It is significant to note that church figures largely in Beth's
recollection of this time, but religion not at all. There was, in
fact, no connection between the two in her mind.
Both Captain and Mrs. Caldwell protested strongly against what they
called cant; and they seemed to have called everything cant except an
occasional cold reading aloud of the Bible on Sundays, and the bald
observance of the church service. The Bible they read aloud to the
children without expounding it, and the services they attended without
comment. Displays of religious emotion in everyday life they regarded
as symptoms of insanity; and if they heard people discuss religion
with enthusiasm, and profess to love the Lord, they were genuinely
shocked. All that kind of thing they thought "such cant," "and so like
those horrid dissenters;" which made them extra careful that the
children should hear nothing of the sort. This, from their point of
view, was right and wise; in Beth's case especially; for her
unsatisfied soul was of the quality which soon yearns for the fine
fulness of faith; her little heart would have filled to bursting with
her first glad conception of the love divine, and her whole being
would have stirred to speak her emotion, even though speech meant
martyrdom. Thanks to the precautions of her parents, however, she
heard nothing to stimulate her natural tendency to religious fervour
after Kitty's departure; and gradually the image of our Blessed Lady
faded from her mind, and was succeeded by that of the God of her
parents, a death-dealing deity, delighting in blood, whom she was
warned to fear, and from whom she did accordingly shrink with such
holy horror that, when she went to church, she tried to think of
anything but Him. This was how it happened that church, instead of
being the threshold of the next world to her mind, became the centre
of this, where she made many interesting observations of men and
manners; for in spite of her backwardness in the schoolroom, Beth's
intellect advanced with a bound at this period. She had left her
native place an infant, on whose mind some chance impressions had been
made and lingered; she arrived at Castletownrock with the power to
observe for herself, and even to reflect upon what she saw--of course
to a certain extent only; but still the power had come, and was far in
advance of her years. So far, it was circumstances that had impressed
her; she knew one person from another, but that was all. Now, however,
she began to be interested in people for themselves, apart from any
incident in which they figured; and most of her time was spent in a
curiously close, but quite involuntary study of those about her, and
of their relations to each other.
Church was often a sore penance to the children, it was so long, and
cold, and dull; but they set off on Sunday happy in the consciousness
of their best hats and jackets, nevertheless; and the first part of
the time was not so bad, for then they had Sunday-school, and the
three Misses Keene--Mary, Sophia, and Lenore--and the two Misses
Mayne, Honor and Kathleen, and Mr. and Mrs. Small, the Vicar and his
wife, and the curate, were all there talking and teaching. Beth
remembered nothing about the teaching except that, on one occasion,
Mr. Macbean, the rector, tried to explain the meaning of the trefoil
on the ends of the pews to Mildred and herself; but she could think of
nothing but the way his beard wagged as he spoke, and was disconcerted
when he questioned her. He had promised to be a friend to Beth; but he
was a delicate man, and not able to live much at Castletownrock, where
the climate was rigorous; so that she seldom saw him.
When Sunday-school was over, the children went up to the gallery;
their pew and the Keenes', roomy boxes, took up the whole front of it.
Mrs. Caldwell always sat up in the gallery with the children, but
Captain Caldwell often sat downstairs in the rectory-pew to be near
the fire; when he sat in the gallery he wore a little black cap to
keep off the draught. He and Mr. O'Halloran the Squire, and Captain
Keene, stood and talked in the aisle sometimes before the service
commenced. One Sunday they kept looking up at the children in the
gallery.
"I'll bet Mildred will be the handsomest woman," Mr. O'Halloran was
saying.
"I'll back Beth," Captain Keene observed. "If all the men in the place
are not after her soon, I'm no judge of her sex, eh?"
"Oh, don't look at me!" said Captain Caldwell complacently. "I can't
pretend to say. But let's hope that they'll go off well, at all
events. They'll have every chance I can give them of making good
matches."
Beth heard her father repeat this conversation to her mother
afterwards, but was too busy wondering what a handsome woman was to
understand that it was her own charms which had been appraised; but
Mildred understood, and was elated.
Mr. O'Halloran, the squire, had a red beard, which was an offence to
Beth. His wife wore bonnets about which everybody used to make remarks
to Mrs. Caldwell. Beth understood that Mrs. O'Halloran was young and
pretty, and had three charming children, but was not happy because of
Sophia Keene.
"Just fancy," she heard Mrs. Small, the Vicar's wife, say to her
mother once. "Just fancy, he was in a carriage with them at the races,
and stayed with Sophia the whole time; and poor Mrs. O'Halloran left
at home alone. I call it scandalous. But you know what Sophia is!"
Mrs. Small concluded significantly.
Mrs. Caldwell drew herself up, and looked at Mrs. Small, but said
nothing; yet somehow Beth knew that she too was unhappy because of
Sophia Keene. Beth was not on familiar terms with her mother, and
would not have dared to embrace her spontaneously, or make any other
demonstration of affection; but she was loyally devoted to her all the
same, and would gladly have stabbed Sophia Keene, and have done battle
with the whole of the rest of the family on her mother's behalf had
occasion offered.
She was curled up among the fuchsias on the window-seat of the
sitting-room one day, unobserved by her parents, who entered the room
together after she had settled herself there, and began to discuss the
Keenes.
"You did not tell me, Henry, you spent all your time with them before
we came," Mrs. Caldwell said reproachfully.
"Why should I?" he answered, with a jaunty affectation of ease.
"It is not why you should," his wife said with studied gentleness,
"but why you should not. It seems so strange, making a mystery of it."
"I described old Keene to you--the old buffalo!" he replied; "and I'll
describe the girls now if you like. Mary is a gawk, Sophia is as
yellow as a duck's foot, and Lenore is half-witted."
The Keenes were ignorant, idle, good-tempered young women, and kind to
the children, whom they often took to bathe with them. They were
seldom able to go into the sea itself, for it was a wild, tempestuous
coast; but there were lovely clear pools on the rocky shore, natural
stone baths left full of water when the tide went out, sheltered from
the wind by tall, dark, precipitous cliffs, and warmed by the sun; and
there they used to dabble by the hour together. Anne went with them,
and it was a pretty sight, the four young women in white chemises that
clung to them when wet, and the three lovely children--little white
nudities with bright brown hair--scampering over the rocks, splashing
each other in the pools, or lying about on warm sunny slabs, resting
and chattering. One day Beth found some queer things in a pool, and
Sophia told her they were barnacles.
"They stick to the bottom of a ship," she said, "and grow heavier and
heavier till at last the ship can make no more way, and comes to a
standstill in a shining sea, where the water is as smooth as a mirror;
you would think it was a mirror, in fact, if it did not heave gently
up and down like your breast when you breathe; and every time it
heaves it flushes some colour, blue, or green, or pink, or purple. And
the barnacles swell and swell at the bottom of the ship, till at last
they burst in two with a loud report; and then the sailors rush to the
side of the ship and look over, and there they see a flock of
beautiful big white geese coming up out of the water; and sometimes
they shoot the geese, but if they do a great storm comes on and
engulfs the ship, and they are all drowned; but sometimes they stand
stockstill, amazed, and then the birds rise up out of the air on their
great white wings, up, up, drifting along, together, till they look
like the clouds over there. Then a gentle breeze springs up, and the
ship sails away safely into port."
"And where do the geese go?" Beth demanded, with breathless interest.
"They make for the shore too, and in the dead of winter, on stormy
nights, they fly over the land, uttering strange cries, and if you
wake and hear them, it means somebody is going to die."
Beth's eyes were staring far out beyond the great green Atlantic rollers
that came bursting in round the sheltering headland, white-crested with
foam, flying up the beach with a crash, and scattering showers of
spray that sparkled in the sunshine. She could see the ships and the
barnacles, and the silent sea, heaving great sighs and flushing with
fine colour in the act; and the geese, and the sailors peering over the
side and shooting at them and sinking immediately in a storm, but also
sailing into a safe haven triumphantly, where the sun shone on white
houses, although, at the same time, it was dark night, and overhead
there were strange cries that made her cower--"Beth!" cried Sophia,
"what's the matter with you, child?"
Beth returned with a start, and stared at her--"I know who it will
be," she said.
"Who what'll be, Miss Beth?" Anne asked in awe.
"Who'll die," said Beth.
"You mustn't say, Beth; you'll bring bad luck if you do," Miss Keene
interposed hastily.
"I'm not going to say," Beth answered dreamily; "but I know."
"You shouldn't have told the child that story, miss," Anne said.
"Shure, ye know what she is--she sees." Anne nodded her head several
times significantly.
"I forgot," said Sophia.
"She'll forget too," said Mary philosophically. "I say, Beth," she
went on, raising herself on her elbow--she was lying prone on a slab
of rock in the sun--"what does your mother think of us?"
Beth roused herself. "I don't know," she answered earnestly; "she
never says. But I know what papa thinks of you. He says Mary's a gawk,
Sophia is as yellow as a duck's foot, and Lenore is only half-witted."
The effect of this announcement astonished Beth. The Misses Keene,
instead of being interested, all looked at her as if they did not like
her, and Anne burst out laughing. When they got in, Anne told Mrs.
Caldwell, who flushed suddenly, and covered her mouth with her
handkerchief.
"Yes, mamma," Mildred exclaimed with importance, "Beth did say so. And
Mary tossed her head, and Sophia sneered."
"What is sneered?" Beth demanded importunately. "What is sneered?"
"O Beth! don't bother so," Mildred exclaimed irritably. "It's when you
curl up your lip."
"Beth, how could you be so naughty?" Mrs. Caldwell said at last from
behind her handkerchief. "Don't you know you should never repeat
things you hear said? A lady never repeats a private conversation."
"What's a private conversation?" said Beth.
Mrs. Caldwell gave her a broad definition, during which she lowered
her handkerchief, and Beth discovered that she was trying not to
smile.
This was Beth's first lesson in honour, which was her mother's god,
and she felt the influence of it all her life.
Later in the day, Beth was curled up on the window-seat among the
fuchsias, looking out. Behind the thatched cabins opposite, the sombre
mountains rolled up, dark and distinct, to the sky; but Beth would not
look at them if she could help it, they oppressed her. It was a close
afternoon, and the window was wide open. A bare-legged woman, in a
short petticoat, stood in an indolent attitude leaning against a
door-post opposite; a young man in low shoes, light blue stockings,
buff knee-breeches, a blue-tailed coat with brass buttons, and a soft
high-crowned felt hat, came strolling up the street with his hands in
his pockets.
"Hallo, Biddy," he remarked, as he passed the woman, "you're all
swelled."
"Yes," she answered tranquilly, "I've been drinking buttermilk."
"Well, let's hope it'll be a boy," he rejoined.
The woman looked up and down the street complacently.
Presently Beth saw Honor and Kathleen Mayne come out of the inn. The
Maynes used to pet the children and play the piano to them when they
were at the inn, and had been very good to Jim also when he was there
alone with his father before the family arrived. Their manners were
gentle and caressing, and they did their best to win their way into Mrs.
Caldwell's good graces, but at first she coldly repulsed them, which
hurt Beth very much. The Maynes, however, did not at all understand that
they were being repulsed. A kindly feeling existed among all classes in
those remote Irish villages. The squire's family, the doctor's,
clergyman's, draper's, and innkeeper's visited each other, and shook
hands when they met. There was no feeling of condescension on the one
hand, or of pretension on the other; but Mrs. Caldwell had the strong
class prejudice which makes such stupid snobs of the English. It was not
_what_ people were, but _who_ they were, that was all important to her;
and she would have bowed down cheerfully, as whole neighbourhoods do,
and felt exhilarated by the notice of some stupid county magnate, who
had not heart enough to be loved, head enough to distinguish himself, or
soul enough to get him into heaven. She was a lady, and Mayne was an
innkeeper. His daughters might amuse the children, but as to associating
with Mrs. Caldwell, that was absurd!
The girls were not to be rebuffed, however. They persevered in their
kindly attentions, making excuses to each other for Mrs. Caldwell's
manner; explaining her coldness by the fact that she was English, and
flattering her, until finally they won their way into her good graces,
and so effectually too, that when they brought a young magpie in a
basket for Beth one day, her mother graciously allowed her to accept
it.
Beth liked the Maynes, but now as they came up the road she slid from
the window-seat. She knew they would stop and talk if she waited, and
she did not want to talk. She was thinking about something, and it
irritated her to be interrupted. So she tore across the hall and
through the kitchen out into the yard, impelled by an imperative
desire to be alone.
The magpie was the first pet of her own she had ever had, and she
loved it. At night it was chained to a perch stuck in the wall of the
stable-yard. On the other side of that wall was the yard of Murphy the
farrier. The magpie soon became tame enough to be let loose by day,
and Beth always went to release it the first thing in the morning and
give it its breakfast. It came hopping to meet her now, and followed
her into the garden. The garden was entered by an archway under the
outbuildings, which divided it from the stable-yard. It was very long,
but narrow for its length. On the right was a high wall, but on the
left was a low one--at least one half of it was low--and Beth could
look over it into the farrier's garden next door. The other half had
been raised by Captain Caldwell on the understanding that if he raised
one half the farrier would raise the other, but the farrier had proved
perfidious. The wall was built without mortar, of rough, uncut stones.
Captain Caldwell had his half neatly finished off at the top with
sods, but Murphy's piece was still all broken down. The children used
to climb up by it on to the raised half, and dance there at the risk
of life and limb, and jeer at Murphy as he dug his potatoes, calling
his attention to the difference between the Irish and English half of
the wall, till he lost his temper and pelted them. This was the signal
for a battle. The children returned his potatoes with stones by way of
interest, and hit him as often as he hit them. (Needless to say, their
parents were not in the garden at the time.) They had a great contempt
for the farrier because he fought them, and he used to go about the
village complaining of them and their "tratement" of him, "the little
divils, spoilin' the pace of the whole neighbourhood."
There was a high wall at the end of the garden, and Beth liked to sit on
the top of it. She went there now, picked up her magpie, and climbed up
with difficulty by way of Pat Murphy's broken bit. Immediately below her
was a muddy lane, beyond which the land sloped down to the sea, and as
she sat there, the sound of the waves, that dreamy, soft murmur for
which we have no word, filled the interstices of her consciousness with
something that satisfied.
She was not left long in peace to enjoy it that afternoon, however,
for the farrier was at work in his garden below, and presently he
looked up and saw the magpie.
"There ye are agin, Miss Beth, wi' yer baste of a burrd; bad luck to
it!" he exclaimed, crossing himself. "Shure, don't I tell ye ivery day
uf your life it's wan fur sorrow."
"Bad luck to yerself, Pat Murphy," Beth rejoined promptly. "It's a
foine cheek ye have to be spakin' to a gentleman's daughter, an' you
not a man uv yer wurrd."
"Not a man o' me wurrd! what d'ye mane?" said Murphy, firing.
"Look at that wall," Beth answered; "didn't ye promise ye'd build it?"
"An' so I will when yer father gives me the stones he promised me,"
Murphy replied. "It's a moighty foine mon uv his wurrd he is."
"Is it my father yer maning, Pat Murphy?" Beth asked.
"It is," he said, sticking his spade in the ground emphatically.
"Ye know yer lying," said Beth. "My father promised you no stones.
He's not a fool."
"I niver met a knave that was," Pat observed, turning over a huge
spadeful of earth, and then straightening himself to look up at her.
Beth's instinct was always to fight when she was in a rage; words
break no bones, and she preferred to break bones at such times. It was
some seconds before she saw the full force of Pat's taunt, but the
moment she did, she seized the largest loose stone within reach on the
top of the wall, and shied it at him. It struck him full in the face,
and cut his cheek open.
"That'll teach ye," said Beth, blazing.
The man turned on her with a very ugly look.
"Put yer spade down," she said. "I'm not afraid of you."
"Miss Beth! Miss Beth!" some one called from the end of the garden.
Murphy stuck his spade in the ground, and wiped his jaw. "Ye'll pay
for this, ye divil's limb," he muttered, "yew an' yours."
"Miss Beth! Miss Beth!"
"I'm coming!" Beth rejoined irritably, and slid from the wall to the
ground regardless of the rough loose stones she scattered in her
descent. "Ye'll foind me ready to pay when ye send in yer bill, Pat,"
she called out as she ran down the garden.
The children were to have tea at the vicarage that day, and Anne had
been sent to fetch her.
In the drawing-room at the vicarage there was a big bay-window which
looked out across a desolate stretch of bog to a wild headland,
against which the waves beat tempestuously in almost all weathers. The
headland itself was high, but the giant breakers often dashed up far
above it, and fell in showers of spray on the grass at the top. There
was a telescope in the window at the vicarage, and people used to come
to see the sight, and went into raptures over it. Beth, standing out
of the way, unnoticed, would gaze too, fascinated; but it was the
attraction of repulsion. The cruel force of the great waves agitated
her, and at the same time made her unutterably sad. Her heart beat
painfully when she watched them, her breath became laboured, and it
was only with an effort that she could keep back her sobs. It was not
fear that oppressed her, but a horrible sort of excitement, which so
gained upon her on that afternoon in particular that she felt she must
shriek aloud, or make her escape. If she showed any emotion she would
be laughed at, if she made her escape she would probably be whipped;
she preferred to be whipped; so, watching her opportunity, she quietly
slipped away.
At home the window of the sitting-room was still wide open, and as she
ran down the street she noticed some country people peeping in
curiously, and apparently astonished by the luxury they beheld. Beth,
who was picking up Irish rapidly, understood some exclamations she
overheard as she approached, and felt flattered for the furniture.
She ran up the steps and opened the front door: "Good day to ye all,"
she said sociably; "will ye not come in and have a look round? now
do!"
She led the way as she spoke, and the country people followed her, all
agape. In the hall they paused to wonder at the cocoanut matting; but
when they stood on the soft pile carpet, so grateful to their bare
feet, in the sitting-room, and looked round, they lowered their voices
respectfully, and this gave Beth a sudden sensation of superiority.
She began to show them the things: the pictures on the walls, the
subjects of which she explained to them; the egg-shell china, which
she held up to the light that they might see how thin it was; and some
Eastern and Western curios her father had brought home from various
voyages. She told them of tropical heat and Canadian cold, and began
to be elated herself when she found all that she had ever heard on the
subject flowing fluently from her lips.
The front door had been left open, and the passers-by looked in to see
what was going on, and then entered uninvited. Neighbours, too, came
over from the Irish side of the road, so that the room gradually
filled, and as her audience increased, Beth grew excited and talked
away eloquently.
"Lord," one man exclaimed with a sigh, on looking round the room, "it's
aisy to see why the likes of these looks down on the likes of us."
"Eh, dear, yes!" a woman with a petticoat over her head solemnly
responded.
"The durrty heretics," a slouching fellow, with a flat white face,
muttered under his breath. "But if they benefit here, they'll burn
hereafter, holy Jasus be praised."
"Will they?" said Beth, turning on him. "Will they burrn hereafter,
Bap-faced Flanagan? No, they won't! They'll hunt ye out of heaven as
they hunted ye out o' Maclone.
"Oh, the Orange militia walked into Maclone,
And hunted the Catholics out of the town.
Ri' turen nuren nuren naddio,
Right tur nuren nee."
She sang it out at the top of her shrill little voice, executing a
war-dance of defiance to the tune, and concluding with an elaborate
curtsey.
As she recovered herself, she became aware of her father standing in the
doorway. His lips were white, and there was a queer look in his face.
"Oh! So this is _your_ party, is it, Miss Beth?" he said. "You ask
your friends in, and then you insult them, I see."
Beth was still effervescing. She put her hands behind her back and
answered boldly--
"'Deed, thin, he insulted me, papa. It was Bap-faced Flanagan. He
said we were durrty heretics, and--and--I'll not stand that! It's
a free country!"
Captain Caldwell looked round, and the people melted from the room
under his eye. Then Anne appeared from somewhere.
"Anne, do you teach the children party-songs?" he demanded.
"Shure, they don't need taching, yer honour," said Anne, disconcerted.
"Miss Beth knows 'em all, and she shouts 'em at the top of her voice
down the street till the men shake their fists at her."
"Why do you do that, Beth?" her father demanded.
"I like to feel," Beth began, gasping out each word with a mighty
effort to express herself--"I like to feel--that I can _make_ them
shake their fists."
Her father looked at her again very queerly.
"Will I take her to the nursery, sir?" Anne asked.
Beth turned on her impatiently, and said something in Irish which made
Anne grin. Beth did not understand her father in this mood, and she
wanted to see more of him.
"What's that she's saying to you, Anne?" he asked.
"Oh--sure, she's just blessin' me, yer honour," Anne answered
unabashed.
"I believe you!" Captain Caldwell said dryly, as he stretched himself
on the sofa. "Go and fetch a hair-brush."
While Anne was out of the room he turned to Beth. "I'll give you a
penny," he said, "if you'll tell me what you said to Anne."
"I'll tell you for nothing," Beth answered. "I said, 'Yer soul to the
devil for an interfering hussy.'"
Captain Caldwell burst out laughing, and laughed till Anne returned
with the brush. "Now, brush my hair," he said to Beth; and Beth went
and stood beside the sofa, and brushed, and brushed, now with one
hand, and now with the other, till she ached all over with the effort.
Her father suffered from atrocious headaches, and this was the one
thing that relieved him.
"There, that's punishment enough for to-day," he said at last.
Beth retired to the foot of the couch, and leant there, looking at him
solemnly, with the hair-brush still in her hand. "That's no
punishment," she observed.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"I mean I like it," she said. "I'd brush till I dropped if it did you
any good."
Captain Caldwell looked up at her, and it was as if he had seen the
child for the first time.
"Beth," he said, after a while, "would you like to come out with me on
the car to-morrow?"
"'Deed, then, I would, papa," Beth answered eagerly.
Then there was a pause, during which Beth rubbed her back against the
end of the couch thoughtfully, and looked at the wall opposite as if
she could see through it. Her father watched her for a little time
with a frown upon his forehead from the pain in his head.
"What are you thinking of, Beth?" he said at last.
"I've got to be whipped to-night," she answered drearily; "and I wish
I hadn't. I do get so tired of being whipped and shaken."
Her little face looked pinched and pathetic as she spoke, and for the
first time her father had a suspicion of what punishment was to this
child--a thing as inevitable as disease, a continually recurring
torture, but quite without effect upon her conduct--and his heart
contracted with a qualm of pity.
"What are you going to be whipped for now?" he asked.
"We went to tea at the vicarage, and I ran away home."
"Why?"
"Because of the great green waves. They rush up the rocks--wish--st--st!"
(she took a step forward, and threw up her little arms in
illustration)--"then fall, and roll back, and gather, and come rushing
on again; and I feel every time--every time--that they are coming right
at me!"--she clutched her throat as if she were suffocating; "and if I
had stayed I should have shrieked, and then I should have been whipped.
So I came away."
"But you expect to be whipped for coming away?"
"Yes. But you see I don't have the waves as well. And mamma won't say
I was afraid."
"Were you afraid, Beth?" her father asked.
"No!" Beth retorted, stamping her foot indignantly. "If the waves did
come at me, I could stand it. It's the coming--coming--coming--I can't
bear. It makes me ache here." She clutched at her throat and chest
again.
Captain Caldwell closed his eyes. He felt that he was beginning to
make this child's acquaintance, and wished he had tried to cultivate
it sooner.
"You shall not be whipped to-night, Beth," he said presently, looking
at her with a kindly smile.
Instantly an answering smile gleamed on the child's face, transfiguring
her; and, by the light of it, her father realised how seldom he had seen
her smile.
Unfortunately for Beth, however, while her countenance was still
irradiated, her mother swooped down upon her. Mrs. Caldwell had come
hurrying home in a rage in search of Beth; and now, mistaking that
smile for a sign of defiance, she seized upon her, and had beaten her
severely before it was possible to interfere. Beth, dazed by this
sudden onslaught, staggered when she let her go, and stretched out her
little hands as if groping for some support.
"It wasn't your fault!--it wasn't your fault!" she gasped, her first
instinct being to exonerate her father.
Captain Caldwell had started up and caught his wife by the arm.
"That's enough," he said harshly. "You are going altogether the wrong
way to work with the child. Let this be the last time, do you
understand? Beth, go to the nursery, and ask Anne to get you some tea."
A sharp pain shot through his head. He had jumped up too quickly, and
now fell back on the sofa with a groan.
"Oh, let me brush it again," Beth cried, in an agony of sympathy.
Her father opened his haggard eyes and smiled.
"Go to the nursery, like a good child," he said, "and get some tea."
Beth went without another word. But all that evening her mind was with
her parents in the sitting-room, wondering--wondering what they were
saying to each other.