From that time forward it was as if Alfred had vanished into space.
Whether he ever attempted to communicate with her, Beth could not
tell; but she received no letter or message. She expected to hear from
him through Dicksie, but it soon became apparent that Dicksie had
deserted her. He came to none of their old haunts, and never looked
her way in church or in the street when they met. She was ashamed to
believe it of him at first, lest some defect in her own nature should
have given rise to the horrid suspicion; but when she could no longer
doubt it, she shrugged her shoulders as at something contemptible, and
dismissed him from her mind. About Alfred she could not be sure. He
might have sent letters and messages that never reached her, and
therefore she would not blame him; but as the thought of him became an
ache, she resolutely set it aside, so that, in a very short time, in
that part of her consciousness where his image had been, there was a
blank. Thus the whole incident ended like a light extinguished, as
Beth acknowledged to herself at last. "It is curious, though," she
thought, "but I certainly knew it in myself all along from the moment
the change came, _if only I could have got at the knowledge_."
As a direct result of her separation from Alfred, Beth entered upon a
bad phase. The simple satisfaction of her heart in his company had
kept her sane and healthy. With such a will as hers, it had not been
hard to cast him out of her anticipations; but with him, there went
from her life that wholesome companionship of boy and girl which
contains all the happiness necessary for their immaturity, and also
stimulates their growth in every way by holding out the alluring
prospect of the fulfilment of those hopes of their being towards which
their youth should aspire from the first, insensibly, but without
pause. Having once known this companionship, Beth did not thrive
without it. She had no other interest in its place to take her out of
herself, and the time hung heavy on her hands. With her temperament,
however, more than a momentary pause was impossible. Her active mind,
being bare of all expectation, soon began to sate itself upon vain
imaginings. For the rational plans and pursuits she had been
accustomed to make and to carry out with the boys, she had nothing to
substitute but dreams; and on these she lived, finding an idle
distraction in them, until the habit grew disproportionate, and began
to threaten the fine balance of her other faculties: her reason, her
power of accurate observation and of assimilating every scrap of
knowledge that came in her way. To fill up her empty days, she
surrounded herself with a story, among the crowding incidents of which
she lived, whatever she might be doing. She had a lover who frequented
a wonderful dwelling on the other side of the headland that bounded
Rainharbour bay on the north. He was rich, dark, handsome, a
mysterious man, with horses and a yacht. She was his one thought, but
they did not meet often because of their enemies. He was engaged upon
some difficult and dangerous work for the good of mankind, and she had
many a midnight ride to warn him to beware, and many a wild adventure
in an open boat, going out in the dark for news. But there were happy
times too, when they lived together in that handsome house hidden
among the flowers behind the headland, and at night she always slept
with her head on his shoulder. He had a confidential agent, a doctor,
whom he sent to her with letters and messages, because it was not safe
for him to appear in the public streets himself. This man was just
like the one she had met on the rocks, and his clothes were always too
good for the occasion. His name was Angus Ambrose Cleveland.
Just at this time, Charlotte Hardy, the daughter of a doctor who lived
next door to the Benyon Dower House, fell in love with Beth, and began
to make much of her. Beth had never had a girl companion before, and
although she rather looked down on Charlotte, she enjoyed the novelty.
They were about the same age, but Charlotte was smaller than Beth,
less precocious, and better educated. She knew things accurately that
Beth had only an idea of; but Beth could make more use of a hint than
Charlotte could of the fullest information. Beth respected her
knowledge, however, and suffered pangs of humiliation when she
compared it to her own ignorance; and it was by way of having
something to show of equal importance that she gradually fell into the
habit of confiding her romance to Charlotte, who listened in perfect
good faith to the fascinating details which Beth poured forth from day
to day. Beth did not at first intend to impose on her credulity; but
when she found that Charlotte in her simplicity believed the whole
story, she adapted her into it, and made her as much a part of it as
Hector the hero, and Dr. Angus Ambrose Cleveland, the confidential
agent on whom their safety depended. Charlotte was Beth's confidante
now, a post which had hitherto been vacant; so the whole machinery of
the romance was complete, and in excellent order.
"It's queer I never see the doctor about," Charlotte said one day,
when they were out on the cliffs together.
Beth happened to look up at that moment and saw her acquaintance of
the rocks coming towards them.
"Your curiosity will be gratified," she said, "for there he is."
"Where?" Charlotte demanded in an excited undertone.
"Approaching," Beth answered calmly.
"Will he speak?" Charlotte asked in a breathless whisper.
"He will doubtless make me a sign," Beth replied.
When he was near enough, the gentleman recognised Beth, and smiled as
they passed each other.
"Oughtn't he to have taken off his hat?" Charlotte asked.
"He means no disrespect," Beth answered with dignity. "It is safer so.
In fact, if you had not been my confidante, he would not have dared to
make any sign at all."
"Oh, then he knows that I am your confidante!" Charlotte exclaimed,
much gratified.
"Of course," said Beth. "I have to keep them informed of all that
concerns me. I brought you here to-day on purpose. I shall doubtless
have to ask you to take letters, and you could not deliver them if you
did not know the doctor by sight. There is the yacht," she added, as a
beautiful white-winged vessel swept round the headland into the bay.
"O Beth! aren't you excited?" Charlotte cried.
"No," Beth answered quietly. "You see I am used to these things."
"Beth, what a strange creature you are," said Charlotte, with respect.
"One can see that there's something extraordinary about you, but one
can't tell what it is. You're not pretty--at least _I_ don't think so.
I asked papa what he thought, and he said you had your points, and a
something beyond, which is irresistible. He couldn't explain it,
though; but I know what he meant. I always feel it when you talk to
me; and I believe I could die for you. There's Mrs. Warner Benyon out
again," she broke off to observe. "Papa was called in to see her the
other day. He isn't their doctor, but she was taken ill suddenly, so
they sent for him because he was at hand; and he says her shoulders
are like alabaster."
Beth pursed up her mouth at this, but made no answer. When she got
home, however, she repeated the observation to her mother in order to
ask her what alabaster was exactly. Mrs. Caldwell flushed indignantly
at the story. "If Dr. Hardy speaks in that way of his patients to his
family, he won't succeed in his profession," she declared. "A man who
talks about his patients may be a clever doctor, but he's sure not to
be a nice man--not high-minded, you know--and certainly not a wise
one. Remember that, Beth, and take my advice: don't have anything to
do with a 'talking doctor'"--a recommendation which Beth remembered
afterwards, but only to note the futility of warnings.
Matters became very complicated in the story as it proceeded. It was
all due to some Spanish imbroglio, Beth said. Hector ran extraordinary
risks, and she was not too safe herself if things went wrong. There
were implicating documents, and emissaries of the Jesuits were on the
look-out.
One day, Charlotte's mother being away from home, Beth asked her
mysteriously if she could conceal some one in her room at night
unknown to her father.
"Easily," Charlotte answered. "He never comes up to my room."
"Then you must come and ask mamma to let me spend the day and night
with you to-morrow," Beth said. "I shall have business which will keep
me away all day, but I shall return at dusk, and then you must smuggle
me up to your room. We shall be obliged to sit up all night. I don't
know what is going to happen. Are the servants safe? If I should be
betrayed----"
"Safe not to tell you are there," said Charlotte, "and that is all
they will know. They won't tell on me. I never tell on them."
The next morning early, Charlotte arrived in Orchard Street with a
face full of grave importance, and obtained Mrs. Caldwell's consent to
take Beth back with her; but instead of having to go home to spend the
day alone waiting for Beth, as she had expected, she was sent out some
distance along the cliffs to a high hill, which she climbed by Beth's
direction. She was to hide herself among the fir-trees at the top, and
watch for a solitary rider on a big brown horse, who would pass on the
road below between noon and sunset, if all went well, going towards
the headland.
"_I_ shall be that rider," Beth said solemnly. "And the moment you see
me, take this blue missive, and place it on the Flat Rock, with a
stone on it to keep it from blowing away; then go home. If I do not
appear before sunset, here is a red missive to place on the Flat Rock
instead of the blue one, which must then be destroyed by fire. If I
return, I return; if not, never breathe a word of these things to a
living soul as you value your life."
"I would rather die than divulge anything," Charlotte protested
solemnly, and her choice of the word divulge seemed to add
considerably to the dignity of the proceedings.
They separated with a casual nod, that people might not suspect them
of anything important, and each proceeded to act her part in a
delightful state of excitement; but what was thrilling earnest to
Charlotte, calling for courage and endurance, was merely an
exhilarating play of the fancy put into practice to Beth.
By the time Charlotte arrived at the top of the hill, and had settled
herself among the firs overlooking the road below, she was very tired.
Beth had given her a bag, one of Aunt Victoria's many reticules, with
orders not to open it before her watch began. The bag had been a
burden to carry, but Charlotte was repaid for the trouble, for she
found it full of good things to eat, and a bottle of cold coffee and
cream to drink, with lumps of sugar and all complete. Beth had really
displayed the most thoughtful kindness in packing that bag. The
contents she had procured on a sudden impulse from a pastry-cook in
the town, by promising to pay the next time she passed.
After having very much enjoyed a solid Melton Mowbray pie, a sausage
in puff-pastry, a sponge-cake, a lemon cheesecake, and two crisp
brandy snaps, and slowly sipped the coffee, Charlotte felt that this
was the only life worth living, and formally vowed to dedicate herself
for ever to the Secret Service of Humanity--Beth's name for these
enterprises. She kept a careful eye on the road below all this time,
and there ran through her head the while fragments of a ballad Beth
had written, which added very much to the charm of the occasion.
"The fir-trees whisper overhead,
Between the living and the dead,
I watch the livelong day.
I watch upon the mountain-side
For one of courage true and tried,
Who should ride by this way,"
it began. When she first heard that Beth had written that ballad,
Charlotte was astonished. It was the only assertion of Beth's she had
ever doubted; but Beth assured her that any one could write verses,
and convinced her by "making some up" there and then on a subject
which she got Charlotte to choose for her.
Many things passed on the road below--teams of waggons, drawn by
beautiful big cart-horses with glossy coats, well cared for, tossing
their headland rattling the polished brasses of their harness proudly,
signs of successful farming and affluence; smart carriages with what
Beth called "silly-fool ladies, good for nothing," in them; a
carrier's cart, pedestrians innumerable, and then--then, at last, a
solitary big brown horse, ridden at a steady canter by a slender girl
in a brown habit (worn by her mother in her youth, and borrowed from
her wardrobe without permission for the occasion). The horse was a
broken-down racer with some spirit left, which Beth had hired, as she
had procured the provisions, on a promise to pay. In passing, she
waved a white handkerchief carelessly, as if she were flicking flies
from the horse, but _without relenting her speed_. This was the signal
agreed upon. Charlotte, glowing with excitement, and greatly relieved,
watched the adventurous rider out of sight; then trudged off bravely
to the Flat Rock, miles away behind the far pier, where she loyally
deposited the blue missive. The red one she destroyed by fire
according to orders.
Beth had warned her that she would be tired to death when she got in,
and had better snatch some repose in preparation for the night.
"But if I oversleep myself and am not on the look-out for you when you
come, what will you do?" Charlotte objected.
"Leave that to me," said Beth.
And Charlotte did accordingly with perfect confidence.
When she awoke the room was dark, but there was a motionless figure
sitting in the window, clearly silhouetted against the sky. Charlotte,
who expected surprises, was pleasantly startled.
"Is all safe in the west, sister?" she said softly, raising herself on
her elbow.
"Yes," was the reply, "but clouds are gathering in the north. Our hope
is in the east. Let us pray for the sunrise. You left the letter?"
"Yes. As fast as I could fly I went."
"Ah! then it will be gone by this time!" Beth ejaculated with
conviction. The Flat Rock was only uncovered at low water, and now the
tide was high. "Can you get me some food, little one, for I am
famished?" she proceeded. "I have had nothing since the morning, and
have ridden far, and have done much."
"Oh dear! oh dear!" said Charlotte. "And you got me such good things!"
"Ah! that was different," Beth rejoined.
Charlotte stole downstairs. Her father had been out seeing his
patients all day, and had not troubled about her.
She returned with chicken and ham, cold apple-tart and cream, and a
little jug of cider.
Poor Beth, accustomed to the most uninteresting food, and not enough
of that, was so exhausted by her long fast and arduous labours, that
she found it difficult to restrain her tears at the sight of such good
things. She ate and drank with seemly self-restraint, however; it
would have lowered her much in her own estimation if she had showed
any sign of the voracity she felt.
Then the watch began. Having wrapped themselves up in their walking
things to be ready for any emergency, they locked the door and opened
the window softly. They were in a room at the top of the house, which,
being next door to the Benyons, commanded the same extensive view down
the front street and a bit of Rock Street and the back street, and up
Orchard Street on the left to the church. They were watching for a
sailor in a smart yachting suit, a man-of-war's man with bare feet,
and a priest in a heavy black cloak. Beth, greatly refreshed and
stimulated by her supper and the cider, fell into her most fascinating
mood; and Charlotte listened enthralled to wonderful descriptions of
places she had visited with Hector, sights she had seen, and events
she had taken part in.
"But how is it you are not missed from home when you go away like
that?" said Charlotte.
"How is it I am not missed to-night?" Beth answered. "When you are
fully initiated into the Secret Service of Humanity you will find that
things happen in a way you would never suspect."
"I suppose it is all right and proper being so much alone with single
gentlemen," Charlotte just ventured.
"All things are right and proper so long as you do nothing wrong,"
Beth answered sententiously.
Lights began to move from room to room in the houses about them,
gigantic shadows of people appeared on white window blinds in
fantastic poses, and there was much moving to and fro as they prepared
for bed. Then one by one the lights went out, and in the little
old-fashioned window-panes the dark brightness of the sky and the
crystal stars alone were reflected. It was a fine clear night, the gas
burnt brightly in the quiet streets, there was not a soul stirring.
"Isn't it exquisite?" said Beth, sniffing the sweet air. "I am glad I
was born, if it is only for the sake of being alive at night."
After this they were silent. Then by degrees the desire for sleep
became imperative, and they both suffered acutely in their efforts to
resist it. Finally Charlotte was vanquished, and Beth made her lie
down on the bed. As she dropped off she saw Beth sitting rigidly at
the open window; when she awoke it was bright daylight, and Beth was
still there in exactly the same attitude.
"Beth," she exclaimed, "you are superhuman!"
"Ah!" said Beth, with a mysterious smile, "when you have learnt to
listen to the whispers of the night, and know what they signify as I
do, you will not wonder. Marvellous things have been happening while
you slept."
"O Beth!" said Charlotte reproachfully, "why didn't you wake me?"
"I was forbidden," Beth answered sadly. "But now watch for me. It is
your turn, and I must sleep. A yachtsman or a man-of-war's man with
bare feet, remember."
Beth curled herself up on the bed, and Charlotte, very weary and
aching all over, but sternly determined to do her duty, took her place
in the window. She had her reward, however, and when Beth awoke she
found her all on the alert, for she had seen the yachtsman. He came up
the street and hung about a little, pretending to look at the shops,
then walked away briskly, which showed Charlotte that the plot was
thickening, and greatly excited her. Beth smiled and nodded as though
well satisfied when she heard the news, but preserved an enigmatical
silence.
Then Charlotte went downstairs and smuggled her up such a good
breakfast--fried ham, boiled eggs, hot rolls with plenty of butter,
and delicious coffee--that the famishing Beth was fain to exclaim with
genuine enthusiasm--
"In spite of all the difficulty, danger, and privation we have to
endure in the Secret Service of Humanity, Charlotte, is there anything
to equal the delight of it?"
And Charlotte solemnly asseverated that there was not.
Much stimulated by her breakfast, Beth took leave of Charlotte. She
must be alone, she said, she had much to think about. She went to the
farther shore to be away from everybody. She wanted to hear what the
little waves were saying to the sand as they rippled over it. It was
another grey day, close and still, and the murmur of the calm sea
threw her at once into a dreamy state, full of pleasurable excitement.
She hid herself in a spot most soothing from its apparent remoteness,
a sandy cove from which, because of the projecting cliffs on either
hand, neither town nor coast could be seen, but only the sea and sky.
Although the grey was uniform enough to make it impossible to tell
where cloud met water on the horizon, it was not dull, but luminous
with the sunshine it enfolded, and full of colour in fine gradations
as Beth beheld it. She sat a long time on the warm dry sand, with her
chin resting on her knees, and her hands clasped round them, not
gazing with seeing eyes nor listening with open ears, but
apprehending through her further faculty the great harmony of Nature
of which she herself was one of the triumphant notes. At that moment
she tasted life at its best and fullest--life all ease and grace and
beauty, without regret or longing--perfect life in that she wanted
nothing more. But she rose at last, and, still gazing at the sea,
slowly unclasped her waistbelt, and let it fall on the sand at her
feet; then she took her hat off, her dress, her boots and stockings,
everything, and stood, ivory-white, with bright brown wavy hair,
against the lilac greyness under the tall dark cliffs. The little
waves had called her, coming up closer and closer, and fascinating
her, until, yielding to their allurements, she went in amongst them,
and floated on them, or lay her length in the shallows, letting them
ripple over her, and make merry about her, the gladdest girl alive,
yet with the wrapt impassive face of a devotee whose ecstasy is apart
from all that acts on mere flesh and makes expression. All through
life Beth had her moments, and they were generally such as this, when
her higher self was near upon release from its fetters, and she arose
an interval towards oneness with the Eternal.
But on this occasion she was surprised in her happy solitude. A troop
of what Mrs. Caldwell called "common girls" came suddenly round the
cliff into her sheltered nook, with shouts of laughter, also bent on
bathing. Beth plunged in deeper to cover herself the moment they
appeared; but they did not expect her to have anything on, and her
modesty was lost upon them.
"How's the water?" they shouted.
"Delicious," she answered, glad to find them friendly.
They undressed as they came along, and were very soon, all of them,
playing about her, ducking and splashing each other, and Beth also,
including her sociably in their game. And Beth, as was her wont,
responded so cordially that she was very soon heading the
manoeuvres.
"We shall all be ill if we stay in any longer," she said at last. "I
shall take one more dip and go and dress. Let's all take hands and dip
in a row."
They did so, and then, still hand in hand, scampered up on to the
beach.
"My!" one of them exclaimed, when they came to their clothes and had
broken the line,--"My! ain't _she_ nice!"
Then all the other girls stood and stared at Beth, whose fine limbs
and satin-smooth white skin, so different in colour and texture from
their own, drew from them the most candid expressions of admiration.
Beth, covered with confusion, hurried on a garment all wet as she was,
for she had no towel; and then, in order to distract their attention
from her body, she began to display her mind.
"Eh, I have had a good time!" one of the girls exclaimed. "Let's come
again often."
"Let us form a secret society," said Beth, "and I will be your leader,
and we'll have a watchword and a sign; and when the water is right,
I'll send the word round, and then we'll start out unobserved, and
meet here, and bathe in secret."
"My! that would be fine!" the girls agreed.
"But that's not all," said Beth, standing with her chemise only half
on, oblivious of everything now but her subject. "It would be much
better than that. There would be much more in it. We could meet in the
fields by moonlight, and I would drill you, and show you a great many
things, all for the Secret Service of Humanity. You don't know what
we're doing! We're going to make the world just like heaven, and
everybody will be good and beautiful, and have enough of everything,
and we shall all be happy, because nobody will care to be happy unless
everybody else has been made so. But it will be very hard work to
bring it about. The wicked people are doing all they can to prevent
us, and the devil himself is fighting against us. We shall conquer,
however; and those who are first in the fight will be first for the
glory!"
The girls, some standing, some sitting, most of them with nothing on,
remained motionless while she spoke, not understanding much, yet so
moved by the power of her personality, that when she exclaimed, "Well,
what do you say, girls? will you join?" they all exclaimed with
enthusiasm, "We will! we will!"
And then they made haste to dress as if the millennium could be
hurried here by the rate at which they put on their clothes. Beth then
and there composed a terrible oath, binding them to secrecy and
obedience, and swore them all in solemnly; then she chose one for her
orderly, who was to take round the word on occasion; and they were all
to meet again in the fields behind the church on Saturday at eight
o'clock.
But in the meantime, not a word!
Beth made Charlotte captain of the band; and drills, bathing rites,
and other mysteries were regularly conducted, the girls being bound
together more securely by the fascination of Beth's discourses, and
the continual interest she managed to inspire, than by any respect
they had for an oath. Beth's interest in them extended to the smallest
detail of their lives. She knew which would be absent from drill
because it was washing-day, and which was weak for want of food; and
she resumed her poaching habits--only on Uncle James Patten's estate,
of course--and, having beguiled a gunsmith into letting her have an
air-gun on credit, she managed to snare and shoot birds enough to
relieve their necessities to an appreciable extent. She never let any
one into the secret of those supplies, and the mystery added greatly
to her credit with the girls.
That season some friends of the Benyons brought their boys to stay at
Rainharbour for the holidays, and Beth varied her other pursuits by
rambling about with them, Lady Benyon having seen to it that she made
their acquaintance legitimately, for the old lady shrewdly suspected
that Beth was already beginning to attract attention. From her post of
observation in the window she had seen young men turn in the street
and look back at the slender girl, in spite of her short petticoats,
with more interest than many a maturer figure aroused; and she had
heard that Beth Caldwell was already much discussed. Beth's brother
Jim, when he came home that summer, also began to introduce her to his
young men friends in the neighbourhood, so that very soon Beth had
quite a little court about her on the pier when the band played. She
liked the boys, and the young men she found an absorbing study; but
not one of them touched her heart. Her acquaintance with Alfred had
made her fastidious. He had had sense enough to respect her, and his
companionship had given her a fine foretaste of the love that is
ennobling, the love that makes for high ideals of character and
conduct, for fine purpose, spiritual power, and intellectual
development, the one kind worth cultivating. In these more
sophisticated youths she found nothing soul-sustaining. She
philandered with some of them up to the point where comparisons become
inevitable, and, so long as they met her in a spirit of frank
camaraderie, it was agreeable enough; but when, with their commonplace
minds, they presumed to be sentimental, they became intolerable. Still
the glow was there in her breast often and often, and would be
momentarily directed towards one and another; but the brightness of it
only showed the defects in each; and so she remained in love with love
alone, and the power of passion in her, thwarted, was transmuted into
mental energy.
But Beth learnt a good deal from her young men that summer--learnt her
own power, for one thing, when she found that she could twist the
whole lot of them round her little finger if she chose. The thing
about them that interested her most, however, was their point of view.
She found one trait common to all of them when they talked to her, and
that was a certain assumption of superiority which impressed her very
much at first, so that she was prepared to accept their opinions as
confidently as they gave them; and they always had one ready to give
on no matter what subject. Beth, perceiving that this superiority was
not innate, tried to discover how it was acquired that she might
cultivate it. Gathering from their attitude towards her ignorance that
this superiority rested somehow on a knowledge of the Latin grammar,
she hunted up an old one of her brother's and opened it with awe, so
much seemed to depend on it. Verbs and declensions came easily enough
to her, however. The construction of the language was puzzling at the
outset; but, with a little help, she soon discovered that even in that
there was nothing occult. Any industrious, persevering person could
learn a language, she decided; and then she made more observations.
She discovered that, in the estimation of men, feminine attributes are
all inferior to masculine attributes. Any evidence of reasoning
capacity in a woman they held to be abnormal, and they denied that
women were ever logical. They had to allow that women's intuition was
often accurate, but it was inferior, nevertheless, they maintained, to
man's uncertain reason; and such qualities as were undeniable they
managed to discount, as, for instance, in the matter of endurance. If
women were long enduring, they said, it was not because their
fortitude was greater, but because they were less sensitive to
suffering, and so, in point of fact, suffered less than men would
under the circumstances.
This persistent endeavour to exalt themselves by lowering women struck
Beth as mean, and made her thoughtful. She began by respecting their
masculine minds as much as they did themselves; but then came a doubt
if they were any larger and more capable than the minds of women would
be if they were properly trained and developed; and she began to dip
into the books they prided themselves on having read, to see if they
were past her comprehension. She studied Pope's translation of the
Iliad and Odyssey indoors, and she also took the little volume out
under her arm; but this was a pose, for she could not read out of
doors, there were always so many other interests to occupy her
attention--birds and beasts, men and women, trees and flowers, land
and water; all much more entrancing than the Iliad or Odyssey. Long
years afterwards she returned to these old-world works with keen
appreciation, and wondered at her early self; but when she read them
first, she took their meanings too literally, and soon wearied of
warlike heroes, however great a number of their fellow-creatures they
might slay at a time, and of chattel heroines, however beautiful,
which was all that Homer conveyed to her; not did she find herself
elated by her knowledge of their exploits. She noticed, however, that
the acquisition of such knowledge imposed upon the boys, and gained
her a reputation for cleverness which made the young university prigs
think it worth their while to talk to her. They had failed to discover
her natural powers because there was no one to tell them she had any,
and they only thought what they were told to think about people and
things, and admired what they were told to admire. In this Beth
differed from them widely, for she began by having tastes of her own.
She did not believe that they enjoyed Homer a bit more than she did;
but the right pose was to pretend that they did; so they posed and
pretended, according to order, and Beth posed and pretended too, just
to see what would come of it.
It was a young tutor in charge of a reading-party who helped Beth with
the Latin grammar. He managed to ingratiate himself with Mrs.
Caldwell, and came often to the house; and finally he began to teach
Beth Latin at her own request, and with the consent of her mother. The
lessons had not gone on very long, however, before he tried to
insinuate into his teaching some of the kind of sophistries which
another tutor had imposed by way of moral philosophy on Rousseau's
Madame de Warens in her girlhood, to her undoing. This was all new to
Beth, and she listened with great interest; but she failed utterly to
see why not believing in a God should make it right and proper for her
to embrace the tutor: so the lessons ended abruptly. Beth profited
largely by the acquaintance, however,--not so much at the time,
perhaps, as afterwards, when she was older, and had gained knowledge
enough of men of various kinds to enable her to compare and reflect.
It was her first introduction to the commonplace cleverness of the
academic mind, the mere acquisitive faculty which lives on pillage,
originates nothing itself, and, as a rule, fails to understand, let
alone appreciate, originality in others. The young tutor's ambition
was to be one of a shining literary clique of extraordinary cheapness
which had just then begun to be formed. The taint of a flippant wit
was common to all its members, and their assurance was unbounded. They
undertook to extinguish anybody with a few fine phrases; and, in their
conceited irreverence, they even attacked eternal principles, the
sources of the best inspiration of all ages, and pronounced sentence
upon them. Repute of a kind they gained, but it was by glib
falsifications of all that is noble in sentiment, thought, and action,
all that is good and true. It was the contraction of her own heart,
the chill and dulness that settled upon her when she was with this
man, as compared to the glow and expansion, the release of her finer
faculties, which she had always experienced when under the influence
of Aunt Victoria's simple goodness, that first put Beth in the way of
observing how inferior in force and charm mere intellect is to
spiritual power, and how soon it bores, even when brilliant, if
unaccompanied by other endowments, qualities of heart and soul, such
as constancy, loyalty, truthfulness, and that scrupulous honesty of
action which answers to what is expected as well as to what is known
of us.
Beth played very diligently at learning during this experiment, but
only played for a time. The mind in process of forming itself
involuntarily rejects all that is unnecessary, and that kind of
knowledge was not for her. It opened up no prospect of pleasure in
itself. All she cared to know was what it felt like to have mastered
it; and that she arrived at by resolving herself into a lady of great
attainments, who talked altogether about things she had learnt, but
had nothing in her mind besides. A mind with nothing else in it, in
Beth's sense of the word, was to Beth what plainness is to beauty; so,
while many of her contemporaries were stultifying themselves with
Greek and Latin ingenuities, she pursued the cultivation of that in
herself which is beyond our ordinary apprehension, that which is more
potent than knowledge, more fertilising to the mind--that by which
knowledge is converted from a fallow field into a fruitful garden.
Altogether, apart from her special subject, she learnt only enough of
anything to express herself; but it was extraordinary how aptly she
utilised all that was necessary for her purpose, and how invariably
she found what she wanted--if found be the right word; for it was
rather as if information were flashed into her mind from some outside
agency at critical times when she could not possibly have done without
it.
One sad consequence of her separation from Alfred, and the strange
things she did and dreamed for distraction in the unrest of her mind,
was a change in her constitution. Her first fine flush of health was
over, the equability of her temper was disturbed, and she became
subject to hysterical outbursts of garrulity, to fits of moody
silence, to apparently causeless paroxysms of laughter or tears; and
she was always anxious. She had real cause for anxiety, however, for,
in her efforts to realise her romance to Charlotte's satisfaction, she
had run up little bills all over the place. What would happen when
they were presented, as they certainly would be sooner or later, she
dared not think; but the dread of the moment preyed upon her mind to
such an extent that, whenever she heard a knock at the door, she
entreated God to grant that it might not be a bill. And even when
there were no knocks, she went on entreating to be spared, and worked
herself into such a chronic fever of worry that she was worn to a
shadow, and developed a racking cough which gave her no peace.
Just at this time, too, the whole place began to be scandalised by her
vagaries, her mysterious expeditions on the big brown horse, and her
constant appearance in public with a coterie of young men about her.
At a time when anything unconventional in a girl was clear evidence of
vice to all the men and most of the women who knew of it, Beth's
reputation was bound to suffer, and it became so bad at last that Dr.
Hardy forbade Charlotte to associate with her. Charlotte told her with
tears, and begged to be allowed to meet her in the Secret Service of
Humanity as usual; but Beth refused. She said it was too dangerous
just then, they must wait; the truth being that she was sick of the
Secret Service of Humanity, of Charlotte, of everything and everybody
that prevented her hearing when there was a knock at the door, and
praying to the Lord that it might not be a bill.
The secret society was practically dissolved by this time, and very
soon afterwards the catastrophe Beth had been dreading occurred, and
wrought a great change in her life. It happened one day when she was
not at home. Aunt Grace Mary was so alarmed by her cough and the
delicacy of her appearance that she had braved Uncle James and carried
her off to stay with her at Fairholm for a change. Once she was away
from the sound of the knocks, Beth suffered less, and began to revive
and be herself again to the extent of taking Aunt Grace Mary into her
confidence boldly.
"Beth, Beth, Beth!" said that poor good lady tenderly, "you naughty
girl, how could you! Running in debt with nothing to pay; why, it
isn't honest!"
"So _I_ think," said Beth in cordial agreement, taking herself aside
from her own acts, as it were, and considering them impartially. "Help
me out of this scrape, Aunt Grace Mary, and I'll never get into such
another."
"But how much do you owe, Beth dear?"
"I'm sure I don't know," Beth answered. "Pounds for Tom Briggs alone."
"Who's _he_?" was Aunt Grace Mary's horrified exclamation.
"Oh, only the horse--a dark bay with black points. I rode him a lot,
and oh! it _was_ nice! It was like poetry, like living it, you know,
like being a poem one's self. And I'm glad I did it. If I should die
for it, I couldn't regret it. And I shouldn't wonder if I did die, for
I feel as if those knocks had fairly knocked me to bits."
"Nonsense, Beth, you silly child, don't talk like that," said Aunt
Grace Mary. "What else do you owe?"
"Oh, then there's Mrs. Andrews, the confectioner's, bill."
"Confectioner's!" Aunt Grace Mary exclaimed. "O Beth! I never thought
you were greedy."
"Well, I don't think I am," Beth answered temperately. "I've been very
hungry, though. But I never touched any of those good things myself. I
only got them for Charlotte when she had heavy work to do for the
Secret Service of Humanity."
"The _what_?" Aunt Grace Mary demanded.
"The game we played. Then there's the hairdresser's bill, that must be
pretty big. I had to get curls and plaits and combs and things,
besides having my hair dressed for entertainments to which I was
obliged to go----"
"Beth! _are_ you mad?" Aunt Grace Mary interrupted. "You've never been
to an entertainment in your life."
"No," Beth answered casually, "but I've played at going to no end of a
lot."
"Well, this is the most extraordinary game I ever heard of!"
"But it was such an exciting game," Beth pleaded with a sigh.
"But, my dear child, such a reckless, unprincipled game!"
"But you don't think of that at the time," Beth assured her. "It's all
real and right then. We----"
But here the colloquy was interrupted by the arrival of Mrs. Caldwell
in a state of distraction with the hairdresser's bill in her hand.
Aunt Grace Mary made her sit down, and patted her shoulder soothingly.
Uncle James was out. Beth, greatly relieved, looked on with interest.
She knew that the worst was over.
"Never mind, Caroline," Aunt Grace Mary said cheerfully. "Beth has
just been telling me all about it. Confession is good for the saints,
you know, or the soul, or something; so that's cheering. She has been
very naughty, very naughty indeed, but she is very sorry. She
sincerely regrets. Hairdresser, did you say? Oh, give it to me! Now,
do give it to me, _there's_ a dear! And we won't have another word
about it. Beth, you bad girl, be good, and say you repent."
"Say it!" Beth ejaculated, coughing. "Look at me, and you'll see it,
Aunt Grace Mary. I've been repenting myself to pieces for months."
"Well, dear; well, dear," Aunt Grace Mary rejoined, beaming blandly,
"that will do; that's enough, I'm sure. Mamma forgives you, so we'll
have no more about it."
The hairdresser's bill was the only one Mrs. Caldwell ever heard of,
for Aunt Grace Mary got the use of her pony carriage next day, by
telling Uncle James her mamma had sent Caroline to say she
particularly wished her to take Beth to see her. Uncle James, to whom
any whim of Lady Benyon's was wisdom, ordered the carriage for them
himself; and, as they drove off together, Aunt Grace Mary remarked to
Beth, "I think I managed that very cleverly; don't you?" Naturally
estimable women are forced into habits of dissimulation by the
unreason of the tyrant in authority in many families; and Aunt Grace
Mary was one of the victims. She had been obliged to resort to these
small deceits for so many years, that all she felt about them now was
a sort of mild triumph when they were successful. "I mean to go and
see mamma, you know, so it won't be any story," she added.
She went with Beth first, however, to the various shops where Beth
owed money, and paid her debts; and Beth was so overcome by her
generosity, and so anxious to prove her repentance, that she borrowed
sixpence more from her, and went straightway to the hairdresser's, and
had all her pretty hair cropped off close like a boy's, by way of
atonement. When she appeared, Lady Benyon burst out laughing; but her
mother was even more seriously annoyed than she had been by the
hairdresser's bill. Beth's hair had added considerably to her market
value in Mrs. Caldwell's estimation. She would not have put it so
coarsely, but that was what her feeling on the subject amounted to.
"What is to be done with such a child?" she exclaimed in despair.
"Send her to school," Aunt Grace Mary gasped.
"She would be expelled in a month," Mrs. Caldwell averred.
"Possibly; but it would be worth the trial," Aunt Grace Mary rejoined
in her breathless way.
"Yes," Lady Benyon agreed. "She has been at home far too long, running
wild, and it's the only thing to be done. But let it be a strict
school."
"How am I to afford it?" Mrs. Caldwell wailed, rocking herself on her
chair.
"Well, there's the Royal Service School for Officers' Daughters; you
can get her in there for next to nothing, and it's strict enough,"
Lady Benyon suggested.
And finally, after the loss of some more precious time, and with much
reluctance, Mrs. Caldwell yielded to public opinion, and decided to
deprive Jim of Beth's little income, and send Beth to school, some new
enormities of Beth's having helped considerably to hasten her mother's
decision.