Ilverthorpe was at the other side of the county, and Beth had to go
from Slane to Morningquest by train in order to get there. Dan
continued to be disagreeable in private about her going, but he took
her to the station, and saw her off, so that the public might know
what an admirable husband he was.
On his way from the station he met Sir George Galbraith, and greeted
him with effusion.
"I hope you were coming to see us," he said, "for that would show that
you don't forget our humble existence. But my wife isn't at home, I am
sorry to say. She has just gone to stay with Mrs. Kilroy."
Sir George looked keenly at him. "I hope she is quite well," he said
formally.
"Not too well," Dan answered lugubriously; "and that is why I
encouraged her to go. The fact is, Sir George, I think I've been
making a mistake with Beth. My mother was my perfection of a woman.
She didn't care much for books; but she had good sound common-sense,
and she attended to her husband and her household, and preferred to
stay at home; and I confess I wanted my wife to be like her.
Especially I wanted to keep her pure-minded and unsuspicious of evil;
and _that_ she could not remain if she got drawn into Mrs. Kilroy's
set, and mixed up with the questions about which women are now
agitating themselves. I know you're with them and not with me in the
matter, but you'll allow for my point of view. Well, with regard to
Beth, I find I've made a mistake. I should have let her follow her own
bent, see for herself, and become a woman of the day if she's so
minded. As it is, she is growing morbid for want of an outlet, and
hanging back herself, and it is I who have to urge her on. It's an
heroic operation so far as I'm concerned, for the whole thing is
distasteful to me; but I shall go through with it, and let her be as
independent as she likes."
"This sounds like self-sacrifice," said Sir George. "I sincerely hope
it may answer. We are going different ways, I think. Good-morning." He
raised his hand to his hat in a perfunctory way, and hurried off. The
next time he saw Mrs. Kilroy, he described this encounter with Dr.
Maclure.
"This is a complete change of front," said Angelica; "what does it
mean?"
"When a man of that kind tells his wife to make the most of her life
in her own way and be independent, he means '_Don't bother me; another
woman is the delight of my senses!_' When he says to the other woman
'_Be free!_' he means '_Throw yourself into my arms!_'"
Angelica sighed. "Poor Beth!" she said, "what a fate to be tied to
that plausible hog!"
* * * * *
From having been so much shut up in herself, Beth showed very little
of the contrasts of her temperament on the surface,--her joy in life,
her moments of exaltation, of devotion, of confidence, of harshness,
of tenderness; her awful fits of depression, her doubts, her fears,
her self-distrust; her gusts of passion, and the disconnected impulses
wedged into the well-disciplined routine of a consistent life, ordered
for the most part by principle, reason, and reflection. Few people,
meeting her casually, would have suspected any contrasts at all; and
even of those who knew her best, only one now and then appreciated the
rate at which the busy mind was working, and the changes wrought by
the growth which was continually in progress beneath her equable
demeanour. Those about her, for want of discernment, expected nothing
of her, and suffered shocks of surprise in consequence, which they
resented, blaming her for their own defects.
But it was of much more importance to Beth that she should be able to
pass on with ease from one thing to another than that she should have
the approval of people who would have had her stay where they found
her, not for her benefit, but for their own convenience in classifying
her. Beth made stepping-stones of her knowledge of other people rather
than of her own dead self. She picked to pieces the griefs they
brought upon her, dissected them, and moralised upon them; and, in so
doing, forgot the personal application. While in the midst of what
might have been her own life tragedy, she compared herself with those
who had been through theirs and did not seem a bit the worse or the
better, which observation stimulated her fortitude; when she
contemplated the march of events, that mighty army of atoms, any one
of which may be in command of us for a time, none remaining so for
ever under healthy conditions, she perceived that life is lived in
detail, not in the abstract. The kind of thing that makes the backbone
of a three-volume novel, is but a phase or an incident; everything is
but an incident with all of us, a heart-break to-day, a recollection
to-morrow, a source of encouragement and of inspiration eventually
perhaps; the which, if some would remember, there would be less
despair and fewer suicides. The recognition of this fact had helped
Beth's sense of proportion and was making her philosophical. She
believed that life could be lived so as to make the joys as inevitable
as the sorrows. We are apt to cultivate our sense of pleasure less
than our sense of suffering, by appreciating small pleasures little,
while heeding small pains excessively. Beth's deliberate intention, as
well as her natural impulse, was to reverse this in her own case as
much as possible; she would not let her physical sense of well-being
on a fine morning and her intellectual delight in a good mood for work
be spoilt because of some trouble of the night before. The trouble she
would set aside so that it might not detract from the pleasure.
But fine mornings and good moods for work had not come to her aid
since she discovered the mean treachery of Dan and Bertha, and when
she left Slane she was still oppressed by the sense of their hypocrisy
and deceit. As the train bore her swiftly away from them both,
however, her spirits rose. The sun shone, the country looked lovely in
its autumn bravery of tint and tone; she felt well, and the
contemplation of such people as Dan and Bertha was not elevating; they
must out of her mind like any other unholy thought, that she might be
worthy to associate with the loyal ladies and noble gentlemen whose
hands were outheld to help her. The people we cling to are those with
whom we find ourselves most at home. It is not the people who amuse us
that we like best, but those who stir our deeper emotions, rouse in us
possibilities of generous feeling which lie latent for the most part,
and give form to our higher aspirations; and Beth anticipated with a
happy heart that it was with such she was bound to abide.
Mrs. Kilroy met her at the station at Morningquest. "What a bonny
thing you are!" she exclaimed in her queer abrupt way. "I didn't
realise it till I saw you walking up the platform towards me. There's
a cart to take your luggage to Ilverthorpe. Do you mind coming to
lunch with Mrs. Orton Beg? She has a dear little house in the Close,
and we thought you might like to see the Cathedral. Here's the
carriage. No, you get in first."
"But does Mrs. Orton Beg want me?" Beth asked when they were seated.
"We all want you," said Mrs. Kilroy, "if you will forgive our first
mistake with regard to you, and come out of yourself and be one of us.
And you'll be specially fond of Mrs. Orton Beg when you know her, I
fancy. She's just sweet! She used to hate our works and ways, and be
very conventional; but Edith Beale's marriage opened her eyes. She
would never have believed that men countenanced such an iniquity had
she not seen it herself. The first effect of the shock was to narrow
her judgment and make her severe on men generally; but she will get
over that in time. Man, like woman, is too big a subject to generalise
about. He has his faults, you know, but he must be educated; that is
all he wants. He must be taught to have a better opinion of himself.
At present, he wallows because he thinks he can't keep out of the
mire; but of course he can when he learns how. He's not a bit worse
than woman naturally, only he has a lower opinion of himself, and that
keeps him down. With his training we shouldn't be a bit better than he
is. In all things that concern men and women, you dear, you will find
that, when they start fair, one is not a bit better or worse than the
other. Here we are."
Mrs. Orton Beg came into the hall to greet her guest. She was a
slender, elegant, middle-aged woman, in graceful black draperies, with
hair prematurely grey, and a face that had always been interesting,
but never handsome--a refined, intellectual, but not strong face; the
face of a patient, self-contained, long-enduring person, of settled
purpose, slowly arrived at, and then not easily shaken. She welcomed
Beth cordially, and placed her at table so that she might look out at
the old grey Cathedral. It was the first time Beth had seen it, and
she could have lost herself in the sensation of realising its
traditions, its beauty, and its age; but the conversation went on
briskly, and she had to take her part. Lady Fulda Guthrie, an aunt of
Mrs. Kilroy's, was the only other guest. She was a beautiful saint,
with a soul which had already progressed as far as the most spiritual
part of Catholicism could take it, and she could get no farther in
this incarnation.
"I hope you are prepared to discuss any and every thing, Mrs.
Maclure," Mrs. Orton Beg warned Beth; "for that is what you will find
yourself called upon to do among us. The peculiarity of man is that he
will do the most atrocious things without compunction, but would be
shocked if he were called upon to discuss them. Do what you like, is
his principle, but don't mention it; people form their opinions in
discussion, and opinions are apt to be adverse. Our principle is very
much the opposite."
"I have just begun to know the necessity for open discussion," Beth
answered tranquilly. "I do not see how we can arrive at happiness in
life if we do not try to discover the sources of misery. I know of
nothing that earnest men and women should hesitate to discuss openly
on proper occasions."
"Oh, I'm thankful to hear you say 'men and women,'" Angelica broke in.
"That is the right new spirit! Let us help one another. Any attempt to
separate the interests of the sexes, as women here and there, and men
generally, would have them separated, is fatal to the welfare of the
whole race. The efforts of foolish people to divide the interests of
men and women make me writhe--as if we were not utterly bound up in
one another, and destined to rise or fall together! But this woman
movement is towards the perfecting of life, not towards the
disruption of it. I asked a sympathetic woman the other day why she
took no part in it, and she answered profoundly, 'Because I am a part
_of_ it.' And I am sure she was right. I am sure it is evolutionary.
It is an effort of the race to raise itself a step higher in the scale
of being. For see what it resolves itself into! Men respond to what
women expect of them. When warriors were the women's ideal, men were
warriors. When women preferred knights, priests, or troubadours, a
man's ambition was to be a knight, priest, or troubadour. When women
thought drunkenness fine, men were drunken. Now women want husbands of
a nobler nature, strong in all the attributes, moral and physical, of
the perfect man, that their children may be noble too, and thus the
ascent of man to higher planes of being become assured."
"Great is the power of thought," said Lady Fulda. "By thinking these
things the race is evolving them. Thought married to suggestion is a
creative force. If the race believed it would have wings; in the
course of ages wings would come of the faith."
"And discussion is not enough," Beth resumed. "We should experiment.
It is very well to hold opinions and set up theories, but opinions and
theories are alike valueless until they are tested by experiment."
"I see you are a true radical," said Mrs. Orton Beg. "You would go to
the root of the matter."
"Oh yes, I am a radical in that sense of the word," Beth answered. "I
have a horror of conservatism. Nothing is stationary. All things are
always in a state of growth or decay; and conservatism is a state of
decay."
"Yes," said Angelica. "That is very true, especially as applied to
women--if they are ever to advance."
"Then don't you think they are advancing?" Beth asked.
"Yes," said Angelica, "but not as much as they might. When you mix
more with them in the way of work you will be disheartened. Women are
their own worst enemies just now. They don't follow their leaders
loyally and consistently; they have little idea of discipline; their
tendency is to go off on side issues and break up into little cliques.
They are largely actuated by petty personal motives, by petty
jealousies, by pettinesses of all kinds. One amongst them will arise
here and there, and do something great that is an honour to them all;
but they do not honour her for it--perhaps because something in the
way she dresses, or some trick of manner, does not meet with the
approval of the majority. Women are for ever stumbling over trifling
details. To prove themselves right pleases them better than to arrive
at the truth; and a vulgar personal triumph is of more moment than
the triumph of a great cause. In these things they are practically not
a bit better than men."
"They seem worse, in fact, because we expect so much more of them in the
way of loyalty and disinterestedness," said Mrs. Orton Beg; "and their
power is so much greater, too, in social matters; when they misuse it,
they do much more harm. This will not always be so, of course. As their
minds expand, they will see and understand better. At present they do
not know enough to appreciate their own deficiencies--they do not
measure the weakness of their vacillations by comparing it with the
steady strength of purpose that prevails; and, for want of
comprehension, they aim their silly animadversions to-day at some one
whose work they are glad enough to profit by to-morrow; they make the
task of a benefactress so hard that they kill her, and then they give
her a public funeral. I pity them!"
"Oh, do not be hasty," said Lady Fulda. "Human beings are not like
packs of cards, to be shuffled into different combinations at will and
nobody the worse. There are feelings to be considered. The old sores
must be tenderly touched even by those who would heal them. And when
we uproot we must be careful to replant under more favourable
conditions; when we demolish we should be prepared to rebuild, or no
comfort will come of the changes. These things take time, and are best
done deliberately, and even then the most cautious make their
mistakes. But, still, I believe that the force which is carrying us
along is the force that makes for righteousness. We women have in our
minds now what will culminate in the recognition by future generations
of the beauty of goodness. Woman is to be the mother of God in Man."
Beth's heart swelled at the words. This attitude was new to her; and
yet all that was said she seemed to have heard before, and known from
the first. And she knew more also, away back in that region beyond
time and space to which she had access, and where she found herself at
happy moments transported by an impulse outside herself, which she
could not control by any effort of will. That day, with those new
friends, she felt like one who returns to a happy home after weary
wanderings, and is warmly welcomed. A great calm settled upon her
spirit. She said little the whole time, but sat, sure of their
sympathetic tolerance, and listened to them with that living light of
interest in her eyes to which the heart responds with confidence more
surely than to any spoken word. The evil influences which had held her
tense at Slane had no power to trouble her here. She was high enough
above Dan and Bertha to look down upon them dispassionately, knowing
them for what they were, yet personally unaffected by their turpitude.
It was as if she had heard of some bad deed, and knew it to be
repulsive, a thing intolerable, meriting punishment; yet, because it
did not concern her, it had lapsed from her thoughts like a casual
paragraph read in a paper which had not brought home to her any
realisation of what it recorded.
During the afternoon her mind was stored with serene impressions--service
in the venerable Cathedral; the fluting of an anthem by a boy with a
birdlike voice; some strong words from the pulpit, not on the dry bones
of doctrine, nor the doings of a barbarous people led by a vengeful
demon of perplexing attributes whom they worshipped as a deity, but on
the conduct of life--a vital subject. Then, as they drove through the
beautiful old city, there came impressions of grey and green; grey
gateways, ancient buildings, ivy, and old trees, and, over all, sounding
slow, calm, and significant, the marvellous chime, the message which
Morningquest heard hourly year by year, and heeded no more than it
heeded death at a distance or political complications in Peru.
The same party met again at Ilverthorpe, but there were others there
as well--Ideala, Mrs. Kilroy's father and mother Mr. and Lady Adeline
Hamilton-Wells, and Lady Galbraith, but not Sir George.
In the drawing-room after dinner, Beth was intent upon a portfolio of
drawings, and Ideala, seeing her alone, went up to her.
"Are you fond of pictures?" she said to Beth.
"Yes, that is just the word," Beth answered. "I am so 'fond' of them
that even such a collection as this, which shows great industry rather
than great art, I find full of interest, and delight in. Happy for me,
perhaps, that I don't know anything about technique. Subject appeals
to my imagination as it used to do when I was a child, and loved to
linger over the pictures on old-fashioned pieces of music. Those
pictures lure me still with strange sensations such as no others make
me feel. I wish I could realise now as vividly as I realised then the
beauty of that lovely lady on the song, and the whole pathetic
story--the gem that decked her queenly brow and bound her raven hair,
remained a sad memorial of blighted love's despair; and that other
young creature who wore a wreath of roses on the night when first we
met; and the one who related that we met, 'twas in a crowd, and I
thought he would shun me; he came, I could not breathe, for his eye
was upon me, and concluded that 'twas thou that had caused me this
anguish, my mother. There was the gallant corsair, too, just stepping
out of a boat, waving his hat. His curly hair, open shirt collar, and
black tie with flying ends remain in my mind, intimately associated
with Byron, young love, some who never smiled again, the sapphire
night, crisp, clear, cold, thick-strewn with stars, all sparkling
with frosty brightness--impressions I would not exchange for art
understood, or anything I am capable of feeling now before the
greatest work of art in the world--so strangely am I blunted."
"What, already!" Ideala said compassionately. "But that is only a
phase. You will come out of it, and be young again and feel strongly,
which is better than knowing, I concede. The truest appreciation of a
work of art does not take place in the head, but in the heart; not in
thinking, but in feeling. When we stand before a picture, it is not by
the thoughts formulated in the mind, but by the appreciation which
suffuses our whole being with pleasure that we should estimate it."
"But isn't that a sensuous attitude?" Beth objected.
"Yes, of the right kind," Ideala rejoined. "The senses have their uses,
you know. And it is exactly your attitude as a child towards the
pictures on the songs. You felt it all--all the full significance--long
before you knew it so that you could render it into words; and felt
more, probably, than you will ever be able to express. Feeling is the
first stage of fine thought."
Mr. Hamilton-Wells strolled towards them. He was a rather tall,
exceedingly thin man, with straight, thick, grey-brown hair, parted in
the middle, and plastered down on either side of his head. He was
dressed in black velvet. His long thin white hands were bedecked with
handsome antique rings, art treasures in their way. One intaglio,
carved in red coral, caught the eye especially, on the first finger of
his right hand. As he talked he had a trick of shaking his hands back
with a gesture that suggested lace ruffles getting in the way, and in
his whole appearance and demeanour there was something that recalled
the days when velvet and lace were in vogue for gentlemen. He spoke
with great preciseness, and it was not always possible to be sure that
he at all appreciated the effect of the extraordinary remarks he was
in the habit of making; which apparent obliviousness enabled him to
discourse about many things without offence which other people were
obliged to leave unmentioned.
"Nowadays, when I see two ladies together in a corner, talking
earnestly," he observed, "I always suspect that they are discussing
the sex question."
"Oh, the sex question!" Ideala exclaimed. "I am sick of sex! Sex is a
thing to be endured or enjoyed, not to be discussed."
"Indeed!" said Mr. Hamilton-Wells, nodding slowly, as if in profound
consideration, and shaking back his imaginary ruffles. "Is that your
opinion, Mrs. Maclure?"
"I keep a separate compartment in my mind for the sex question," Beth
answered, colouring--"a compartment which has to be artificially
lighted. There is no ray of myself that would naturally penetrate to
it. When I take up a book, and find that it is nothing but _she was
beautiful, he loved her_, I put it down again with a groan. The
monotony of the subject palls upon me. It is the stock-in-trade of
every author, as if there were nothing of interest in the lives of men
and women but their sexual relations."
"Indeed, yes," said Mr. Hamilton-Wells, with bland deliberation, "but
society thinks of nothing else. Blatant sexuality is the predominant
characteristic of the upper classes, and the rage for the sexual
passion is principally set up and fostered by a literature inflated
with sexuality, and by costumes which seem to be designed for the
purpose. In the evening, now, just think! Even quite elderly ladies,
with a laudable desire to please, offer themselves in evening
dress--and a very great deal of themselves sometimes--to the eye that
may be attracted."
When he had spoken, he shook back his imaginary ruffles, brought his
hands together in front of him with the fingers tip to tip in a pious
attitude, and strolled up the long room slowly, shaking his head at
intervals with an intent expression, as if he were praying for
society.
"What a bomb!" Beth gasped. "Is he always so?"
"Generally," Ideala rejoined. "And I can never make out whether he
means well, but is stupid and tactless, or whether he delights to
spring such explosives on inoffensive people. He sits on a Board of
Guardians composed of ladies and gentlemen, and the other day, at one
of their meetings, he proposed to remove the stigma attaching to
illegitimacy. He said that illegitimacy cannot justly be held to
reflect on anybody's conduct, since, so he had always understood,
illegitimacy was birth from natural causes."
"And what happened?"
Ideala slightly shrugged her shoulders. "The proposition was seriously
discussed, and a parson and one or two other members of the board
threatened to retire if he remained on it. But remain he did, and let
them retire; and I cannot help fancying that his whole object was to
get them to go. Sometimes I think that he must have a peculiar sense
of humour, which it gives him great gratification to indulge, as
others do good, by stealth. He makes questionable jests for himself
only, and enjoys them alone. But apart from this eccentricity, he is a
kind and generous man, always ready to help with time and money when
there is any good to be done."
When Beth went to her room that night, she experienced a strange sense
of satisfaction which she could not account for until she found
herself alone, with no fear of being disturbed. It seemed to her then
that she had never before known what comfort was, never slept in such
a delightful bed, so fresh and cool and sweet. She was like one who
has been bathed and perfumed after the defilements of a long dusty
journey, and is able to rest in peace. As she stretched herself
between the sheets, she experienced a blessed sensation of relief,
which was a revelation to her. Until that moment, she had never quite
realised the awful oppression of her married life; the inevitable
degradation of intimate association with such a man as her husband.
The next day the ladies went out to sit on the lawn together in the
shade of the trees, with their books and work. There were no sounds
but such as, in the country, seem to accentuate the quiet, and are
aids, not to thought, but to that higher faculty which awakes in the
silence, and is to thought what the mechanical instrument is to the
voice.
"How heavenly still it is!" Beth ejaculated. "It stirs me--fills me--how
shall I express it?--makes me cognisant in some sort--conscious of
things I don't know--things beyond all this, and even better worth our
attention. The stillness here in these surroundings has the same benign
effect on me that perfect solitude has elsewhere. What a luxury it is,
though--solitude! I mean the privilege of being alone when one feels the
necessity. I am fortunate, however," she added quickly, lest she should
seem to be making a personal complaint, "in that I have a secret chamber
all to myself, and so high up that I can almost hear what the wind
whispers to the stars to make them twinkle. I go there when I want to be
alone to think my thoughts, and no one disturbs me--not even my nearest
neighbours, the angels; though if they did sometimes, I should not
complain."
"They come closer than you think, perhaps," said Lady Fulda, who had
just strolled up, with a great bunch of lilies on her arm. "Consider
the lilies," she went on, holding them out to Beth. "Look into them.
Think about them. No, though, do not think about them--feel. There is
purification in the sensation of their beauty."
"Is purification always possible?" Beth said. "Can evil ever be cast
out once it has taken root in the mind?"
"Are you speaking of thoughts or acts, I wonder?" Lady Fulda rejoined,
sitting down beside Beth and looking dreamily into her flowers. "You
know what we hold here: that no false step is irretrievable so long as
we desire what is perfectly right. It is not the things we know of,
nor even the things we have done, if the act is not habitual,--but the
things we approve of that brand us as bad. The woman whose principles
are formed out of a knowledge of good and evil is better, is more to
be relied upon, than the woman who does not know enough to choose
between them. It is not what the body does, but what the mind thinks
that corrupts us."
"But from certain deeds evil thoughts are inseparable," Beth sighed;
"and surely toleration of evil comes from undue familiarity with it?"
"Yes, if you do not keep your condemnation side by side with your
knowledge of it," Lady Fulda agreed.
The night before she returned to Slane, Beth attended a meeting of the
new order which Ideala had founded. It was the first thing of the kind
she had been to, and she was much interested in the proceedings. Only
women were present. Beth was one of a semicircle of ladies who sat on
the platform behind the chair. There were subjects of grave social
importance under discussion, and most of the speaking was exceedingly
good, wise, temperate, and certainly not wanting in humour.
Towards the end of the evening there was an awkward pause because a
lady who was to have spoken had not arrived. Mrs. Kilroy, who was in
the chair, looked round for some one to fill the gap, and caught
Beth's eye.
"May I speak?" Beth whispered eagerly, leaning over to her. "I have
something to say."
Angelica nodded, gave the audience Beth's name, and then leant back in
her chair. The shorthand writers looked up indifferently, not
expecting to hear anything worth recording.
Beth went forward to the edge of the platform with a look of
intentness on her delicate face, and utterly oblivious of herself, or
anything else but her subject. She never thought of asking herself if
she could speak. All she considered was what she was going to say. She
clasped her slender hands in front of her, and began, slowly, with the
formula she had heard the other speakers use: "Madam Chairman,
ladies--" She paused, then suddenly spoke out on _The Desecration of
Marriage_.
At the first resonant notes of her clear, dispassionate voice, there
was a movement of interest, a kind of awakening, in the hall, and the
ladies on the platform behind her, who had been whispering to each
other, writing notes and passing them about, and paying more attention
to the business of the meeting generally than to the speakers, paused
and looked up.
Suddenly Ideala, with kindling eyes, leant over to Mrs. Orton Beg,
grasped her arm, and said something eagerly. Mrs. Orton Beg nodded.
The word went round. Beth held the hall, and was still rising from
point to point, carrying the audience with her to a pitch of
excitement which finally culminated in a great burst of applause.
Beth, taken aback, stopped short, surprised and bewildered by the
racket; looked about her, faltered a few more words, and then sat down
abruptly.
The applause was renewed and prolonged.
"What does it mean?" Beth asked Ideala in an agony. "Did I say
something absurd?"
"My dear child," Ideala answered, laughing, "they are not jeering, but
cheering!"
"Is that cheering?" Beth exclaimed in an awe-stricken tone, overcome
to find she had produced such an effect. "I feared they meant to be
derisive."
"I didn't know you were a speaker," Mrs. Orton Beg whispered.
"I am not," Beth answered apologetically. "I never spoke before, nor
heard any one else speak till to-night. Only I have thought and
thought about these things, and I could not keep it back, what I had
to say."
"That is the stuff an orator is made of," some strange lady muttered
approvingly.