The Beth Book
companionship in their intercourse. If Beth had had no resources in
herself, she would have had but a sorry time of it in those days,
especially as she received no kindness from any one in Slane. Some of
the other medical men's wives called when she first arrived, and she
returned their calls punctually, but their courtesy went no farther.
Mrs. Carne, the wife of the leading medical practitioner, asked her to
lunch, and Mrs. Jeffreys, a surgeon's wife, asked her to afternoon
tea; but as these invitations did not include her husband, she refused
them. She invited these ladies and their husbands in return, however,
but they both pleaded previous engagements.
After the Maclures had been some little time at Slane, Lady Benyon
bethought her of an old friend of hers, one Lady Beg, who lived in the
neighbourhood, and asked her to call upon Beth, which she did
forthwith, for she was one of those delightful old ladies who like
nothing better than to be doing a kindness. She came immediately,
bringing an invitation to lunch on the following Sunday, already
written in case she should find no one at home.
Dan was delighted, "We shall meet nothing but county people there," he
said, "and that's the proper set for us. They always do the right
thing, you see. They're the only people worth knowing."
"But Beg is miles away from here," Beth said; "how shall we go?"
"We'll go in the dogcart, of course," Dan answered.
He had set up a dogcart on their arrival, but this was the first time
he had proposed to take Beth out in it.
As they drove along on Sunday morning in the bright sunshine, Dan's
spirits overflowed in a characteristic way at the prospect of meeting
"somebody decent," as he expressed it, and he made remarks about the
faces and figures of all the women they passed on the road,
criticising them as if they were cattle to be sold at so much a point.
"That little girl there," he said of one, whom he beamed upon and
ogled as they passed, "reminds me of a fair-haired little devil I
picked up one night in Paris. Gad! she _was_ a bad un! up to more
tricks than any other I ever knew. She used to--" (here followed a
description of some of her peculiar practices).
"I wish you would not tell me these things," Beth remonstrated.
But he only laughed. "You know you're amused," he said. "It's just
your conventional affectation that makes you pretend to object. That's
the way women drive their husbands elsewhere for amusement; they won't
take a proper intelligent interest in life, so there's nothing to talk
to them about. I agree with the advanced party. They're always
preaching that women should know the world. Women who _do_ know the
world have no nonsense about them, and are a jolly sight better
company than your starched Puritans who pretend to know nothing. It's
the most interesting side of life after all, and the most instructive;
and I wonder at your want of intelligence, Beth. You shouldn't be
afraid to know the natural history of humanity."
"Nor am I," Beth answered quietly; "nor the natural--or
unnatural--depravity either, which is what you really mean, I believe.
But knowing it, and delighting in it as a subject of conversation, are
two very different things. Jesting about that side of life affects me
like mud on a clean coat. I resent being splashed with it, and try to
get rid of it, but unfortunately it sticks and stains."
"Oh, you're quite right," Dan answered unctuously. "It's just shocking
the stories that are told--" and for the rest of the way he discoursed
about morals, illustrating his meaning as he proceeded with anecdotes
of the choicest description.
When they arrived at Beg House, they found the company more mixed than
Dan had anticipated. Dr. and Mrs. Carne were there, Mr. and Mrs.
Jeffreys, and Mr., Mrs., and Miss Petterick. Mr. Petterick was a
solicitor of bumptious manners and doubtful reputation, whom the whole
county hated, but tolerated because of his wealth and shrewdness,
either of which they liked to be in a position to draw upon if
necessary. But besides these townspeople, there were Sir George and
Lady Galbraith, Mr. and Mrs. Kilroy of Ilverthorpe, and Mrs. Orton
Beg, a widowed daughter-in-law of Lady Beg's.
Dr. Maclure immediately made up to Sir George Galbraith, who was also
a medical man, and of great repute in his own line. He was a county
magnate besides, and a man of wealth and importance by reason of a
baronetcy somewhat unexpectedly inherited, and a beautiful
country-seat. He continued to practise, however, for love of his
profession, but used it as a means of doing good rather than as a
source of income. In appearance he was a tall, rather awkward man,
with a fine head and a strong, plain face. He spoke in that deliberate
Scotch way which has a ring of sincerity in it and inspires
confidence, and the contrast between his manner and Dan's struck Beth
unpleasantly. She wished Dan would be less effusive; it was almost as
if he were cringing; and she thought he should have waited for Sir
George Galbraith, who was the older man, to have made the first
advance.
Beth herself was at her ease as soon as she came among these people.
It was the social atmosphere to which she had been accustomed. Mrs.
Carne, Mrs. Jeffreys, and Mrs. Petterick were on their best behaviour,
but Beth had only to be natural. The county people were all nice to
her, and the other town ladies, who had hitherto slighted her, looked
on and wondered to see her so well received. At luncheon, as there
were not gentlemen enough to go round, she sat between Sir George
Galbraith and Mrs. Orton Beg. Mrs. Kilroy sat opposite. Sir George had
known Mrs. Kilroy all her life. It was he, in fact, who nicknamed her
and her brother "The Heavenly Twins" in the days when, as children,
they used to be the delight of their grandfather, the old Duke of
Morningquest, and the terror of their parents, Mr. and Lady Adeline
Hamilton-Wells.
As soon as they were seated, Mrs. Kilroy attacked Sir George on some
subject which they had previously discussed, and there ensued a little
playful war of words.
"Oh, you're just a phrase-maker," Mrs. Kilroy exclaimed at last,
finding herself worsted; "and phrases prove nothing."
"What is a phrase-maker?" he asked with a twinkle.
"Why, a phrase-maker is a person who recklessly launches a saying,
winged by wit, and of superior brevity and distinctness, but not
necessarily true--a saying which flies direct to the mind, and, being
of a cutting nature, carves an indelible impression there," said Mrs.
Kilroy--"an impression which numbs the intellect and prevents us
reasoning for ourselves. Opinion is formed for the most part of
phrases, not of knowledge and observation. The things people say
smartly are quoted, not because they are true, but because they are
smart. A lie well put will carry conviction to the average mind more
surely than a good reason if ill-expressed, because most people have
an aesthetic sense that is satisfied by a happy play upon words, but
few have reason enough to discriminate when the brilliant ingenuity
of the phrase-maker is pitted against a plain statement of the bald
truth."
"As, for instance?" asked Sir George.
"Man's love is of his life a thing apart,
'Tis woman's whole existence,"
Mrs. Kilroy responded glibly. "That is quoted everywhere, and I have
never heard it questioned, yet it is a flagrant case of confounding
smartness with accuracy. Love of the kind that Byron meant is quite as
much a thing apart from woman's life as from man's; more men, in fact,
make the pursuit of it their whole existence than women do."
"You are right," said Sir George thoughtfully. "Love is certainly not
a modern woman's whole existence, and she never dies of it. She feels
it strongly, but it does not swamp her. In a bad attack, she may go to
bed young one night and rise next day with grey hairs in her head, and
write a book about it; but then she recovers: and I think you are
right about phrases, too. 'Syllables govern the world,' John Selden
said; but 'phrases' would have been the better word. Phrases are the
keynotes to life; they set the tune to which men insensibly shape
their course, and so rule us for good and ill. This is a time of talk,
and formidable is the force of phrases. Catch-words are creative; they
do not prove that a thing is--they cause it to be."
"Then an unscrupulous phrase-maker may be a danger to the community,"
Beth observed.
"Yes," said Sir George; "but on the other hand, one who is scrupulous
would be a philanthropist of extraordinary power."
"Now, isn't that like his craft and subtlety, Evadne?" said Mrs.
Kilroy to Lady Galbraith. "He has been gradually working up to that in
order to make Mrs. Maclure suppose I intended to pay him a compliment
when I called him a phrase-maker."
"You are taking a mean advantage of an honest attempt on my part to
arrive at the truth," said Sir George.
"I believe you blundered into that without seeing in the least where
you were going," Beth observed naively.
Everybody smiled, except Dan, who told her on the way home she had
made a great mistake to say such a thing, and she must be careful in
future, or she would give offence and make enemies for him.
"No fear with people like that," said Beth. "They all understood me."
"Which is as much as to say that your husband does not," said Dan,
assuming his hurt expression. "Very well. Go your own way. But you'll
be sorry for it."
"What a delightful person Mrs. Orton Beg is," Beth observed, to make a
diversion; "and so nice-looking too!"
"You are easily pleased! Why, she's forty if she's a day!" Dan
ejaculated, speaking as if that were to her discredit, and must
deprive her of any consideration from him.
The next excitement was a military ball. Dan determined to go, and
Beth was ready enough; she had never been to a ball.
"But how about a dress?" she said. "There has been such a sudden
change in the fashion since mine were made, I'm afraid I have nothing
that will do."
"Then get a new one," Dan said.
"What! and add to the bills?" Beth objected.
"Oh, bother the bills!" he answered in the tone he called cheery.
"I've had them coming in all my life and I'm still here. Get a thing
when you want it, and pay for it when you can--that's my motto. Why,
my tailor's bill alone is up in the hundreds.
"But that was the bill mamma gave you the money to settle," Beth
exclaimed.
"I know," he answered casually. "I got the money out of her for that,
but I had to spend it on your amusement in town, my dear."
"Oh!" Beth ejaculated--"how could you?"
"How could I?" he answered coolly. "Well, I couldn't of course if I
hadn't been clever; but I can always get anything I like out of old
ladies. They dote on me. You've only got to amuse them, you know, and
pour in a little sentiment on occasion. Let them understand you've
been rather a naughty man, but you know what's right--that always
fetches them. Your mother would have sold out all she had to help me
when she found I meant to repent and settle. But of course I wouldn't
take anything that was not absolutely necessary," he added
magnanimously.
Beth compressed her lips and frowned. "Do you mean to say you obtained
money from a poor woman like my mother for a special purpose which she
approved, and spent that money on something else?" she asked.
Dan changed countenance. "I got the money from your mother to pay my
tailor's bill; but the circumstance of your spending more money in
town than I could afford compelled me to use it for another purpose,"
he answered in rather a blustering tone.
"I spent no money in town," Beth said.
"I had to spend it on you then," he rejoined, "and a nice lament you
would have made if I hadn't! But it's all the same. Husband and wife