The Beth Book
she worked she watched them, their housekeepings and comings and
goings; and heard their talk; and often as she worked she looked out
at the fair prospect and up at the sky hopefully, and vowed again to
accomplish one act of justice at all events. She stopped her regular
studies at this time, because she conceived them to be for her own
mere personal benefit, while the task which she had set herself was
for a better purpose. But, although she did not study as had been her
wont, while she sewed she occupied her mind in a way that was much
more beneficial to it than the purposeless acquisition of facts, the
solving of mathematical problems, or conning of parts of speech.
Beside her was always an open book, it might be a passage of
Scripture, a scene from Shakespeare, a poem or paragraph rich in the
wisdom and beauty of some great mind; and as she sewed she dwelt upon
it, repeating it to herself until she was word-perfect in it, then
making it even more her own by earnest contemplation. These passages
became the texts of many observations; and in them was also the light
which showed her life as it is, and as it should be lived. In
meditating upon them she taught herself to meditate; and in following
up the clues they gave her in the endeavour to discriminate and to
judge fairly, by slow degrees she acquired the precious habit of clear
thought. This lifted her at once above herself as she had been; and
what she had lost of insight and spiritual perception since her
marriage, she began to recover in another and more perfect form.
Wholesome consideration of the realities of life now took the place of
fanciful dreams. Her mind, wonderfully fertilised, teemed again--not
with vain imaginings, however, as heretofore, but with something more
substantial. Purposeful thought was where the mere froth of sensuous
seeing had been; and it was thought that now clamoured for expression
instead of the verses and stories--fireworks of the brain, pleasant,
transient, futile distractions with nothing more nourishing in them
than the interest and entertainment of the moment--which had occupied
her chiefly from of old. It was natural to Beth to be open, to discuss
all that concerned herself with her friends; but having no one to talk
to now, she began on a sudden to record her thoughts and impressions
in writing; and having once begun, she entered upon a new phase of
existence altogether. She had discovered a recreation which was more
absorbing than anything she had ever tried before; for her early
scribbling had been of another kind, not nearly so entrancing. Then it
had been the idle gossip of life, and the mere pictorial art of
word-painting, an ingenious exercise, that had occupied her; now it
was the more soul-stirring themes in the region of philosophy and
ethics which she pursued, and scenes and phases of life interested her
only as the raw material from which a goodly moral might be extracted.
Art for art's sake she despised, but in art for man's sake she already
discovered noble possibilities. But her very delight in her new
pursuit made her think it right to limit her indulgence in it. Duty
she conceived to be a painful effort necessarily, but writing was a
pleasure; she therefore attended first conscientiously to her
embroidery, and any other task she thought it right to perform,
although her eager impatience to get back to her desk made each in
turn a toil to her. Like many another earnest person, she mistook the
things of no importance for things that matter because the doing of
them cost her much; and it was the intellectual exercise, the delicate
fancy work of her brain, a matter of enormous consequence, that she
neglected. Not knowing that "_If a man love the labour of any trade,
apart from any question of success or fame, the gods have called
him_," she made the fitting of herself for the work of her life her
last exercise at the tired end of the day. She rose early and went to
bed late in order to gain a little more time to write, but never
suspected that her delight in the effort to find expression for what
was in her mind of itself proclaimed her one of the elect.
When she had finished her embroidery, she despatched it secretly to
the depot in London; but then she found that she would have to pay a
small subscription before she could have it sold there, and she had no
money. She wrote boldly to the secretary and told her so, and asked if
the subscription could not be paid out of the price she got for her
work. The secretary replied that it was contrary to the rules, but the
committee thought that such an artistically beautiful design as hers
was sure to be snapped up directly, and they had therefore decided to
make an exception in her case.
While these letters were going backwards and forwards, Beth suffered
agonies of anxiety lest Dan should pounce upon them and discover her
secret; but he happened to be out always at post-time just then, so
she managed to secure them safely.
As she had no money, she could not buy any more materials for
embroidery, so she was obliged to take a holiday, the greater part of
which she spent in writing. She was deeply engrossed by thoughts on
progress, which had been suggested by a passage in one of Emerson's
essays: "_All conservatives are such from natural defects. They have
been effeminated by position or nature, born halt and blind, through
luxury of their parents, and can only, like invalids, act on the
defensive._" Even in her own little life Beth had seen so much of the
ill effects of conservatism in the class to which she belonged, and
had suffered so much from it herself already, that the subject
appealed to her strongly, and she pursued it with enthusiasm--more
from the social than the political point of view, however. But,
unfortunately, in all too short a time, her holiday came to an end.
Her beautiful embroidery had sold for six guineas, and she found
herself with the money for more materials, and three pounds in hand
besides, clear profit, towards the debt. She had also received an
order from the depot for another piece of work at the same price,
which caused her considerable elation, and set her to work again with
a will; and it was only when she could no longer ply her needle that
she allowed herself to take up her pen.
CHAPTER XXXIX
Beth had no more zest for the ball after that conversation with Daniel
about the money her mother had given him. She felt obliged to go to it
because he insisted that it was necessary for the wives of
professional men to show themselves on public occasions; but she would
not get a new dress. She had never worn her white silk trimmed with
myrtle, and when she came to look at it again, she decided that it was
not so much out of the fashion after all, and, at any rate, it must
do.
When she came down to dinner dressed in it on the night of the ball,
she looked very winsome, and smiled up at Dan in shy expectation of a
word of approval; but none came. In the early days of their
acquaintance he had remarked that she was much more easily depressed
than elated about herself, and would be the better of a little more
confidence--not to say conceit; but since their marriage he had never
given her the slightest sympathy or encouragement to cure her of her
diffidence. If anything were amiss in her dress or appearance, he told
her of it in the offensive manner of an ill-conditioned under-bred
man, generally speaking when they were out of doors, or in some house
where she could do nothing to put herself right, as if it were some
satisfaction to him to make her feel ill at ease; and if she were
complimented by any one else about anything, he had usually something
derogatory to say on the subject afterwards. Now, when he had
inspected her, he sat down to table without a word.
"Is there anything wrong?" Beth asked anxiously.
"No," he answered. "That stuff on your sleeves might have been
fresher, that's all."
"This will be my first ball," Beth ventured, breaking a long silence.
"Well, don't go and tell everybody," he rejoined. "They'll think you
want to make yourself interesting, and it's nothing to boast about.
Just lay yourself out to be agreeable to people who will further your
husband's interests, for once."
"But am I not always agreeable?" Beth exclaimed, much mortified.
"It doesn't appear so," he answered drily. "At any rate, you don't
seem to go down here."
"How do you mean?" Beth asked.
"Why, the ladies in the place all seem to shun you, for some reason or
other; not one of them ever comes near you in a friendly way."
"They were all very nice to me the other day at Beg," Beth protested,
her heart sinking at this recurrence of the old reproach; for to be
shunned, or in any way set apart, seemed even more dreadful to her now
than it had done when she was a child.
"See that they keep it up then," he answered grimly.
"If it depends upon me, they will," said Beth, setting her sensitive
mouth in a hard determined line that added ten years to her age and
did not improve her beauty. And it was with a sad heart, and sorely
dissatisfied with herself, that she drove to her first ball.
When they entered the ball-room, however, and Dan beamed about him on
every one in his "thoroughly good fellow" way, her spirits rose. The
decorations, the handsome uniforms, the brilliant dresses and jewels,
the flowers and foliage plants, and, above all, the bright dance-music
and festive faces, delighted her, and she gazed about her with lips
just parted in a little smile, wondering to find it all so gay.
A young military man was brought up to her and introduced by one of
the stewards before she had been five minutes in the room. He asked
for the pleasure of a dance; but, alas! thanks to the scheme of
education at the Royal Service School for Officers' Daughters having
been designed by the authorities to fit the girls for the next world
only, Beth could not dance. She had had some lessons at Miss
Blackburne's, but not enough to give her confidence, so she was
obliged to decline. Another and another would-be partner, and some
quite important people, as Dan said, offered, but in vain; and he
looked furious.
"Well," he exclaimed, "this is nice for me!"
"I am sorry," Beth answered nervously. She was beginning to have a
painful conviction that a man had to depend almost entirely on his
wife for his success in life, and the responsibility made her quail.
"I shall have to go and do _my_ duty, at any rate," he proceeded. "I
must leave you alone."
"Yes, do," said Beth. "Mrs. Kilroy and Mrs. Orton Beg have just come
in; I will go and join them." She naturally expected Dan to escort
her, and he probably would have done so had he waited to hear what she
was saying; but his marital manners were such that he had taken
himself off while she was speaking, and left her to fend for herself.
She was too glad, however, to see her charming new acquaintances, who
had been so kindly, to care much, and she crossed the room to them,
smiling confidently. As she approached, she saw that they recognised
her and said something to each other. When she came close, they both
bowed coldly, and turned their heads in the opposite direction.
Beth stopped short and her heart stood still. The slight was
unmistakable; but what had she done? She looked about her as if for an
explanation, and saw Lady Beg close beside her, talking to Mrs. Carne.
"Ah, how do you do? Nice ball, isn't it?" Lady Beg observed, but
without shaking hands.
"How do you do?" said Mrs. Carne, and then they resumed their
conversation, taking no further notice of Beth, who would probably
have turned and fled from the dreadful place incontinently, if Mrs.
Petterick had not come up at that moment and spoken to her as one