The Beth Book
to her husband; and, as Sir George Galbraith had said, her brain was
too delicately poised for the life she had been leading. Work had been
her opiate; but unfortunately she did not understand the symptoms
which should have warned her that she was overdoing it, and her nerves
became exceedingly irritable. Noises which she had never noticed in
her life before began to worry her to death. Very often, when she was
spoken to, she could hardly answer civilly. At meals everything that
was handed to her was just the very thing she did not want. She
quarrelled with all her food, drank quantities of strong coffee for
the sake of the momentary exhilaration, and even tried wine; but as it
only made her feel worse, she gave that up. Writing became a rage with
her, and the more she had to force herself, the longer she sat at it.
She would spend hours over one sentence, turning it and twisting it,
and never be satisfied; and when she was at last obliged to stop and
go downstairs lest she should be missed, she went with her brain
congested, and her complexion, which was naturally pale and
transparent, all flushed or blotched with streaks of crimson.
"What's the matter with your face?" Dan said to her one day, apt, as
usual, to comment offensively on anything wrong.
"I should like you to tell me," Beth answered.
"You'd better take some citrate of iron and quinine."
"You've prescribed citrate of iron and quinine for everything I've
ever had since I knew you," said Beth. "If I have any more of it, I
shall be like the man in the quack advertisement, who felt he could
conscientiously recommend a tonic because he had taken it for fourteen
years. I should like something that would act a little quicker."
Dan left the room and banged the door.
That afternoon Beth, up in her shrine at work, suddenly began to
wonder what he was doing. As a rule, she did not trouble herself about
his pursuits, but now all at once she became anxious. The thought of
all the unholy places that he might be at (and the unfortunate girl
knew all about all of them, for there was no horror of life with which
her husband had not made her acquainted), filled her with dread--with
a sensation entirely new to her, and absolutely foreign to her normal
nature. Her feeling for Dan and Bertha, when she discovered their
treachery, had been one of contempt. Their disloyalty, and the petty
mean deceits which it entailed, made it difficult to tolerate their
presence, and she was always glad to get rid of them, wherever they
might go. Now, however, she was seized upon with a kind of rage at the
recollection of their intrigue, of the scene in the garden, the
glances she had intercepted, their stolen interviews, clandestine
correspondence, and impudent security. It was all retrospective this
feeling, but the torment of it was none the less acute for that. She
recalled the scene in the garden, and her heart throbbed with anger.
She regretted her own temperate conduct, and imagined herself stealing
out upon them, standing before them, and pouring forth floods of
invective till they cowered. She wished she had refused to let Bertha
enter the house again, and had threatened to expose Dan if he did not
meekly submit to her dictation. She ought to have exposed him too. She
should have gone to Bertha's mother. But where was Dan at that moment?
She jumped up, rushed down to her room, put on her outdoor things in
hot haste, and ran downstairs determined to go and see; but as she
entered the hall at one end of it, Dan himself came in by the
hall-door at the other. The relief was extraordinary.
"Hallo! where are you off to?" he said.
"Just going for a little walk," she answered, speaking ungraciously
and without looking at him. Now that she saw him, her ordinary feeling
for him returned; but instead of being quiet and indifferent as usual,
she found herself showing in her manner something of the contempt she
felt, and it pleased her to do it. She was glad to go out, and be in
the open air away from him; but she had not gone far before the
torment in her mind began again. Why had he come in so unusually
early? Was there anything going on in the house? He was always very
familiar with the servants.
She stopped short at this, turned back, and went in as hurriedly as
she had gone out. In the hall she stood a moment listening. The house
seemed unusually quiet. A green baize door separated the kitchen and
offices from the hall. She opened it, and saw Minna in the butler's
pantry, cleaning the plate. Minna was parlour-maid now, a housemaid
having been added to the establishment when Miss Petterick came, so
that that young lady might be well waited on.
"I think we should give the girl full value for her money, you know,
even if we do without something ourselves," Dan had said, in the
generous thoughtful way that had so often imposed upon Beth.
Beth asked Minna where Drew, the housemaid, was.
"It's her afternoon out, ma'am," Minna answered.
"So it is," said Beth. "I had forgotten."
"Do you want anything, ma'am?" Minna asked. "You're looking poorly.
Would you like a cup o' tea?"
"No, thank you," Beth rejoined, then changed her mind. "Yes, I should,
though. Get me one while I'm taking my things off, and bring it to me
in the dining-room. Where is your master?"
"I don't know, ma'am. I've not heard if he's come in; but it's full
early for him yet," Minna replied, as she took off her working apron.
While she was talking to the girl, the worry in Beth's head stopped,
and she felt as usual. Going quietly upstairs, she fancied she heard
some one moving in her bedroom, and, entering it by way of the
dressing-room, she discovered Dan on his knees on the floor, prying
into one of the boxes she had had with her at Ilverthorpe, and kept
locked until she should feel inclined to unpack it. He seemed to have
had all the contents out, and was just deftly repacking it. As he
replaced the dresses, he felt in the pocket of each, and in one he
found an old letter which he read.
Beth withdrew on tiptoe, and went downstairs again, wondering at the
man. She took off her hat and jacket, and ensconced herself with the
newspaper in an easy-chair. Minna came presently with fragrant tea and
hot buttered toast, and talked cheerfully about some of her own
interests. Beth treated her servants like human beings, and rarely had
any trouble with them. She had learnt the art from Harriet, who had
awakened her sympathies, and taught her practically, when she was a
child, what servants have to suffer; and "well loved and well served"
exactly described what Beth was as a mistress. When Minna withdrew,
and Beth had had her tea and toast, she felt quite right again, and
read the paper with interest. The shock of the real trouble had ousted
the imaginary one for the moment.
The next morning, however, as she toiled with flushed face and weary
brain, stultifying her work with painful elaboration, she was seized
with another fit of jealous rage, just as she had been the day before.
Her mind in a moment, like a calm sea caught by a sudden tempest,
seethed with horrible suspicions of her husband. His gross ideas,
expressed in coarse language, had hitherto been banished from her mind
by her natural refinement; but now, like the works of a disordered
machine, whirling with irresponsible force, thoughts suggested by him
came crowding in the language he habitually used, and she found
herself accusing him with conviction of all she had ever heard others
accused of by him. For a little she pursued this turn of thought, then
all at once she jumped up and rushed downstairs, goaded again to
act--to avenge herself--to dog him down to one of his haunts, and
there confront him, revile him, expose him.
It was a tranquil grey day in early autumn, the kind of day, full of
quiet charm, which had always been grateful to Beth; but now, as she
stood on the doorstep, with wrinkled forehead, dilated eyes, and
compressed lips, putting her gloves on in feverish haste, she felt no
tranquillising charm, and saw no beauty in the tangled hedgerows
bright with briony berries, the tinted beeches, the Canadian poplars
whispering mysteriously by the watercourse at the end of the meadow,
the glossy iridescent plumes of the rooks that passed in little
parties silhouetted darkly bright against the empty sky; it was all
without significance to her; her further faculty was suspended, and
even the recollection of anything she had been wont to feel had
lapsed, and she perceived no more in the scene surrounding, in the
colours and forms of things, the sounds and motions, than those
perceive whose eyes have never been opened to anything beyond what
appears to the grazing cattle. In many a heavy hour she had found
delight in nature; but now, again, she had lost that solace; the glory
had departed, and she had sunk to one of the lowest depths of human
pain.
Not understanding the frightful affliction that had come upon her, she
made no attempt to control her disordered fancy, but hurried off into
the town, and hovered about the places which Dan had pointed out as
being of special evil interest, and searched the streets for him,
acting upon the impulse without a doubt of the propriety of what she
was doing. Had the obsession taken another form, had it seemed right
to her to murder him, the necessity would have been as imperative, and
she would have murdered him, not only without compunction, but with a
sense of satisfaction in the deed.
She pursued her search for hours, but did not find him; then went
home, and there he was, standing on the doorstep, looking out for her.
"Where on earth have you been?" he said.
"Where on earth have you been yourself?" she rejoined.
"Minding my own business," he answered.
"So have I," she retorted, pushing past him into the hall.
He had never seen her like that before, and he stood looking after her
in perplexity.
She went upstairs and threw herself on her bed. The worry in her head
was awful. Turn and toss as she would, the one idea pursued her, until
at last she groaned aloud, "O God! release me from this dreadful man!"
After a time, being thoroughly exhausted, she dropped into a troubled
sleep.
When she awoke, Dan was standing looking at her.
"Aren't you well, Beth?" he said. "You've been moaning and muttering
and carrying on in your sleep as if you'd got fever."
"I don't think I am well," she answered in her natural manner, the
pressure on her brain being easier at the moment of awakening.
He felt her pulse. "You'd better get into bed," he said, "and I'll
fetch you a sedative draught. You'll be all right in the morning."
Beth was only too thankful to get into bed. When he returned with the
draught, she asked him if he were going out again.
"No, not unless I'm sent for," he said. "Where the devil should I be
going to? It's close on dinner-time."
Beth shut her eyes. "If he is sent for and goes," she reflected, "I
shall know it is a ruse to deceive me; and I shall get up and follow
him."
He left her to sleep and went downstairs. But Beth could not sleep.
The draught quieted her mind for a little; then the worry began again
as bad as ever, and she found herself straining her attention to
discover to whom he was talking, for she fancied she heard him
whispering with some one out in the passage. She bore the suspicion
awhile, then jumped out of bed impetuously and opened the door. The
gas was burning low in the passage, but she could see that there was
no one about. Surely, though, there were voices downstairs?
Barefooted, and only in her night-dress, she went to see. Yes, there
were voices in the dining-room--now! She flung the door wide open. Dan
and another man, a crony of his, who had dropped in casually, were