The Beth Book
the whole business."
"Be careful!" Beth flashed forth. "If you make such assertions you
must prove them. The day is past when a man might insult his wife with
impunity. I have already told you I won't stand it. It would neither
be good for you nor for me if I did."
"It _was_ a swindle," he bawled. "Where are the seven or eight hundred
a year I married you for?"
Beth looked at him a moment, then burst out laughing. "Dear Dan," she
said, offering him the cheque, "you shall have the thirty shillings
all to yourself. You deserve it for telling the truth for once. I
consider I have had the best of the bargain, though. Thirty shillings
is cheap for such valuable information."
"Oh, damn you!" said Dan, leaving the room and banging the door after
him.
Beth signed the cheque and left it lying on his writing-table. She
never saw it again.
Then she went up to her secret chamber, and spent long hours--sobbing,
sobbing, sobbing, as if the marks of her married life on her character
could be washed away with tears.
CHAPTER XLIII
Beth had made fifty pounds in eighteen months by her beautiful
embroideries; but after her mother's death she did no more for sale,
neither did she spend the money. She had suffered so many humiliations
for want of money, it made her feel safer to have some by her. She
gave herself up to study at this time, and wrote a great deal. It was
winter now, and she was often driven down from her secret chamber to
the dining-room by the cold. When Dan came in and found her at work,
he would sniff contemptuously or facetiously, according to his mood at
the moment. "Wasting paper as usual, eh? Better be sewing on my
buttons," was his invariable remark. Not that his buttons were ever
off, or that Beth ever sewed them on either. She was too good an
organiser to do other people's work for them.
She made no reply to Dan's sallies. With him her mind was in a state
of solitary confinement always--not a good thing for her health, but
better on the whole than any attempt to discuss her ideas with him, or
to talk to him about anything, indeed, but himself.
Beth fared well that winter, however--fared well in herself, that is.
She had some glorious moments, revelling in the joy of creation. There
is a mental analogy to all physical processes. Fertility in life comes
of love; and in art the fervour of production is also accompanied by a
rapture and preceded by a passion of its own. When Beth was in a good
mood for work, it was like love--love without the lover; she felt all
the joy of love, with none of the disturbance. When the idea of
publication was first presented to her, it robbed her of this joy. As
she wrote, she thought more of what she might gain than of what she
was doing. Visions of success possessed her, and the ideas upon which
her attention should have been fully concentrated were thinned by
anticipations; and during that period her work was indifferent. Later,
however, she worked again for work's sake, loving it; and then she
advanced. She saw little of Dan in those days, and thought less; but
when they met, she was, as usual, gentle and tolerant, patiently
enduring his "cheeriness," and entering into no quarrel unless he
forced one upon her.
One bright frosty morning he came in rather earlier than usual and
found her writing in the dining-room.
"Well, I've had a rattling good ride this morning," he began, plunging
into his favourite topic as usual without any pretence of interest in
her or in her pursuits. "Nothing like riding for improving the
circulation! I wish to goodness I could keep another horse. It would
add to my income in the long run. But I'm so cursedly handicapped by
those bills. They keep me awake at night thinking of them."
Beth sucked the end of her pencil and looked out of the window,
wondering inwardly why he never tried to pay them.
"I calculate that they come to just three hundred pounds," he
proceeded, looking keenly at Beth as he spoke; but she remained
unmoved. "Don't you think," he ventured, "it would be a good thing to
expend that three hundred pounds your mother left you on the debts? I
know I could make money if I once got my head above water."
"That three hundred brings me in fifteen pounds a year," said Beth.
"It is well invested, and I promised my mother not to touch any of my
little capital. There is the interest, however, it arrived this
morning. You can have _that_ if you like."
"Well, that would be a crumb of comfort, at all events," he said,
pouncing on the lawyer's letter, which was lying beside Beth on the
table, and gloating on the cheque. "But don't you think, now that you
have the interest, it would be a good time to sell and get the
principal? Of course your mother was right and wise to advise you not
to part with your capital; but this wouldn't be parting with it,
because I should pay you back in time, you know. It would only be a
loan, and I'd give you the interest on it regularly too; just think
what a relief it would be to me to get those bills paid!" He ran his
fingers up through his hair as he spoke, and gazed at himself in the
glass tragically.
"Any news?" said Beth, after a little pause.
Dan, baffled, turned and began to walk up and down the room. "No,
there never is any news in this confounded hole," he answered, venting
his irritation on the place. "Oh, by the way, though, I am forgetting.
I was at the Pettericks' to-day. That girl Bertha is not getting on as
I should like."
"The hysterical one?" said Beth.
"Ye--yes," he answered, hesitating. "The one who threatened to be
hysterical at one time. But that's all gone off. Now she's just weak,
and she should have electricity; but I can't be going there every day
to apply it--takes too much time: so I suggested to her people that
she should come here for a while, as a paying patient, you know."
"And is she coming?" Beth said, rather in dismay.
"Yes, to-morrow," he replied. "I said you'd be delighted; but you must
write and say so yourself, just for politeness' sake. It will be a
good thing for you too, you know. You are too much alone, and she'll
be a companion for you. She's not half a bad girl."
"Shall I be obliged to give her much of my time?" Beth asked
lugubriously.
"Oh dear, no! She'll look after herself," Dr. Maclure cheerfully
assured her. "I'll hire a piano for her. Must launch out a little on
these occasions, you know. It's setting a sprat to catch a whale."
The piano arrived that afternoon. Beth wished Dan had let her choose
it; but a piano of any kind was a delight. She had not had one since
her marriage. Dan had said at first that a piano was a luxury which
they must not think of when they could not afford the necessaries; and
a luxury he had considered it ever since.
Bertha Petterick was not the kind of person that Beth would have
chosen for a companion, and she dreaded her coming; but before Bertha
had been in the house a week she had so enlivened it that Beth
wondered she had ever objected to her. Bertha fawned upon Beth from
the first, and was by way of looking up to her, and admiring her
intellect. She was four or five years older than Beth, but gave
herself no airs on that account. She was a dark girl, good looking in
a common kind of way, with a masculine stride in her walk, a deep
mannish voice; and not at all intellectual, but very practical: what
some people consider a fine girl and others a coarse one, according to
their taste. She was a good shot, could make a dress, cook a dinner,
ride to hounds, and play any game; and she was what is called
good-natured, that is to say, ready to do for any one anything that
could be done on the spur of the moment. Things she might promise to
do, or things requiring thought, she did not trouble herself about;
but she would finish a pretty piece of work for Beth, gather flowers
or buy them and do the table decorations, and keep things tidy in the
sitting-rooms. She played and sang well, and was ready to do both at
any time if she were asked, which was a joy to Beth; and her bright
chatter kept Dan in a good humour, which was a relief. She had plenty
of money, and spent it lavishly. Every time she went out she bought
Beth something, a piece of music she had mentioned, a book she longed
for, materials for work, besides flowers and fruit and sweets in
unlimited quantities. Beth remonstrated, but Bertha begged Beth not to
deprive her of the one pleasure she had in life just then, the
pleasure of pleasing Beth, and of acknowledging what she never could
repay but dearly appreciated--Beth's sisterly sympathy, her consistent
kindness! Such sayings were tinged with sadness, which made Beth
suspect that Bertha had some secret sorrow; but if so, it was most
carefully concealed, for there was not a trace of it in her habitual
manner. She showed no physical delicacy either; but then, as she said
herself, she was picking up in such a wonderful way under the
treatment, she really began to feel that there was very little the
matter with her.
Dan managed to be at home a great deal to look after his patient, and
was most attentive to her. He hired a brougham three times a week to
do his rounds in, that she might accompany him, and so get the air
without fatigue or risk of cold; and he would have her to sit with him
in the dining-room when he was smoking, and rolled cigarettes for her;
or would spend the evening with her in the drawing-room, listening to
her playing and singing, or playing bezique with her, and seemingly
well content, although in private he sometimes said to Beth it was all
a beastly bore, but he must go through with it as a duty since he had
undertaken it, it being his way to do a thing thoroughly if he did it
at all.
"Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might," he added
piously. "If a thing's worth doing at all, it's worth doing well, I
always think."
That was his formula for the time being, but Beth judged him by his
demeanour, which was gay, and not by his professions, and did not pity
him. She was in excellent spirits herself, for her writing was going
well; and it varied the monotony pleasantly for her to have Bertha to
talk to, and walk, play, or sew with, after her work. Bertha's
demonstrations of affection, too, were grateful to Beth, who had had
so little love either bestowed upon her or required of her.
Bertha had been in the house three months, when one day her mother
called, and found Beth alone, Dan and Bertha having gone for a drive
together. Mrs. Petterick had just returned from abroad, where the
whole family had been living most of the time that Bertha had been
with the Maclures.
"Really," Mrs. Petterick said, "I don't know how to thank you for your
kindness to my girl. She's quite a different person I can see by her
letters, thanks to the good doctor. Before he took her in hand she was
quite hysterical, and had to lie down two or three times a day,
because she said she had no strength for anything. But really three
months is an abuse of hospitality; and I think she should be coming
home now."
"Oh no, do let her stay a little longer if you can spare her," Beth
pleaded. "It is so nice to have her here."
"Well, it is good of you to say so," said Mrs. Petterick, "but it must
be a great expense to you. We weren't well off ourselves at one time.
Mr. Petterick's a self-made man, and I know that every additional
mouth makes a difference. But, however, you being proud, I won't
offend you by offering money in exchange for kindness, which can't be
repaid, but shan't be forgotten."
When Mrs. Petterick had gone, Beth sat awhile staring into the fire.
She was somewhat stunned, for Dan had assured her that Bertha was a
paying patient, and that, it seemed, had been a gratuitous lie. She