The Beth Book
the thoughts formulated in the mind, but by the appreciation which
suffuses our whole being with pleasure that we should estimate it."
"But isn't that a sensuous attitude?" Beth objected.
"Yes, of the right kind," Ideala rejoined. "The senses have their uses,
you know. And it is exactly your attitude as a child towards the
pictures on the songs. You felt it all--all the full significance--long
before you knew it so that you could render it into words; and felt
more, probably, than you will ever be able to express. Feeling is the
first stage of fine thought."
Mr. Hamilton-Wells strolled towards them. He was a rather tall,
exceedingly thin man, with straight, thick, grey-brown hair, parted in
the middle, and plastered down on either side of his head. He was
dressed in black velvet. His long thin white hands were bedecked with
handsome antique rings, art treasures in their way. One intaglio,
carved in red coral, caught the eye especially, on the first finger of
his right hand. As he talked he had a trick of shaking his hands back
with a gesture that suggested lace ruffles getting in the way, and in
his whole appearance and demeanour there was something that recalled
the days when velvet and lace were in vogue for gentlemen. He spoke
with great preciseness, and it was not always possible to be sure that
he at all appreciated the effect of the extraordinary remarks he was
in the habit of making; which apparent obliviousness enabled him to
discourse about many things without offence which other people were
obliged to leave unmentioned.
"Nowadays, when I see two ladies together in a corner, talking
earnestly," he observed, "I always suspect that they are discussing
the sex question."
"Oh, the sex question!" Ideala exclaimed. "I am sick of sex! Sex is a
thing to be endured or enjoyed, not to be discussed."
"Indeed!" said Mr. Hamilton-Wells, nodding slowly, as if in profound
consideration, and shaking back his imaginary ruffles. "Is that your
opinion, Mrs. Maclure?"
"I keep a separate compartment in my mind for the sex question," Beth
answered, colouring--"a compartment which has to be artificially
lighted. There is no ray of myself that would naturally penetrate to
it. When I take up a book, and find that it is nothing but _she was
beautiful, he loved her_, I put it down again with a groan. The
monotony of the subject palls upon me. It is the stock-in-trade of
every author, as if there were nothing of interest in the lives of men
and women but their sexual relations."
"Indeed, yes," said Mr. Hamilton-Wells, with bland deliberation, "but
society thinks of nothing else. Blatant sexuality is the predominant
characteristic of the upper classes, and the rage for the sexual
passion is principally set up and fostered by a literature inflated
with sexuality, and by costumes which seem to be designed for the
purpose. In the evening, now, just think! Even quite elderly ladies,
with a laudable desire to please, offer themselves in evening
dress--and a very great deal of themselves sometimes--to the eye that
may be attracted."
When he had spoken, he shook back his imaginary ruffles, brought his
hands together in front of him with the fingers tip to tip in a pious
attitude, and strolled up the long room slowly, shaking his head at
intervals with an intent expression, as if he were praying for
society.
"What a bomb!" Beth gasped. "Is he always so?"
"Generally," Ideala rejoined. "And I can never make out whether he
means well, but is stupid and tactless, or whether he delights to
spring such explosives on inoffensive people. He sits on a Board of
Guardians composed of ladies and gentlemen, and the other day, at one
of their meetings, he proposed to remove the stigma attaching to
illegitimacy. He said that illegitimacy cannot justly be held to
reflect on anybody's conduct, since, so he had always understood,
illegitimacy was birth from natural causes."
"And what happened?"
Ideala slightly shrugged her shoulders. "The proposition was seriously
discussed, and a parson and one or two other members of the board
threatened to retire if he remained on it. But remain he did, and let
them retire; and I cannot help fancying that his whole object was to
get them to go. Sometimes I think that he must have a peculiar sense
of humour, which it gives him great gratification to indulge, as
others do good, by stealth. He makes questionable jests for himself
only, and enjoys them alone. But apart from this eccentricity, he is a
kind and generous man, always ready to help with time and money when
there is any good to be done."
When Beth went to her room that night, she experienced a strange sense
of satisfaction which she could not account for until she found
herself alone, with no fear of being disturbed. It seemed to her then
that she had never before known what comfort was, never slept in such
a delightful bed, so fresh and cool and sweet. She was like one who
has been bathed and perfumed after the defilements of a long dusty
journey, and is able to rest in peace. As she stretched herself
between the sheets, she experienced a blessed sensation of relief,
which was a revelation to her. Until that moment, she had never quite
realised the awful oppression of her married life; the inevitable
degradation of intimate association with such a man as her husband.
The next day the ladies went out to sit on the lawn together in the
shade of the trees, with their books and work. There were no sounds
but such as, in the country, seem to accentuate the quiet, and are
aids, not to thought, but to that higher faculty which awakes in the
silence, and is to thought what the mechanical instrument is to the
voice.
"How heavenly still it is!" Beth ejaculated. "It stirs me--fills me--how
shall I express it?--makes me cognisant in some sort--conscious of
things I don't know--things beyond all this, and even better worth our
attention. The stillness here in these surroundings has the same benign
effect on me that perfect solitude has elsewhere. What a luxury it is,
though--solitude! I mean the privilege of being alone when one feels the
necessity. I am fortunate, however," she added quickly, lest she should
seem to be making a personal complaint, "in that I have a secret chamber
all to myself, and so high up that I can almost hear what the wind
whispers to the stars to make them twinkle. I go there when I want to be
alone to think my thoughts, and no one disturbs me--not even my nearest
neighbours, the angels; though if they did sometimes, I should not
complain."
"They come closer than you think, perhaps," said Lady Fulda, who had
just strolled up, with a great bunch of lilies on her arm. "Consider
the lilies," she went on, holding them out to Beth. "Look into them.
Think about them. No, though, do not think about them--feel. There is
purification in the sensation of their beauty."
"Is purification always possible?" Beth said. "Can evil ever be cast
out once it has taken root in the mind?"
"Are you speaking of thoughts or acts, I wonder?" Lady Fulda rejoined,
sitting down beside Beth and looking dreamily into her flowers. "You
know what we hold here: that no false step is irretrievable so long as
we desire what is perfectly right. It is not the things we know of,
nor even the things we have done, if the act is not habitual,--but the
things we approve of that brand us as bad. The woman whose principles
are formed out of a knowledge of good and evil is better, is more to
be relied upon, than the woman who does not know enough to choose
between them. It is not what the body does, but what the mind thinks
that corrupts us."
"But from certain deeds evil thoughts are inseparable," Beth sighed;
"and surely toleration of evil comes from undue familiarity with it?"
"Yes, if you do not keep your condemnation side by side with your
knowledge of it," Lady Fulda agreed.
The night before she returned to Slane, Beth attended a meeting of the
new order which Ideala had founded. It was the first thing of the kind
she had been to, and she was much interested in the proceedings. Only
women were present. Beth was one of a semicircle of ladies who sat on
the platform behind the chair. There were subjects of grave social
importance under discussion, and most of the speaking was exceedingly
good, wise, temperate, and certainly not wanting in humour.
Towards the end of the evening there was an awkward pause because a
lady who was to have spoken had not arrived. Mrs. Kilroy, who was in
the chair, looked round for some one to fill the gap, and caught
Beth's eye.
"May I speak?" Beth whispered eagerly, leaning over to her. "I have
something to say."
Angelica nodded, gave the audience Beth's name, and then leant back in
her chair. The shorthand writers looked up indifferently, not
expecting to hear anything worth recording.
Beth went forward to the edge of the platform with a look of
intentness on her delicate face, and utterly oblivious of herself, or
anything else but her subject. She never thought of asking herself if
she could speak. All she considered was what she was going to say. She
clasped her slender hands in front of her, and began, slowly, with the
formula she had heard the other speakers use: "Madam Chairman,
ladies--" She paused, then suddenly spoke out on _The Desecration of
Marriage_.
At the first resonant notes of her clear, dispassionate voice, there
was a movement of interest, a kind of awakening, in the hall, and the
ladies on the platform behind her, who had been whispering to each
other, writing notes and passing them about, and paying more attention
to the business of the meeting generally than to the speakers, paused
and looked up.
Suddenly Ideala, with kindling eyes, leant over to Mrs. Orton Beg,
grasped her arm, and said something eagerly. Mrs. Orton Beg nodded.
The word went round. Beth held the hall, and was still rising from
point to point, carrying the audience with her to a pitch of
excitement which finally culminated in a great burst of applause.
Beth, taken aback, stopped short, surprised and bewildered by the
racket; looked about her, faltered a few more words, and then sat down
abruptly.
The applause was renewed and prolonged.
"What does it mean?" Beth asked Ideala in an agony. "Did I say
something absurd?"
"My dear child," Ideala answered, laughing, "they are not jeering, but
cheering!"
"Is that cheering?" Beth exclaimed in an awe-stricken tone, overcome
to find she had produced such an effect. "I feared they meant to be
derisive."
"I didn't know you were a speaker," Mrs. Orton Beg whispered.
"I am not," Beth answered apologetically. "I never spoke before, nor
heard any one else speak till to-night. Only I have thought and
thought about these things, and I could not keep it back, what I had
to say."
"That is the stuff an orator is made of," some strange lady muttered
approvingly.
CHAPTER XLV
When Beth returned to Slane, Dan received her so joyously she wondered
what particularly successful piece of turpitude he had been busy
about. He was always effusive to her when evil things went well with
him. At first she had supposed that this effusiveness was the outcome
of affection for her; but when she began to know him, she perceived
that it was only the expression of some personal gratification. He had
been quite demonstrative in his attentions to her during the time that
Bertha Petterick stayed in the house.
"By the way, there is a letter for you," he said, when they were at
lunch.
"Is there?" Beth answered. "Who from?"
"How the devil am I to know?" he rejoined, glancing up at the
mantelpiece. "I can't tell who your correspondents are by instinct."
Beth's eye followed his to the mantelpiece, where she saw a large