Beth was a fine instrument, sensitive to a touch, and, considering the
way she was handled, it would have been a wonder if discordant effects
had not been constantly produced upon her. Hers was a nature with a
wide range. It is probable that every conceivable impulse was latent
in her, every possibility of good or evil. Exactly which would
predominate depended upon the influences of these early years; and
almost all the influences she came under were haphazard. There was no
intelligent direction of her thoughts, no systematic training to form
good habits. Her brothers were sent to school as soon as they were old
enough, and so had the advantage of regular routine and strict
discipline from the first; but a couple of hours a day for lessons was
considered enough for the little girls; and, for the rest of the time,
so long as they were on the premises and not naughty, that is to say,
gave no trouble, it was taken for granted that they were safe, morally
and physically. Neither of their parents seem to have suspected their
extreme precocity; and there is no doubt that Beth suffered seriously
in after life from the mistakes of those in authority over her at this
period. People admired her bright eyes without realising that she
could see with them, and not only that she could see, but that she
could not help seeing. But even if they had realised it, they would
merely have scolded her for learning anything in that way which they
preferred that she should not know. They were not sufficiently
intelligent themselves to perceive that it is not what we know of
things, but what we think of them, which makes for good or evil. Beth
was accordingly allowed to run wild, and expected to see nothing; but
all the time her mind was being involuntarily stored with observations
from which, in time to come, for want of instruction, she would be
forced to draw her own--often erroneous--conclusions.
Kitty's departure was Beth's first great grief, and she suffered
terribly. The prop and stay of her little life had gone, the comfort
and kindness, the order and discipline, which were essential to her
nature. Mrs. Caldwell was a good woman, who would certainly do what
she thought best for her children; but she was exhausted by the
unconscionable production of a too numerous family, a family which she
had neither the means nor the strength to bring up properly. Her
husband's health, too, grew ever more precarious, and she found
herself obliged to do all in her power to help him with his duties,
which were arduous. There was a good deal that she could do in the way
of writing official letters and managing money-matters, tasks for
which she was much better fitted than for the management of children;
but the children, meanwhile, had to be left to the care of others--not
that that would have been a bad thing for them had their mother had
sufficient discrimination to enable her to choose the proper kind of
people to be with them. Unfortunately for everybody, however, Mrs.
Caldwell had been brought up on the old-fashioned principle that
absolute ignorance of human nature is the best qualification for a
wife and mother, and she was consequently quite unprepared for any
possibility which had not formed part of her own simple and limited
personal experience. She never suspected, for one thing, that a
servant's conversation could be undesirable if her appearance and her
character from her last mistress were satisfactory; and, therefore,
when Kitty had gone, she put Anne in her place without misgiving,
Anne's principal recommendation being that she was a nice-looking
girl, and had pretty deferential manners.
Anne came from one of the cabins on the Irish side of the road, where
people, pigs, poultry, with an occasional cow, goat, or donkey herded
together indiscriminately. The windows were about a foot square, and
were not made to open. Sometimes they had glass in them, but were
oftener stopped up with rags. Before the doors were heaps of manure
and pools of stagnant water. There was no regular footway, but a mere
beaten track in front of the cabins, and this, on wet days, was
ankle-deep in mud. The women hung about the doors all day long,
knitting the men's blue stockings, and did little else apparently.
Both men and women were usually in a torpid state, the result,
doubtless, of breathing a poisoned atmosphere, and of insufficient
food. It took strong stimulants to rouse them: love, hate, jealousy,
whisky, battle, murder, and sudden death. Their conversation was
gross, and they were very immoral; but it is hardly necessary to say
so, for with men, women, children, and animals all crowded together in
such surroundings, and the morbid craving for excitement to which
people who have no comfort or wholesome interest in life fall a prey,
immorality is inevitable. It was the boast of the place that there
were no illegitimate children; it would have been a better sign if
there had been.
Mrs. Caldwell, true to her training, lived opposite to all this vice
and squalor, serenely indifferent to it. Anne, therefore, who knew
nothing about the management of children, and was not in any respect a
proper person to have the charge of them, had it all her own way in
the nursery: and her way was to do nothing that she could help. She
used to call the children in the morning, and then leave them to their
own devices. The moment they were awake, which was pretty soon, for
they were full of life, they began to batter each other with pillows,
dance about the room in their night-dresses, pitch tents with the
bed-clothes on the floor, and make noise enough to bring their mother
down upon them. Then Anne would be summoned and come hurrying up, and
help them to huddle on their clothes somehow. She never washed them,
but encouraged them to perform their own ablutions, which they did
with the end of a towel dipped in a jug. The consequence was they were
generally in a very dirty state. They took their meals with their
parents, and papa would notice the dirt eventually, and storm at mamma
in Italian, when words would ensue in a tone which made the children
quake. Then mamma would storm at Anne, for whom the children felt
sorry, and the result would be a bath, which they bore with fortitude,
for fear of getting Anne into further trouble. They even made good
resolutions about washing themselves, which they kept for a few days;
then, however, they began to shirk again, and had again to be
scrubbed. The resolutions of a child must be shored up by kindly
supervision, otherwise it is hardly likely that they will cement into
good habits.
Beth suffered from a continual sense of discomfort in those days for
want of proper attention. All her clothing fitted badly, and were
fastened on with anything that came to hand in the way of tape and
buttons; her hair was ill brushed, and she was so continually found
fault with that her sense of self-respect was checked in its
development, and she lost all faith in her own power to do anything
right or well. The consequence was the most profound disheartenment,
endured in silence, with the exquisite uncomplaining fortitude of a
little child. It made its mark on her countenance, however, in a
settled expression of discontent, which, being mistaken for a bad
disposition, repelled people, and made her many enemies. People
generally said that Mildred was a dear, but Beth did not look
pleasant; and for many a long day to come, very few troubled
themselves to try and make her look so.
It cannot be said that Beth's parents neglected their children. On the
contrary, her father thought much of their education, and of their
future; it was the all-importance of the present that did not strike
him, and so with her mother. Neither parent was careless, but their
care stopped short too soon; and it is astonishing the amount of
liberty the children had. They were sent out of doors as soon as they
were dressed in the morning, because sunshine and air are so essential
to children. If they went for a walk, Anne accompanied them; but very
often Anne was wanted, and then the children were left to loiter about
the garden or stable-yard, where, doubtless with the help of reasoning
powers much in advance of her age, Beth had soon heard and seen enough
to make her feel a certain contempt for her father's veracity when he
told her that she had originally been brought to the house in the
doctor's black bag.
After Kitty's departure Beth had many a lonely hour, and the time hung
heavy on her hands. Mildred, her senior by four years, was of a
simpler disposition, and always able to amuse herself, playing with
the Baby Bernadine, or with toys which were no distraction to Beth.
Mildred, besides, was fond of reading; but books to be deciphered
remained a wonder and a mystery to Beth.
Jim went to the national school, the only one in the place, with all
the other little boys. The master was a young curate who gave Mildred
and Beth their lessons also, when school-hours were over. Beth used to
yearn for lesson-time, just for the sake of being obliged to do
something; but lessons were disappointing, for the curate devoted
himself to Mildred, who was docile and studious, and took no special
pains to interest Beth, and consequently she soon wearied of the dull
restraint, and became troublesome. Sometimes she was boisterous, and
then the tutor had to spend half his time in chasing her to rescue his
hat, a book, an ink-bottle, or some other article which she threatened
to destroy; and, sometimes she was so depressed that he had to give up
trying to teach her, and just do his best to distract her. In her
eighth year she was able to follow the church-service in the
prayer-book, and make out the hymns, but that was all.
Sunday-school was held in the church, and was attended by all the
unmarried parishioners. Mildred taught some of the tiny mites, and
Beth was put into her class at first; but Beth had no respect for
Mildred, and had consequently to be removed. She was expected to
learn the collect for the day and the verse of a hymn every Sunday,
but never by any chance knew either. No one ever thought of reading
the thing over to her, and fixing her attention on it by some little
explanation; and learning by heart from a book did not come naturally
to her. She learned by ear easily enough, but not by sight. The hymns
and prayers which Kitty had repeated to her, she very soon picked up;
but Kitty had true sympathetic insight to inform her of what the child
required, and all her little lessons were proper to some occasion, and
had comfort in them. What Beth learned now, on the contrary, often
filled her with gloom. Some of the hymns, such as,
"When gathering clouds around I view,
And days are dark, and friends are few,"
made her especially miserable. It was always a dark day to her when
she repeated it, with heavy clouds collecting overhead, and herself, a
solitary little speck on the mountain side wandering alone.