The Beth Book
unconsciously quoting Ideala; "so please spare me the recital of all
invidious stories."
"You'll only believe what suits yourself, I know," he said. "And I've
no doubt you'll enjoy yourself. Galbraith will be there, and Mr.
Theodore Hamilton-Wells, the fair-haired 'Diavolo,' who will suit your
book exactly, I should think."
"I beg your pardon?" said Beth politely.
Dan poured himself out another glass of wine, and said no more.
He and Bertha managed to have a moment's conversation together before
they retired that night.
"What does it mean?" Bertha anxiously demanded. "Does she suspect
anything?"
"God knows!" Dan said piously, then added, after a moment's
consideration, "How the devil can she? We've played our cards too well
for that! No, she's just bent on making mischief; that's the kind of
pill she is. If she keeps that money it will be downright robbery. But
now you see what I have to put up with, and you can judge for yourself
if I deserve it."
When he went to Beth, however, he assumed a very different tone. He
entered the room with an air of deep dejection, and found her sitting
beside her dressing-table in a white wrapper, reading quietly. She
smiled when she saw his pose. It was what she had expected.
"I can't do without that money, Beth, on my word," he began
plaintively. "I've been reckoning on it. I wouldn't take it from you,
God knows, if I could help it; but I'm sore pressed." He took out his
handkerchief and wiped his eyes, imagining that he still had to deal
with the gentle sensitive girl, upon whom he had imposed so long and
so successfully.
Beth watched him a moment with contempt, and then she laughed.
"It is no use, friend Daniel," she said in her neat, incisive,
straightforward way. "I am not going to take you seriously any more. I
am neither to be melted by your convenient tears, nor dismayed by your
bogey bills. I have never seen any of those bills, by the way; the
next time you mention them, please produce them. Let us be
business-like. And in the meantime, just understand, once for all,
like a good man, that I am not going to be domineered over by you as
if I were a common degraded wife with every spark of spirit and
self-respect crushed out of me by one brutal exaction or another. I
shall do my duty--do my best to meet your reasonable wishes; but I
will submit to no ordering and no sort of exaction." She rose and
faced him. "And as we are coming to an understanding," she pursued,
"just explain. Why did you tell me that Miss Petterick was to be a
paying patient?"
"I never told you anything of the kind," said Dan, losing his head,
and lying stupidly in his astonishment.
Beth shrugged her shoulders. "It is your own business," she
rejoined--"at least it is you who will have to pay for her
entertainment."
She returned to her book as she spoke, and continued to read with
apparent calmness.
Now that she had taken up her position, she found herself quite strong
enough to hold it against any Dan Maclure or Bertha Petterick. But
Beth was being forced into an ugly and vulgar phase, and she knew and
resented it, and was filled with dismay. She was taking on something
of the colour of her surroundings involuntarily, inevitably, as
certain insects do, in self-defence. She had spoken to Dan in his own
tone in order to make him understand her; but was it necessary? Surely
if she had resisted the impulse to try that weapon, she might have
found another as effective, the use of which would not have
compromised her gentlehood and lessened her self-esteem. Her
dissatisfaction with herself for the part she had played was a cruel
ache, and she thanked Heaven for the chance which would mercifully
remove her from that evil atmosphere for a while, and prayed for time
to reflect, for strength to be her better self. She was angry with
herself, and grieved because she had fought Dan with his own weapons,
and it did not occur to her for her comfort that she had only done so
because he was invulnerable to that which she would naturally have
used--earnest, reasonable, calm discussion--and that fight him she
must with something, somehow, or sink for ever down to the degraded
level required of their wives by husbands of his way of thinking.
CHAPTER XLIV
Ilverthorpe was at the other side of the county, and Beth had to go
from Slane to Morningquest by train in order to get there. Dan
continued to be disagreeable in private about her going, but he took
her to the station, and saw her off, so that the public might know
what an admirable husband he was.
On his way from the station he met Sir George Galbraith, and greeted
him with effusion.
"I hope you were coming to see us," he said, "for that would show that
you don't forget our humble existence. But my wife isn't at home, I am
sorry to say. She has just gone to stay with Mrs. Kilroy."
Sir George looked keenly at him. "I hope she is quite well," he said
formally.
"Not too well," Dan answered lugubriously; "and that is why I
encouraged her to go. The fact is, Sir George, I think I've been
making a mistake with Beth. My mother was my perfection of a woman.
She didn't care much for books; but she had good sound common-sense,
and she attended to her husband and her household, and preferred to
stay at home; and I confess I wanted my wife to be like her.
Especially I wanted to keep her pure-minded and unsuspicious of evil;
and _that_ she could not remain if she got drawn into Mrs. Kilroy's
set, and mixed up with the questions about which women are now
agitating themselves. I know you're with them and not with me in the
matter, but you'll allow for my point of view. Well, with regard to
Beth, I find I've made a mistake. I should have let her follow her own
bent, see for herself, and become a woman of the day if she's so
minded. As it is, she is growing morbid for want of an outlet, and
hanging back herself, and it is I who have to urge her on. It's an
heroic operation so far as I'm concerned, for the whole thing is
distasteful to me; but I shall go through with it, and let her be as
independent as she likes."
"This sounds like self-sacrifice," said Sir George. "I sincerely hope
it may answer. We are going different ways, I think. Good-morning." He
raised his hand to his hat in a perfunctory way, and hurried off. The
next time he saw Mrs. Kilroy, he described this encounter with Dr.
Maclure.
"This is a complete change of front," said Angelica; "what does it
mean?"
"When a man of that kind tells his wife to make the most of her life
in her own way and be independent, he means '_Don't bother me; another
woman is the delight of my senses!_' When he says to the other woman
'_Be free!_' he means '_Throw yourself into my arms!_'"
Angelica sighed. "Poor Beth!" she said, "what a fate to be tied to
that plausible hog!"
* * * * *
From having been so much shut up in herself, Beth showed very little
of the contrasts of her temperament on the surface,--her joy in life,
her moments of exaltation, of devotion, of confidence, of harshness,
of tenderness; her awful fits of depression, her doubts, her fears,
her self-distrust; her gusts of passion, and the disconnected impulses
wedged into the well-disciplined routine of a consistent life, ordered
for the most part by principle, reason, and reflection. Few people,
meeting her casually, would have suspected any contrasts at all; and
even of those who knew her best, only one now and then appreciated the
rate at which the busy mind was working, and the changes wrought by
the growth which was continually in progress beneath her equable
demeanour. Those about her, for want of discernment, expected nothing
of her, and suffered shocks of surprise in consequence, which they
resented, blaming her for their own defects.
But it was of much more importance to Beth that she should be able to
pass on with ease from one thing to another than that she should have
the approval of people who would have had her stay where they found
her, not for her benefit, but for their own convenience in classifying
her. Beth made stepping-stones of her knowledge of other people rather
than of her own dead self. She picked to pieces the griefs they
brought upon her, dissected them, and moralised upon them; and, in so
doing, forgot the personal application. While in the midst of what
might have been her own life tragedy, she compared herself with those
who had been through theirs and did not seem a bit the worse or the
better, which observation stimulated her fortitude; when she
contemplated the march of events, that mighty army of atoms, any one
of which may be in command of us for a time, none remaining so for
ever under healthy conditions, she perceived that life is lived in
detail, not in the abstract. The kind of thing that makes the backbone
of a three-volume novel, is but a phase or an incident; everything is
but an incident with all of us, a heart-break to-day, a recollection
to-morrow, a source of encouragement and of inspiration eventually
perhaps; the which, if some would remember, there would be less
despair and fewer suicides. The recognition of this fact had helped
Beth's sense of proportion and was making her philosophical. She
believed that life could be lived so as to make the joys as inevitable
as the sorrows. We are apt to cultivate our sense of pleasure less
than our sense of suffering, by appreciating small pleasures little,
while heeding small pains excessively. Beth's deliberate intention, as
well as her natural impulse, was to reverse this in her own case as
much as possible; she would not let her physical sense of well-being
on a fine morning and her intellectual delight in a good mood for work
be spoilt because of some trouble of the night before. The trouble she
would set aside so that it might not detract from the pleasure.
But fine mornings and good moods for work had not come to her aid
since she discovered the mean treachery of Dan and Bertha, and when
she left Slane she was still oppressed by the sense of their hypocrisy
and deceit. As the train bore her swiftly away from them both,
however, her spirits rose. The sun shone, the country looked lovely in
its autumn bravery of tint and tone; she felt well, and the
contemplation of such people as Dan and Bertha was not elevating; they
must out of her mind like any other unholy thought, that she might be
worthy to associate with the loyal ladies and noble gentlemen whose
hands were outheld to help her. The people we cling to are those with
whom we find ourselves most at home. It is not the people who amuse us
that we like best, but those who stir our deeper emotions, rouse in us
possibilities of generous feeling which lie latent for the most part,
and give form to our higher aspirations; and Beth anticipated with a
happy heart that it was with such she was bound to abide.
Mrs. Kilroy met her at the station at Morningquest. "What a bonny
thing you are!" she exclaimed in her queer abrupt way. "I didn't
realise it till I saw you walking up the platform towards me. There's
a cart to take your luggage to Ilverthorpe. Do you mind coming to
lunch with Mrs. Orton Beg? She has a dear little house in the Close,
and we thought you might like to see the Cathedral. Here's the
carriage. No, you get in first."
"But does Mrs. Orton Beg want me?" Beth asked when they were seated.
"We all want you," said Mrs. Kilroy, "if you will forgive our first
mistake with regard to you, and come out of yourself and be one of us.
And you'll be specially fond of Mrs. Orton Beg when you know her, I
fancy. She's just sweet! She used to hate our works and ways, and be
very conventional; but Edith Beale's marriage opened her eyes. She
would never have believed that men countenanced such an iniquity had