The Beth Book
square envelope propped up against an ornament in a conspicuous
position, and recognised the unmistakable, big, clear, firm hand of
Bertha Petterick, and the thick kind of paper she always used.
Beth had been thinking about Bertha on the way home. She knew that, if
Bertha had been as wrong in body as in mind and moral nature, she
would have had compassion on her; and she had determined to tolerate
her as it was, to do what she could for her maimed soul, just as she
would have ministered to her had her malady been physical. But Dan's
hypocrisy about the letter ruffled her into opposition. He knew
Bertha's handwriting as well as she did, and was doubtless equally
well acquainted with the contents of the letter; and this affectation
of ignorance must therefore mean something special. Probably he was
anxious to propitiate her with regard to whatever Bertha might be
writing about. But Beth was not to be managed in that way, and so she
let the letter be.
As she was leaving the room after lunch, Dan called after her: "You
have forgotten your letter."
"It doesn't matter," Beth answered. "Any time will do for that."
The letter was left there for days unopened, and it had the effect of
stopping the conversation at meals, for although Dan did not allude to
it again, he constantly glanced at it, and it was evident that he had
it on his mind.
At last, one day, when he came in, he said, "I have just seen Mrs.
Petterick, and she tells me Bertha wrote to you days ago, and has had
no answer."
"Indeed," Beth observed indifferently. "I shouldn't think she could
have anything to say to me that specially required an answer."
Dan fidgeted about a little, then burst out suddenly, "Why the devil
don't you open the girl's letter?"
"Because you pretended you didn't know who it was from," Beth said.
"I declare to God I never pretended anything of the kind," Dan
answered hotly.
Beth laughed. Then she went to the mantelpiece, took down the letter,
turned it over and displayed the huge monogram and scroll with
"Bertha" printed on it, with which it was bedizened, laughed again a
little, and threw the letter unopened into the fire, "There!" she
said. "Let that be an end of the letter, and Bertha Petterick too, so
far as I am concerned. She bores me, that girl; I will not be bothered
with her."
"Well, well!" Dan exclaimed pathetically, looking hard at the ashes of
the letter on the coals: "that's gratitude! I do my best to make an
honest living for you, and you repay me by affronting one of my best
patients. And what the unfortunate girl has done to offend you, the
devil only knows. I'm sure she would have blacked your boots for you
when she was here, she was so devoted."
"She _was_ pretty servile, I grant that," Beth answered dispassionately.
"But that is enough of Bertha Petterick, please. Here is the butcher's
bill for the last month, and the baker's, the milk, the wine, the
groceries, all nearly doubled on Bertha's account. If adding to your
expenses in every way makes a good patient, she was excellent,
certainly. I'll leave you the bills to console you; but, if you value
your peace of mind, don't dare to worry _me_ about them. You were quite
right when you said I was too young to be troubled about money matters,
and I shall not let myself be troubled--especially when they are
matters, like these bills, for which I am not responsible." She was
leaving the room as she spoke, but stopped at the door: "And, Dan," she
added, quoting his favourite phrase, "I'd be cheery if I were you.
There's nothing like being cheery. Why, look at me! I never let anything
worry me!"
She left Dan speechless, and went to her secret chamber, where she sat
and suffered for an hour, blaming herself for her lightness, her
contrariness, her want of dignity, and all those faults which were the
direct consequence of Dan's evil influence. She was falling farther
and farther away from her ideal in everything, and knew it, but seemed
to have lost the power to save herself. The degeneration had begun in
small matters of discipline, apparently unimportant, but each one of
consequence, in reality, as part of her system of self-control. From
the moment we do a thing thinking it to be wrong, we degenerate. If it
be a principle that we abandon, it does not matter what the principle
is, our whole moral fibre is loosened by the gap it makes. Beth, who
had hitherto shunned easy-chairs, as Aunt Victoria had taught her,
lest she should be enervated by lolling, now began to take to them,
and so lost the strengthening effect of a wholesome effort. Other
little observances, too, little regular habits which discipline mind
and body to such good purpose, slipped from her,--such as the care of
her skin after the manner of the ladies of her family, who had been
renowned for their wonderful complexions. This had been enjoined upon
her by her mother in her early girlhood as a solemn duty, and had
entailed much self-denial in matters of food and drink, quantities
being restricted, and certain things prohibited at certain times,
while others were forbidden altogether. She had had to exercise
patience, also, in the concoction and use of delicately perfumed
washes of tonic and emollient properties, home distilled, so as to be
perfectly pure; all of which had been strictly practised by her, like
sacred rites or superstitious observances upon the exact performance
of which good fortune depends. In such matters she now became lax.
And, besides the care of her person, she neglected the care of her
clothes, which had been so beneficial to her mind; for it must be
remembered that it was during those long hours of meditation, while
she sat sewing, that her reading had been digested, her knowledge
assimilated, her opinions formed, and her random thoughts collected
and arranged, ready to be turned to account on an emergency. Until
this time, too, she had kept Sunday strictly as a day of rest. Books
and work, and all else that had occupied her during the week, were put
away on Saturday night, and not taken out again until Monday morning;
and the consequence was complete mental relaxation. But now she began
to do all kinds of little things which she had hitherto thought it
wrong to do on Sunday, so that the sanitary effect of the day of
rest--or of change of occupation, for sometimes Sunday duties are
arduous--was gradually lost, and she no longer returned to her work on
Monday strengthened and refreshed. Little by little her "good reading"
was also neglected, and instead of relying upon her own resolution, as
had hitherto been her wont, she began to seek the prop of an odd cup
of tea or coffee at irregular hours, to raise her spirits if she felt
down, or stimulate her if she were out of sorts and work was not easy;
all of which tended to weaken her will. Then, by degrees, she began to
lose the balance of mind which had been wont to carry her on from one
little daily doing to another, with calm deliberation, taking them
each in turn without haste or rest, and finding time for them all.
Now, the things that she did not care about she began to do with a
rush, so as to get to her writing. She wanted to be always at that;
and the consequence was a wearing sensation, as of one who is driven
to death, and has never time enough for any single thing.
But it was in these days, nevertheless, that she began to write with
decision. Hitherto, she had been merely trying her pen--feeling her
way; but now she unconsciously ceased to follow in other people's
footsteps, and struck out for herself boldly. She had come back from
Ilverthorpe with a burning idea to be expressed, and it was for the
shortest, crispest, clearest way to express it that she tried. Foreign
phrases she discarded, and she never attempted to produce an eccentric
effect by galvanising obsolete words, rightly discarded for lack of
vitality, into a ghastly semblance of life. Her own language, strong
and pure, she found a sufficient instrument for her purpose. When the
true impulse to write came, her fine theories about style only
hampered her, so she cast them aside, as habitual affectations are
cast aside and natural emotions naturally expressed, in moments of
deep feeling; and from that time forward she displayed, what had
doubtless been coming to her by practice all along, a method and a
manner of her own.
She produced a little book at this time, the first thing of any real
importance she had accomplished as yet; and during the writing of it
she enjoyed an interval of unalloyed happiness, the most perfect that
she had ever known. The world without became as nothing to her; it was
the world within that signified. The terrible sense of loneliness,
from which she had always suffered more or less, was suspended, and
she began to wonder how it was she had ever felt so desolate, that
often in the streets of Slane she would have been grateful to anybody
who had spoken to her kindly. Now she said to herself, sincerely,
"Never less alone than when alone!" And up in the quiet of her secret
chamber, with the serene blue above, the green earth and the
whispering trees below, and all her little treasures about her: the
books, the pictures, the pretty hangings, and little ornaments for
flowers; things she had indulged in by degrees since her mother's
death had left her with the money in her hands which she had made to
discharge Dan's debt--up there at her ease in that peaceful shrine,
secure from intrusion, "There is no joy but calm!" was her constant
ejaculation. Then again, too, she felt to perfection the fine wonder,
the fine glow of a great inspiration, and realised anew that therein
all the pleasures of the senses added together are contained; that
inspiration in its higher manifestations is like love--that it is
love, in fact--love without the lover; there being all the joy of love
in it, but none of the trouble.
But, like most young writers when they set up a high ideal for
themselves, and are striving conscientiously to arrive at it, because
the thing came easily she fancied she had not done her best, and was
dissatisfied. She talked to herself about fatal facility, without
reflecting that in time ease comes by practice; nor did she
discriminate between the flow of cheap ideas pumped up from any source
for the occasion, which satisfies the conceit of shallow workers, and
the deep stream that bubbles up of itself when it is once released,
and flows freely from the convictions, the observations, and the
knowledge of an earnest thinker. Diffidence is a help to some, but to
Beth it was a hindrance, a source of weakness. There was no fear of
her taking herself for a heaven-born genius. Her trouble had always
been her doubt of the merit of anything she did. She should have been
encouraged, but instead she had always been repressed. Accordingly,
when she had finished her little masterpiece, she put it away with the
idea of rewriting it, and making something of it when she should be
able; and then she began a much more pretentious work, and thought it
must be better because of the trouble it gave her.
Gradually, from now, she gave up all her time to reading and writing,
and she overdid it. Work in excess is as much a vice as idleness, and
it was particularly bad for Beth, whose constitution had begun to be
undermined by dutiful submission. The consulting rooms of specialists
are full of such cases. There are marriages which for the ignorant
girl preached into dutiful submission, whose "innocence" has been
carefully preserved for the purpose, mean prostitution as absolute, as
repugnant, as cruel, and as contrary to nature as that of the streets.
Beth's marriage was one of those. Until she went to Ilverthorpe, she
had never heard that there was a duty she owed to herself as well as