Beth, surrounded by friends, saw the spring come in that year at
Ilverthorpe, and felt it the fairest spring she could remember.
Blackbird and thrush sang in an ecstasy by day, and all night long the
nightingales trilled in the happy dusk. She did not ask herself why it
was there was a new note in nature that year, nor did she trouble
herself about time or eternity. Her eternity was the exquisite
monotony of tranquil days, her time-keepers the spring flowers, the
apple-blossom and quince, daffodil, wallflower, lilac and laburnum,
the perfumed calycanthus, forget-me-nots, pansies, hyacinths,
lilies-of-the-valley in the woods, and early roses on a warm south
wall; and over all the lark by day, and again at night the
nightingale. In a life like hers, after a period of probation there
comes an interval of this kind occasionally, a pause for rest and
renewal of strength before active service begins again.
While she had been shut up with Arthur, seeing no papers and hearing
no news, her book had come out and achieved a very respectable
success, for the sort of thing it was; and she was pleased to hear it,
but not elated. The subject had somehow lapsed from her mind, and the
career of the book gave her no more personal pleasure than if it had
been the work of a friend. Had it come out when it was first finished,
she would have felt differently about it; but now she saw it as only
one of the many things which had happened to her, and considered it
more as the old consider the works of their youth, estimating them in
proportion, as is the habit of age, and moderately rather than in
excess. For the truth was that a great change had come over Beth
during the last few months in respect to her writing; her enthusiasm
had singularly cooled; it had ceased to be a pleasure, and become an
effort to her to express herself in that way.
Mr. Alfred Cayley Pounce had been looking out for Beth's book, and,
while waiting for it to appear, he had, misled by his own
suppositions, prepared an elaborate article upon the kind of thing he
expected it to be. Nothing was wanting to complete the article but a
summary of the story and quotations from it, for which he had left
plenty of space. He condemned the book utterly from the point of view
of art, and for the silly ignorance of life displayed in it, and the
absurd caricatures which were supposed to be people; he ridiculed the
writer for taking herself seriously (but without showing why exactly
she should not take herself seriously if she chose); he pitied her for
her disappointment when she should realise where in literature her
place would be; and he ended with a bitter diatribe against the works
of women generally, as being pretentious, amateur, without
originality, and wanting in humour, like the wretched stuff it had
been his painful duty to expose. Unfortunately for him, however, the
book appeared anonymously, and immediately attracted attention enough
to make him wish to discover it; and before he found out that Beth was
the author, he had committed himself to a highly eulogistic article
upon it in _The Patriarch_, which he took the precaution to sign, that
the coming celebrity might know to whom gratitude was due, and in
which he declared that there had arisen a new light of extraordinary
promise on the literary horizon. The book, as it happened, was not a
work of fiction at all.
* * * * *
Beth had heard nothing more from Dr. Maclure, and knew nothing about
him, except that he must have lost his degrading appointment, the Acts
having been rescinded. He had forwarded none of the letters her
friends had addressed to her at Slane. The Kilroys had endeavoured to
obtain her address from him, but he denied that he knew it. Unknown to
her, Mr. Kilroy, Mr. Hamilton-Wells, and Sir George Galbraith had
taken the best legal advice in the hope of getting her a divorce; but
there was little chance of that, as the acute mental suffering her
husband had caused her had merely injured her health and endangered
her reason, which does not amount to cruelty in the estimation of the
law. The matter was therefore allowed to drop, and Beth had not yet
begun to think of the future, when one day she received a letter from
Dan, couched in the most affectionate terms, entreating her to return
to him.
"You must own that I had cause for provocation," he said, "but I
confess that I was too hasty. It is natural, though, that a man should
feel it if his wife gets herself into such a position, however
innocently; and the more he has trusted, loved, and respected his
wife, the more violent will the reaction be. I know, however, that I
have had my own shortcomings since we were married, and therefore that
I should make every allowance for you. So let us be friends, Beth, and
begin all over again, as you once proposed. I am ready to leave Slane
and settle wherever you like. Make your own conditions; anything that
pleases you will please me."
This letter upset Beth very much. She would almost rather have had an
action for divorce brought against her than have been asked to return
to Daniel Maclure.
"Ought I to go back?" she asked, willing, with the fatuous persistency
of women in like cases, to persevere if it were thought right that
she should, although she knew pretty well that the sacrifice would be
unavailing so far as he was concerned, and would only entail upon
herself the common lot of women so mated--a ruined constitution and
corroded mind.
"Why does he suddenly so particularly wish it?" was the question.
The obvious explanation was indirectly conveyed in a letter from her
old lawyer. He had written to her in her London lodgings, first of
all, but the letter was returned from the Dead Letter Office. Then he
had written to Slane, but as he received no answer to that letter and
it was not returned, he went in person to inquire about it. Dan
declared that he knew nothing about the letter, or about Beth either,
if she had left London; but he thought her intimate friends the
Kilroys might know where she was. The old gentleman applied to the
Kilroys, and having found Beth, wrote to inform her that her
great-aunt Victoria Bench's investments had recovered at last, as he
had always been pretty sure that they would, and she would
accordingly, for the future, find herself in receipt of an income of
seven or eight hundred pounds a year. Dan's sudden magnanimity was
accounted for. Beth put his effusion and the lawyer's letter before
her friends, and asked to be advised. They decided unanimously that,
on the one hand, Dan was not a proper person for her to live with,
that no decent woman could associate with a man of his mind, habits,
and conversation without suffering injury in some sort; while, on the
other, they pointed out that, although it would be nice, it would not
be good for Dan to have the benefit of Beth's little income. While he
was forced to work, he would have to conduct himself with a certain
amount of propriety; but if Beth relieved him of the necessity, there
would be nothing to restrain him.
This episode roused Beth from her tranquil apathy, and made her think
of work once more. But first she had to settle somewhere and make a
home for herself; and although she had ample means for all her
requirements now, it was not an easy thing to find the special
conditions on which she had set her heart. The first impulse of a
woman of noble nature is to be consistent, to live up to all she
professes to admire. As Beth grew older, to live for others became
more and more her ideal of life;--not to live in the world, however,
or to be of it, but to work for it.
"I must be quiet," she said to Angelica one day when they were
discussing her future. "I am done for so far as work is concerned when
I come into contact with crowds. I want to live things then; I don't
want to think about them. Excitement makes me content to be, and
careless about doing. My truest and best life is in myself, and I can
only live it in circumstances of tranquil monotony. People talk so
much about making the most of life, but their attempts are curiously
bungling. What they call living is for the most part more pain than
pleasure to them; for the truth is, that life should not be lived by
men of mind, but contemplated; it is the spectator, not the actor, who
enjoys and profits. The actor has his moment of applause, but all the
rest is misery. People rush to great centres to obtain a knowledge of
life, and do not succeed, for there they see nothing but broad
effects. We find our knowledge of life in individuals, not in crowds.
There is no more individuality in a crowd of people than there is in a
flock of sheep. All I know of life, of its infinite diversity, I have
learnt here and there from some one person or another, known
intimately. A solitary experience, rightly considered in all its
bearings, teaches us more than numbers of those incidents of which we
see the surface only 'in the joy of eventful living;' and, if the
truth were known, I expect it would be found that each one of us had
obtained the most valuable part of our experience in such homely
details of simple unaffected human nature as came under our
observation in our native villages."
"Yes," Angelica answered thoughtfully, "the looker-on sees most of the
game. But I don't think you allow enough for differences of
temperament. You are thinking of the best conditions for creative
work. You mustn't lose sight of all the active service that is going
on."
"No; but it is in retirement that the best preparation is made for
active service also. And I was thinking of active service more than of
creative work just then. The truth is, I am in a state of being
oppressed by the thought of my new book. I don't know what has come to
me. I am all fretty about it. Writing has lost its charm. I doubt if I
shall ever do well enough to make it worth while to write at all. And
even if I could, I don't think mere literary success would satisfy me.
I have tasted enough of that to know what it would be--a sordid
triumph, a mere personal thing."
"Ideala does not think that it is necessarily as a literary woman that
you will succeed," Angelica answered. "_I_ thought it was because all
the indications you have given of special capacity seem to me to lie
in that direction. However, versatile people make mistakes sometimes.
They don't always begin with the work they are best able to do; but
there is no time lost, for one thing helps another--one thing is
necessary to another, I _should_ say, perhaps. Your writing may have
helped to perfect you in some other form of expression."
"You cheer me!" Beth exclaimed. "But what form?" She reflected a
little, and then she put the puzzle from her. "It will come to me, I
dare say," she said, "if I shut the din of the world far from me, and
sit with folded arms in contemplation, waiting for the moment and the
match which shall fire me to the right pitch of enthusiasm. Nothing
worth doing in art is done by calculation."
"I think you are right to keep out of the crowd," said Angelica. "You
will get nothing but distraction from without. I should take one of
the privileges of a great success to be the right to refuse all
invitations that draw one into the social swim. Men and women of high
purpose do not arrive in order to be crowded into stuffy drawing-rooms
to be stared at."
"My idea of perfect bliss," Beth pursued, "when my work is done, and
my friends are not with me, is to lie my length upon a cliff above the
sea, listening to the many-murmurous, soothed by it into a sense of
oneness with Nature, till I seem to be mixed with the elements, a part
of sky and sea and shore, and akin to the wandering winds. This mood
for my easy moments; but give me work for my live delight. I know
nothing so altogether ecstatic as a good mood for work."
"What you call work is power of expression," said Angelica; "the power
to express something in yourself, I fancy."
"Ye--yes," Beth answered, hesitating, as if the notion were new to
her. "I believe you are right. What I call work is the effort to
express myself."
Mr. Kilroy had come in while they were talking, and sat listening to
the last part of the conversation.
"I have just the sort of 'neat little cot in a quiet spot, with a
distant view of the rolling sea' that you yearn for, Beth," he said,
smiling, when she paused, "and I have come to ask you and Angelica to
drive over with me to see it."
"You mean Ilverthorpe Cottage," said Angelica, jumping up. "O Daddy!
it's the very place. Two storeys, Beth, ivy, roses, jasmine, wisteria
without; and within, space and comfort of every kind--and the sea in
sight! Such a pretty garden, too, grass and trees and shrubs and
flowers. And near enough for us all to see you as often as you wish.
Beth, be excited too! I must bring my violin, I think, and play a
triumphal march on the way."
Ilverthorpe Cottage was all and more than Angelica had said, and Beth
did not hesitate to take it. It was Mr. Kilroy's property, and the
rent was suspiciously low, but Beth supposed that that was because the
house was out of the way. She and Angelica spent long happy days in
getting it ready for occupation, choosing paper, paint, and
furnishments. Mr. Kilroy saw to the stables, which he completed with a
saddle-horse and a pony-carriage. There was a short cut across the
fields, a lovely walk, from Ilverthorpe House to the Cottage, and when
Angelica could not accompany her, Beth would stroll over alone to see
how things were getting on, and wander about her little demesne, and
love it. Outside her garden, in front of the house, the highroad ran,
a sheltered highroad, with a raised footpath, bordered on either side
with great trees, oak and elm, chestnut and beech, and a high hawthorn
hedge just whitening into blossom. The field-path came out on this
highroad, down which she had to walk a few hundred yards to her own
gate. Day after day there was an old Irish labourer, a stonebreaker,
by the wayside, kneeling on a sack beside a great heap of stones, who
gave her a cheery good-morrow as she passed. Once she went across the
road and spoke to him. He had the face of a saint at his devotions.
"You kneel there all day long," she said, "and as you kneel you pray,
perhaps. Will you pray for me? Pray, pray that I may"--she was going
to say succeed, but stopped--"that I may be good."
The man raised his calm eyes, and looked her in the face. "You _are_
good, lady," he said simply.
"Yet pray," she entreated; "and pray too that all I do may be good,
and of good effect."
"All you do is good, lady," he answered once more, in the same quiet
tone of conviction.
"But I want all I do to be the best for the purpose that can be done."
She put some money in his hand and turned away, and as she went he
watched her. She had touched him with her soft gloveless fingers in
giving him the money, and when she had gone, he was conscious of the
touch; it tingled through him, and he looked at the spot on which the
impression remained, as if he expected it to be in some sort visible.
"Now Our Lady love you and the saints protect you, bless your sweet
face," he muttered; "and may all you do be the best that can be done
for every one. Amen."
* * * * *
A few months in her lovely little house sufficed to restore Beth's
mind to its natural attitude--an attitude of deep devotion. She even
began to work again, but rather with a view to making herself useful
to her friends than to satisfy any ambition or craving of her own.
Whatever she did, however, she approached in the spirit of the great
musician who dressed himself in his best, and prayed as at a solemn
service, when he shut himself up to compose. Beth had stepped away
from the old forms by this time. She had escaped from the bondage of
the letter that killeth into the realm of the spirit that giveth life.
It is not faith in any particular fetish that makes a mind religious,
but the quality of reverence. Churches Beth had come to look upon, not
with distrust, but with indifference, as an ineffectual experiment of
man's. She could find no evidence of a holier spirit or a more divine
one in the church than in any other human institution for the
propagation of instruction. The church has never been superior to the
times, never as far advanced as the best men of the day, never a
leader, but rather an opposer of progress, hindering when ideas were
new, and only coming in to help when workers without had proved their
discoveries, and it was evident that credit would be lost by refusing
to recognise them. There is no cruelty the church has not practised,
no sin it has not committed, no ignorance it has not displayed, no
inconsistency it has not upheld, from teaching peace and countenancing
war, to preaching poverty and piling up riches. True, there have been
great saints in the church; but then there have been great saints out
of it. Saintliness comes of conscientiously cultivating the divine in
human nature; it is a seed that is sown and flourishes under the most
diverse conditions.
Beth thought much on religion in those quiet days, and read much,
looking for spiritual sustenance among the garbage of mind with which
man has overlaid it, and finding little to satisfy her, until one
night, quite suddenly, as she sat holding her mind in the attitude of
prayer, there came to her a wonderful flash of illumination. She had
not been occupied with the point that became apparent. It entered her
mind involuntarily, and was made clear to her without conscious effort
on her part; but it was that which she sought, the truth that moves,
makes evident, makes easy, props and stays, and is the instigator of
religious action, the source of aspiration, the ground of hope--the
which was all contained for Beth in the one old formula interpreted in
a way that was new to her: _The communion of saints_ (that
inexplicable sympathy between soul and soul), _the forgiveness of
sins_, (working out our own salvation in fear and trembling), _the
resurrection of the body_ (reincarnation), _and the life everlasting_
(which is the crown or glory, the final goal).
"But God?" Beth questioned.
"God is love," she read in the book that lay open on the table before
her.
Then she clasped her hands over the passage and laid her head on them,
and for a long time she sat so, not thinking, but just repeating it to
herself softly: "God is love," till all at once there was a blank in
her consciousness; thought was suspended. When it returned, she looked
up, and in herself were the words: "God is Love--no! _Love is God!_"
In the joy of the revelation, she arose, and, going to the window,
flung it wide open. Far down the east the dawn was dimly burning; the
faint sweet breath of it fanned her cheeks; her chest expanded with a
great throb, and she exclaimed aloud: "I follow, follow--_God_--I know
not where."
* * * * *
Beth had a task before her that day which she did not relish in the
anticipation. She was going as a stopgap to speak at a large meeting
to oblige Angelica. She had the credit of being able to speak, and she
herself supposed that she could in a way, because of the success of
her first attempt; but she did not consent to try again without much
hesitation and many qualms, and she would certainly not have consented
had not her friends been in a difficulty, with no one at hand to help
them out of it but herself. But to be drawn from her hallowed
seclusion into such a blaze of publicity, even for once, was not at
all to her mind, and much of her wakefulness of the night before had
been caused by her shrinking from the prospect.
Late that night after the meeting she returned to her cottage alone,
cowering in a corner of the Kilroys' carriage. She was cowering from
the recollection of a great crowd that rose with deafening shouts and
seemed to be rushing at her--cowering, too, from the inevitable which
she had been forced to recognise--her vocation--discovered by
accident, and with dismay, for it was not what she would have chosen
for herself in any way had it occurred to her that she had any choice
in the matter. There were always moments when she would fain have led
the life which knows no care beyond the cultivation of the arts, no
service but devotion to them, no pleasure like the enjoyment of
them,--a selfish life made up of impersonal delights, such as music,
which is emotion made audible, painting, which is emotion made
visible, and poetry, which is emotion made comprehensible;--and such a
life could not have been anything but grateful to one like Beth, who
had the capacity for so many interests of the kind. She was debarred
from all that, however, by grace of nature. Beth could not have lived
for herself had she tried. So that now, when the call had come, and
the way in which she could best live for others was made plain to her,
she had no thought but to pursue it.
The carriage put her down at her garden-gate, and she stood awhile in
the moonlight, listening to it as it rolled away with patter of
horses' hoofs and rattle of harness, listening intently as if the
sound concerned her. Then she let herself in, and was hurrying up to
her room, but stopped short on the stairs, cowering from the crowd
that rose and cheered and cheered and seemed to be rushing at her.
Her bedroom had windows east, west, and south, so that she had sunrise
and sunset and the sun all day. When she went in now, she found the
lamps lighted and all the windows shut, and she went round and flung
them open with an irritable gesture. Her nerves were overwrought; the
slightest contrariety upset her. The sweet fresh country air streamed
in and the tranquil moonlight. These alone would ordinarily have been
enough to soothe her, but now she paid no heed to them. When she had
opened the windows, she began to take off her things in feverish
haste, pacing about the room restlessly the while, as if that helped
her to be quicker. Everything she wore seemed too hot, too heavy, or
too tight, and she flung hat and cloak and bodice down just where she
took them off in her haste to get rid of them. Throwing her things
about like that was an old trick of her childhood, and becoming
conscious of what she was doing, she remembered it, and began to think
of herself as she had been then, and so forget her troubled self as
she was at that moment--fresh from the excitement and terror of an
extraordinary achievement, a great success. For she had spoken that
night as few have spoken--spoken to a hostile audience and fascinated
them by the power of her personality, the mesmeric power which is part
of the endowment of an orator, and had so moved them that they rose at
last and cheered her for her eloquence, whether they held her opinions
or not. Then there had come friendly handshakes and congratulations
and encouragement; and one had said, "Beth is launched at last upon
her true career."
"But who could have thought that that was her bent?" another had
asked.
Beth did not hear the answer, but she knew what it should have been.
She had been misled herself, and so had every one else, by her pretty
talent for writing, her love of turning phrases, her play on the music
of words. The writing had come of cultivation, but this--the last
discovered power--was the natural gift. Angelica had said that all the
indications had pointed to literary ability in Beth, but there had
been other indications hitherto unheeded. There was that day at
Castletownrock when Beth invited the country people in to see the
house, and, for the first time, found words flowing from her lips
eloquently; there were her preachings to Emily and Bernadine in the
acting-room, of which they never wearied; her first harangue to the
girls who had caught her bathing on the sands, and the power of her
subsequent teaching which had bound them to the Secret Service of
Humanity for as long as she liked; there was her storytelling at
school, too, and her lectures to the girls--not to mention the charm
of her ordinary conversation when the mood was upon her, as in the
days when she used to sit and fish with the bearded sailors, and held
them with curious talk as she had held the folk in Ireland,
fascinating them. And then there was the unexpected triumph of her
first public attempt--indications enough of a natural bent, had there
been any one to interpret them.
Beth, as she thought on these things, wandered from window to window,
too restless and excited to sit still; but, even occupied as she was,
after she had changed her dress the old trick came upon her, and she
was all the while observing.
It was autumn, and on the south she overlooked a field of barley,
standing in stooks, waiting to be carted. She noticed how the long,
irregular rows and their shadows showed in the moonlight. Across the
field the farm to which it belonged nestled in an apple-orchard. From
the east end of the house she obtained a glimpse of the sea, which was
near enough, for the drowsy murmur of it reached her even in calm
weather. To the west the highroad ran, and in her wanderings from
window to window Beth paused to contemplate it, to follow it in
imagination whither it led, to think of the weary way it was to so
many weary feet, to mourn because she could not offer rest and
refreshment to every one that passed.
The night was clear and the air was crisp, with a suspicion of frost
in it, such as sometimes comes in the late autumn. The moon was
sinking, and the stars shone out ever more brightly. Down in the
roadway a little brazier burned, where the road had been taken up and
blocked for repairs, and over the brazier the old watchman, who should
have been guarding the tools and materials that had been left lying
about, dozed in a sort of sentry-box. It occurred to Beth that the
task was long and dreary, and that the air grew chilly towards the
dawn. Surely some food would cheer and refresh him, and help to pass
the time. She went down to the pantry and got some, then carried it
out on a tray. But the old man was sound asleep, and, standing there
in her long white wrapper, she had to call him several times, "Old
man! old man!" before she roused him.
He awoke at last with a start, and seeing the unexpected apparition in
the dim light, exclaimed, "Holy Mother! why have you come to me?"
Beth silently set the tray before him and slipped away, leaving him in
the happy certainty that a heavenly vision had been vouchsafed him.
But the moon set, the stars paled, and, from her window to the east,
Beth watched the dark melt to dusk, and the dusk pale to an even grey,
into which were breathed the burnished colours of the happy dawn.
Then, when the sun was high, and the accustomed sounds of life and
movement that held her ear by day had well begun, down the long road
beneath the old gnarled trees the postman came beladen, and there were
brought to her pamphlets, papers, cards, letters, telegrams, a fine
variety of praise, abuse, sympathy, derision, insults, and admiration.
Quietly Beth read, and knew what it meant, all of it--success! and
the success she had most desired: that her words should come with
comfort to thousands of those that suffer, who, when they heard, would
raise their heads once more in hope. In one paper that she opened she
read: "A great teacher has arisen among us, a woman of genius--"
Hastily she put the paper aside, burning with a kind of shame,
although alone, to see so much said of herself. Beth was one of the
first swallows of the woman's summer. She was strange to the race when
she arrived, and uncharitably commented upon; but now the type is
known, and has ceased to surprise.
When she was dressed that morning, she went down to her bright little
breakfast parlour. Before her was the harvest-field, looking its
loveliest in the early morning sunlight. As she contemplated the
peaceful scene, she thought that she should feel herself a singularly
fortunate being. The dead would be with her no more, alas! except in
the spirit; but all else that heart could desire, was it not hers? The
answer came quick, No! Something was wanting. But she did not ask
herself what the something was.
The harvesters were not at work that morning, and she had not seen a
soul since she sat down to breakfast; but before she left the table, a
horseman came out from the farm, and rode towards her across the long
field, deliberately. She watched him, absently at first, but as he
approached he reminded her of the Knight of her daily vision, her
saviour, who had come to rescue her in the dark days of her deep
distress at Slane--
"A bowshot from her bower-eaves,
He rode between the barley-sheaves."
"The barley-sheaves!" suddenly Beth's heart throbbed and fluttered and
stood still. The words had come to her as the interpretation of an
augury, the fulfilment of a promise. It seemed as if she ought to have
known it from the first, known that he would come like that at last,
that he had been coming, coming, coming through all the years. As he
drew near, the rider looked up at her, the sun shone on his face, he
raised his hat. In dumb emotion, not knowing what she did, Beth
reached out her hands towards him as if to welcome him. He was not the
Knight of her dark days, however, this son of the morning, but the
Knight of her long winter vigil--Arthur Brock.
* * * * *
Transcriber's note:
The following have been changed, as they appear to be typesetter's
errors. All other colloquialisms, non-standard spelling, grammar
and punctuation have been left as they appear in the original book.
Page 2
"I had quite forgotten the whisky," she said to the
maid-of [hyphen added] all-work,
Page 34
"What does she do it for? [added "]
Page 220
Do I separate myself from Count Bartahlinski [changed to Bartahlinsky]?
Page 290
Miss Bey had had great experience of girls, and her sharp
manner, which was mainly acquired in the effort to maintain
displine, [changed to "discipline"] somewhat belied her kindly nature.
Page 395
"I calcalute [changed to calculate?] that they come to just three
hundred pounds,"
Page 468
If we were to die now, in six
months it would be as though we had never bee [added n]
Page 469
I never knew such a woman tiil [changed to till?] I met you;
Page 522
bordered on either side with great trees, oak and elm, chestnut
and beech, and a high hawthorn hedge just whitening into
blosom. [changed to blossom]