The Beth Book
well with Beth. She never suspected that she had married Beth to a
low-born man--not low-born in the sense of being a tradesman's son,
for a tradesman's son may be an honest and upright gentleman, just as
a peer's son may be a cheat and a snob; but low-born in that he came
of parents who were capable of fraud and deceit in social relations,
and had taught him no scheme of life in which honour played a
conspicuous part. Beth had done her best for her mother, but there was
no one now to remind her of this for her comfort, poor miserable girl.
Her courageous toil had gone for nothing--her mother would never even
know of it; and it seemed to her in that moment of deep disheartenment
as if everything she tried was to be equally ineffectual.
Hours later, Minna the housemaid found Beth sitting up in bed, sobbing
hopelessly; and got her tea, and stayed with her, making her put some
restraint upon herself by the mere fact of her presence; and presently
Beth, in her human way, began to talk about her mother to the girl,
which relieved her. Mrs. Caldwell had only been ill a few days, and
not seriously, as it was supposed; the end had come quite suddenly, so
that Beth had never been warned.
Dan did not come in till next morning, which was a great relief to
her. She meant to speak about the news to him when he appeared, but
somehow, the moment she saw him, her heart hardened, and she could not
bring herself to utter a word on the subject. The position was awkward
for him; but he got out of it adroitly by pretending he had seen an
announcement of the death in the paper.
"I suppose I ought to go to the funeral," he said. "There is doubtless
a will."
"Doubtless," said Beth, "but you will not benefit by it, if that is
what you are thinking of. Mamma considered that I was provided for,
and therefore she left the little she had to Bernadine. She told me
herself, because she wanted me to understand her reason for making
such a difference between us; and I think she was quite right. She may
have left me two or three hundred pounds, but it will not be more than
that."
"But even that will be something towards the bills," said Dan, his
countenance, which had dropped considerably, clearing again.
Beth looked at him with a set countenance, but said no more. She had
begun to observe that the bills only became pressing when her
allowance was due.
CHAPTER XLII
Some one in Slane gave Sir George Galbraith a hint of Dan's coarse
jealousy, and he had judged it better for Beth that he should not call
again; but his interest in her and his desire to help her increased if
anything. He had read her manuscript carefully himself, and obtained
Ideala's opinion of it also; but Beth had not done her best by any
means in the one she had given him. She had written it for the
purpose, for one thing, which was fatal, for her style had stiffened
with anxiety to do her best, and her ideas, instead of flowing
spontaneously, had been forced and formal, as her manner was when she
was shy. It is one thing to have a fine theory of art and high
principles (and an excellent thing, too), but it is quite another to
put them into effect, especially when you're in a hurry to arrive.
Hurry misplaced is hindrance. If Beth had given Sir George some one of
the little things which she had written in sheer exuberance of thought
and feeling, without hampering hopes of doing anything with them, he
would have been very differently impressed; but, even as it was, what
she had given him was as full of promise as it was full of faults, and
he was convinced that he had not been mistaken in her, especially when
he found that Ideala thought even better of her prospects than he did.
Ideala, who was an impulsive and generous woman, wrote warmly on the
subject, and Sir George sent her letter to Beth with a few lines of
kindly expressed encouragement from himself. He returned her
manuscript; but when Beth saw it again, she was greatly dissatisfied.
The faults her friends had pointed out to her she plainly perceived,
and more also; but she could not see the merits. Praise only made her
the more fastidious about her work; but in that way it helped her.
Sir George's kindness did not stop at criticism however. He was cut
off from her himself, and could expect no help from his wife, whose
nervous system had suffered so much from the shock of unhappy
circumstances in her youth that she could not now bear even to hear
of, let alone to be brought in contact with, any form of sorrow or
suffering; but there were other ladies--Mrs. Kilroy of Ilverthorpe,
for instance. Sir George had known her all her life, and went
specially to ask her as a favour to countenance Beth.
"I want you to be kind to Mrs. Maclure, Angelica," he said. "She's far
too good for that plausible bounder of a barber's block she's
married."
"Then why did she marry him?" Angelica interrupted, in her vivacious
way.
"Pitchforked into it at the suggestion of her friends in her infancy,
I should say, reasoning by induction," he answered. "That's generally
the explanation in these cases. But, at any rate, she's not going to
be happy with him. And she's a charming little creature, very sweet
and docile naturally, and with unusual ability, or I'm much mistaken,
and plenty of spirit, too, when she's roused, I should anticipate. But
at present, in her childish ignorance, she's yielding where she should
resist, and she'll be brutalised if no one comes to the rescue. I
don't trust that man Maclure. A man who speaks flippantly of things
that should be respected is not a man who will be scrupulous when his
own interests are concerned; and such a man has it in his power to
make the life of a girl a hell upon earth in ways which she will not
complain of, if she has no knowledge to use in self-defence; and girls
seldom have."
"As I have learnt, alas! from bitter experience in my work amongst the
victims of holy matrimony," Angelica interposed bitterly. "Oh, how
sickening it all is! Sometimes I envy Evadne in that she is able to
refuse to know."
Sir George was silent for a little, then he said, "This is likely to
be a more than usually pathetic case, because of the girl's unusual
character and promise, and also because her brain is too delicately
poised to stand the kind of shocks and jars that threaten her. You
will take pity on her, Angelica?"
Mrs. Kilroy shrugged her shoulders. "How can I countenance a woman who
acquiesces in such a position as her husband holds, and actually lives
on his degrading work?"
"I don't believe she knows anything about it," he rejoined.
"If I were sure of that," said Angelica, meditating.
"It is easy enough to make sure," he suggested.
* * * * *
Mrs. Carne, wife of the leading medical man in Slane, conceived it to
be her duty to patronise Beth to the extent of an occasional formal
call, as she was the wife of a junior practitioner; and Beth duly
returned these calls, because she was determined not to make enemies
for Dan by showing any resentment for the slights she had suffered in
Slane.
Feeling depressed indoors one dreary afternoon, she set off, alone as
usual, to pay one of these visits. She rather hoped perhaps to find
some sort of satisfaction by way of reward for the brave discharge of
an uncongenial duty.
On the way into town, Dan passed her in his dogcart with a casual nod,
bespattering her with mud. "You'll have your carriage soon, please
God! and never have to walk. I hate to see a delicate woman on foot in
the mud." Beth remembered the words so well, and Dan's pious
intonation as he uttered them, and she laughed. She had a special
little laugh for exhibitions of this kind of divergence between Dan's
precepts and his practices. But even as she laughed her face
contracted as with a sudden spasm of pain, and she ejaculated--"But I
shall succeed!"
Mrs. Carne was at home, and Beth was shown into the drawing-room,
where she found several other lady visitors--Mrs. Kilroy, Mrs. Orton
Beg, Lady Fulda Guthrie, and Ideala. The last two she had not met
before.
"Where will you sit?" said Mrs. Carne, who was an effusive little
person. "What a day! You were brave to come out, though perhaps it
will do you good. My husband says go out in all weathers and battle
with the breeze; there's nothing like exercise."
"Battling with the breeze and an umbrella on a wet day is not
exercise, it is exasperation," Beth answered, and at the sound of her
peculiarly low, clear, cultivated voice, the conversation stopped
suddenly, and every one in the room looked at her. She seemed unaware
of the attention. In fact, she ignored every one present except her
hostess. This was her habitual manner now, assumed to save herself
from slights. When she entered, Mrs. Kilroy had half risen from her
seat, and endeavoured to attract her attention; but Beth passed her
by, deliberately chose a seat, and sat down. Her demeanour, so
apparently cold and self-contained, was calculated to command respect,
but it cost Beth a great deal to maintain it. She felt she was alone
in an unfriendly atmosphere--a poor little thing, shabbily dressed in
home-made mourning, and despised for she knew not what offence; and
she suffered horribly. She had grown very fragile by this time, and
looked almost childishly young. Her eyes were unnaturally large and
wistful, her mouth drooped at the corners, and the whole expression of
her face was pathetic. Mrs. Kilroy looked at her seriously, and
thought to herself, "That girl is suffering."
Mrs. Carne offered Beth tea, but she refused it. She could not accept
such inhuman hospitality. She had come to do her duty, not to force a
welcome. She glanced at the clock. Five minutes more, and she might
go. The conversation buzzed on about her. She was sitting next to a
strange lady, a serene and dignified woman, dressed in black velvet
and sable. Beth glanced at her the first time with indifference, but
looked again with interest. Mrs. Carne bustled up and spoke to the
lady in her effusive way.
"You are better, I hope," she said, as she handed her some tea. "It
really is _sweet_ to see you looking so _much_ yourself again."
"Oh yes, I am quite well again now, thanks to your good husband," the
lady answered. "But he has given me so many tonics and things lately,
I always seem to be shaking bottles. I am quite set in that attitude.
Everything I touch I shake. I found myself shaking my watch instead of
winding it up the other day."
"Ah, then, you are quite yourself again, I see," Mrs. Carne said
archly. "But why didn't you come to the Wilmingtons' last night?"
"Oh, you know I never go to those functions if I can help it," the
lady answered, her gentle rather drawling voice lending a charm to the
words quite apart from their meaning. "I cannot stand the kind of
conversation to which one is reduced on such occasions--if you can
call that conversation which is but the cackle of geese, each
repeating the utterances of the other. When the Lord loves a woman, I
think He takes her out of society by some means or other, and keeps
her out of it for her good."
Beth knew that if she had said such a thing, Mrs. Carne would have
received it with a stony stare, but now she simpered. "That is so like
you!" she gushed. "But the Wilmingtons were _dreadfully_
disappointed."
"They will get over it," the lady answered, glancing round
indifferently.
"How are you getting on with your new book, Ideala?" Mrs. Kilroy asked
her across the room. Beth instantly froze to attention. This was her
friend, then, Sir George's Ideala.
"I have not got into the swing of it yet," Ideala answered. "It is all
dot-and-go-one--a uniform ruggedness which is not true either to life
or mind. Our ways in the world are stony enough at times, but they are