"Have I hurt you, Dan?" Beth exclaimed, jumping up and going to him.
"Hurt me!" he said, taking out his pocket-handkerchief, "that is not
the word for it. You have made me very unhappy."
"Oh!" said Beth, her own inclinations disregarded at once, "I _am_
sorry!"
But he had satiated her once for all, and she never recovered any zest
for his caresses. She found no charm or freshness in them, especially
after she perceived that they were for his own gratification,
irrespective of hers. The privileges of love are not to be wrested
from us with impunity. Habits of dutiful submission destroy the power
to respond, and all that they leave to survive of the warm reality of
love at last is a cold pretence. By degrees, as Beth felt forced to be
dutiful, she ceased to be affectionate.
Although Dan dressed to go out with scrupulous care, he took no
trouble to make himself nice in the house. Care in dress was not in
him a necessary part and expression of a refined nature, but an
attempt to win consideration. He never dressed for dinner when they
were alone together. It was a trouble rather than a refreshment to him
to get rid of the dust of the day and the associations of his
walking-dress. This was a twofold disappointment to Beth. She had
expected him to have the common politeness to dress for her benefit,
and she was not pleased to find that the punctiliousness he displayed
in the matter on occasion was merely veneer. It was a defect of
breeding that struck her unpleasantly. They had been poor enough at
home, but Beth had been accustomed all her life to have delicate china
about her, and pictures and books, to walk on soft carpets and sit in
easy-chairs; possessions of a superior class which, in her case, were
symbols bespeaking refinement of taste and habits from which her soul
had derived satisfaction even while her poor little fragile body
starved. She dressed regularly and daintily herself, and Dan at the
bottom of the table in his morning coat was an offence to her. She
said nothing at first, however, so his manners still further
deteriorated, until one night, after she had gone to her room, he
walked in with his hat on, smoking a cigar. It was this last
discourtesy that roused her to rebel.
"This is my bedroom," she said significantly.
"I know," he answered.
"You know--yet you keep your hat on, and you are smoking," she
proceeded.
"Why," he rejoined, "and if I do, what then? I know ladies who let
their husbands smoke in bed."
"Probably," she said. "I have heard of more singularly coarse things
than that even. But I am accustomed to pure air in my room, and I must
have it."
"And suppose I should choose to stay here and smoke?" he said.
"Of course I could not prevent you," she answered; "but I should go
and sleep in another room."
"H'm," he grunted. "You're mighty particular."
But he went away all the same, and did not appear there again either
with his hat on or smoking a cigar.
Beth suffered miserably from the want of proper privacy in her life.
She had none whatever now. It had been her habit to read and reflect
when she went to bed, to prepare for a tranquil night by setting aside
the troubles of the day, and purifying her mind systematically even as
she washed her body; but all that was impossible if her husband were
at home. He would break in upon her reading with idle gossip, fidget
about the room when she wished to meditate, and leave her no decent
time of privacy for anything. He had his own dressing-room, where he
was secure from interruption, but never had the delicacy to comprehend
that his presence could be any inconvenience to Beth. And it was worse
than an inconvenience. It was a positive hardship--never to be sure of
a moment alone.
One afternoon, when she had locked herself in her bedroom, he came and
turned the handle of the door noisily.
"Open the door," he said.
"Do you want anything?" she asked.
"Open the door," he repeated.
She obeyed, and he came in, and glanced round suspiciously.
"What were you doing?" he asked.
"Oh," she exclaimed, "this is intolerable!"
"What is intolerable?" he demanded.
"This intrusion," she replied. "I want to be alone for a little; can't
you understand that?"
"No, I cannot understand a wife locking her husband out of her room,
and what's more, you've no business to do it. I've a legal right to
come here whenever I choose."
Then Beth began to realise what the law of man was with regard to her
person.
"I never intrude upon you when you shut yourself up," she
remonstrated.
"Oh, that is different," he answered arrogantly. "I may have brainwork
to do, or something important to think about There is no comparison."
Beth went to her dressing-table, sat down in front of it, folded her
hands, and waited doggedly.
He looked at her for a little; then he said, "I don't understand your
treatment of me at all, Beth. But there's no understanding women." He
spoke as if it were the women's fault, and to their discredit, that he
couldn't understand them.
Beth made no answer, and he finally took himself off, slamming the
door after him.
"Thank goodness!" Beth exclaimed. "One would think he had bought me."
Then she sat wondering what she should do. She must have some corner
where she would be safe from intrusion. He had his consulting-room, a
room called his laboratory, a surgery, and a dressing-room, where no
one would dream of following him if he shut the door; she had
literally not a corner. She left her bedroom, and walked through the
other rooms on the same floor as she considered the matter; then she
went up to the next floor, where the servants slept. Above that again
there was an attic used as a box-room, and she went up there too. It
was a barn of a place, supported by pillars, and extending apparently
over the whole of the storey below. The roof sloped to the floor on
either side, and the whole place was but ill-lighted by two small
windows looking to the north. Dr. Maclure had taken over the house as
it stood, furniture and all, from the last occupants, by whom this
great attic had evidently been used as a lumber-room. There were
various pieces of furniture in it--tables, chairs, and drawers, some
broken, some in fair condition. At the farther end, opposite to the
door, there was a pile of packing-cases and travelling-trunks. Beth
had always thought that they stood up against the wall, but on going
over to them now, she discovered that there was a space behind. The
pile was too high for her to see over it, but by going down on her
hands and knees where the sloping roof was too low for her to stoop,
she found she could creep round it. It was the kind of thing a child
would have done, but what was Beth but a child? On the other side of
the pile it was almost dark. She could see something, however, when
she stood up, which looked like a mark on the whitewash, and on
running her hand over it she discovered it to be a narrow door flush
with the wall. There was no handle or latch to it, but there was a key
which had rusted in the keyhole and was not to be turned. The door was
not locked, however, and Beth pushed it open, and found herself in a
charming little room with a fireplace at one end of it, and opposite,
at the other end, a large bow window. Beth was puzzled to understand
how there came to be a room there at all. Then she recollected a sort
of tower there was at the side of the house, which formed a deep
embrasure in the drawing-room, a dressing-room to the visitor's room,
and a bath-room on the floor above. The window looked out on the
garden at the back of the house. A light iron balcony ran round it,
the rail of which was so thickly covered with ivy that very little of
the window was visible from below. Beth had noticed it, however, only
she thought it was a dummy, and so also did Dan. The little room
looked bright and cosy with the afternoon sun streaming in. It seemed
to have been occupied at one time by some person of fastidious taste,
judging by what furniture remained--a square Chippendale table with
slender legs, two high-backed chairs covered with old-fashioned
tapestry, and a huge mahogany bookcase of the same period, with glass
doors above and cupboards below. The high white mantelpiece, adorned
with vases and festoons of flowers, was of Adam's design, and so also
was the dado and the cornice. The walls were painted a pale warm pink.
A high brass fender, pierced, surrounded the fireplace, and there were
a poker, tongs, and shovel to match, and a small brass scuttle still
full of coals. There were ashes in the grate, too, as if the room had
only lately been occupied. The boards were bare, but white and
well-fitting, and in one corner of the room there was a piece of
carpet rolled up.
Beth dropped on to one of the dusty chairs, and looked round.
Everything about her was curiously familiar, and her first impression
was that she had been there before. On the other hand, she could
hardly believe in the reality of what she saw, she thought she must be
dreaming, for here was exactly what she had been pining for most in
the whole wide world of late, a secret spot, sacred to herself, where
she would be safe from intrusion.
She went downstairs for some oil for the lock, and patiently worked at
it until at last she succeeded in turning the key. Then, as it was too
late to do anything more that day, she locked the door, and carried
the key off in her pocket triumphantly.
Half the night she lay awake thinking of her secret chamber; and as
soon as Dan had gone out next morning, and she had done her
housekeeping, she stole upstairs with duster and brush, and began to
set it in order. All her treasures were contained in some old trunks
of Aunt Victoria's which were in the attic, but had not been unpacked
because she had no place to put the things. Dan had seen some of these
treasures at Rainharbour, and considered them old rubbish, and, not
thinking it likely that there would be anything else in the boxes, he
had taken no further interest in them. He would have liked to have
left them behind altogether, and even tried to laugh Beth out of what
he called her sentimental attachment to odds and ends; but as most of
the things had belonged to Aunt Victoria, she took his ridicule so ill
that he wisely let the subject drop. He had been somewhat hasty in his
estimation of the value of the contents of the boxes, however, for
there were some handsome curios, a few miniatures and pictures of
great artistic merit, some rare editions of books, besides laces,
jewels, brocades, and other stuffs in them.
When Beth had swept and dusted, she put down the carpet. Then she
began to unpack. Among the first things she found were the old French
books, a quarto Bible with the Apocrypha in it, Shakespeare in several
volumes, and her school-books and note-books; some ornaments, some
beautiful old curtains, and a large deep rug, like a Turkey carpet, in
crimson and green and purple and gold, worked by Aunt Victoria. This
she spread before the fireplace. The doorway she covered with a
curtain, and two more she hung on either side of the window, so that
they could not be seen from below. Her books of reference, desk,
note-books, and writing materials she put on the table, arranged the
ornaments on the mantelpiece, and hung the miniatures and pictures on
the walls. Then she sat down and looked about her, well pleased with
the whole effect. "Now," she exclaimed, "I am at home, thank God! I
shall be able to study, to read and write, think and pray at last,
undisturbed."
CHAPTER XXXVIII
As Dan sympathised with none of Beth's tastes or interests, and seemed
to have none of his own with which she could sympathise, their stock
of conversation was soon exhausted, and there was nothing like