The Beth Book Part 61

Beth was never anything but miserable at school. The dull routine of the place pressed heavily upon her, and everything she had to do was irksome. The other girls accommodated themselves more or less successfully to the circ.u.mstances of their lives; but Beth in herself was always at war with her surroundings, and her busy brain teemed with ingenious devices to vary the monotony. The confinement, want of relaxation, and of proper physical training, very soon told upon her health and spirits, as indeed they did upon the greater number of the girls, who suffered unnecessarily in various ways. Beth very soon had to have an extra hour in bed in the morning, a cup of soup at eleven o'clock, a tonic three times a day, and a slice of thick bread and b.u.t.ter with a gla.s.s of stout on going to bed; such things were not stinted during Miss Clifford's administration; but it was a case of treating effects which all the time were being renewed by causes that might and ought to have been removed, but were let alone.

St. Catherine's Mansion was regulated on a system of exemplary dulness. There is a certain dowager still extant who considers it absurd to provide amus.e.m.e.nt for people of inferior station. All people who earn their living are people of inferior station to her; she has never heard of such a thing as the dignity of labour. Because many of the girls at St. Catherine's were orphans without means, and would therefore have to earn their own living as governesses when their education was finished, the dowager-persons who interested themselves in the management of the school had used their influence strenuously to make the life there as much of a punishment as possible. "You cannot be too strict with girls in their position," was what they continually averred, their own position by birth being in no way better, and in some instances not so good, as that of the girls whom they were depriving of every innocent pleasure natural to their age and necessary for the good of their health and spirits. They were not allowed to learn dancing; they had no outdoor games at all, not even croquet--nothing whatever to exhilarate them and develop them physically except an hour's "deportment," the very mildest kind of calisthenics, in the big cla.s.s-room once a fortnight, and the daily making of their little beds. For the rest, monotonous walks up and down the garden-paths in small parties, or about the dreary roads two and two in long lines, was their only exercise, and even in this they were restricted to such a severe propriety of demeanour that it almost seemed as if the object were to teach them to move without betraying the fact that they had legs. The consequence of all this restraint was a low state of vitality among the girls, and the outbreak of morbid phases that sometimes went right through the school. Beth, as might have been expected, was one of the first to be caught by anything of this kind; and she arrived, by way of her own emotions, at the cause of a great deal that was a mystery to older people, and also thought out the cure eventually; but she suffered a great deal in the process of acquiring her special knowledge of the subject. She was especially troubled by her old malady--depression of spirits. Sometimes, on a summer evening, when all the cla.s.ses were at preparation, and the whole great house was still, a mistress would begin to practise in one of the music-rooms, and Beth would be carried away by the music, so that work was impossible. One evening, when this happened, she sat, with a very sad face, looking out on the river. Pleasure-boats were gliding up and down; a gay party went by, dancing on the deck of a luxurious barge to the music of a string-band; a young man skimmed the surface in a skiff, another punted two girls along; and people walked on the banks or sat about under the trees, and children played--and they were all free! Suddenly Beth burst into tears. Miss Smallwood questioned her. Was she ill? had she any pain? had any one been unkind to her? No? What was the matter then? Nothing; she was just miserable!

"Beth, don't be so silly," Miss Smallwood remonstrated. "A great girl like you, crying for nothing! It is positively childish."

The other girls stole glances at her and looked grave. At the beginning of the term they would not have sympathised perhaps; but this was the middle, and many of them were in much the same mood themselves.

When the bell rang, and the recreation hour began, they got out their little bits of fancy-work, and such dull childish books as they were allowed, and broke up into groups. Beth was soon surrounded by the cleverer girls in the cla.s.s.

"I sympathise with you, Beth," said Janey North, a red-haired Irish girl, "for I felt like it myself, I did indeed."

"Will the holidays never be here?" sighed Rosa Bird.

"I can't think why I stay at all," said Beth. "I hate it--I hate it all the time."

"But how could one get away?" said Janey.

"Only by being ill," Agnes Stewart answered darkly. She was a delicate girl, and from that time she starved herself resolutely, until she was so wasted that Miss Clifford in despair sent her home. Another girl was seized with total deafness suddenly, and had also to go; the change brought her hearing back in a very short time; and some of the dockyard girls received urgent summonses from dying relations, and were allowed to go to them. They always returned the brighter for the experience.

One day, after the weather became cold, a girl appeared in cla.s.s wrapped up in a shawl, and with her head all drawn down to one side.

Her neck was stiff, and she could not straighten it. She was sent to the infirmary. The girls thought her lucky. For it was warm there, and nurse was kind, and sang delightful songs. She would be able to do fancy-work, too, and read as much as she liked, and would not have to get up till she had had her breakfast and the fire was lighted, and need not trouble about lessons at all--a stiff neck was a very small drawback to the delights of such a change.

Next day another girl's neck was stiff. Miss Smallwood searched for a draught, but did not succeed in finding one. That evening at prayers one of the girls in the first appeared in a shawl with her head on one side and a white worn face; and next day there was another case from the third and fourth. So it was evident that there was something like an epidemic going through the school; but the doctor had never seen one of the kind before, and was at a loss to account for it. The cases were all exactly alike: stiff neck, with the head drawn down to one side, accompanied by feverishness, and followed by severe prostration.

Beth sat with a stolid countenance, and stared solemnly at every girl that was attacked, as if she were studying her case. Then, one morning, she came down in a shawl herself, with her head on one side and a very white face. Nurse marched her off at once to the infirmary, and put her in a bed beside the fire, and Beth, as she coiled herself up, and realised that she need not worry about lessons, or rush off to practise when the bell rang, or go out to walk up and down in the garden till she hated every pebble on the path, heaved a great sigh of relief and fell asleep. When she awoke the doctor was feeling her pulse.

"She's very low," he said. "Is she a delicate girl naturally?"

"She looked strong enough when she came to school," nurse answered; "but she soon went off, as so many of them do."

"The loss of vitality amongst them is really extraordinary," the doctor observed. "Give her port wine and beef-tea. Don't keep her in bed too much, but don't hurry her up. Rest and relief from lessons is the great thing."

Some healthy pleasure to vary the monotonous routine, some liberty of action and something to look forward to, would have been better; but n.o.body thought of that.

How many of those necks were really stiff beyond the will of the sufferer to move it, no one will ever know; but when it occurred to Beth to straighten her own one day, she found no difficulty.

CHAPTER x.x.xII

When Beth was moved into the upper school, she came under the direct influence of Miss Crow, the English mistress of the third and fourth, who had been educated at St. Catherine's herself, and was an ardent disciple of Miss Clifford's. Beth, although predisposed to pietism, had not been sensibly influenced by Miss Clifford's teaching heretofore; now, however, she attached herself to Miss Crow, who began at once to take a special interest in her spiritual welfare. She encouraged Beth to sit and walk with her when she was on duty, and invited her to her room during recreation in order to talk to her earnestly on the subject of salvation, or to read to her and expound portions of Scripture, fine pa.s.sages from religious books, and beautiful hymns. Some of the hymns she took the trouble to copy out for Beth's help and comfort when they were specially appropriate to the needs of her nature, such as "Calm me, my G.o.d, and keep me calm,"

or specially suited to her case, like "Call me! and I will answer, gladly singing!" Beth responded readily to her kindness, and very soon became a convert to her views; but she did not stop there, for it was not in Beth's nature to rest content with her own conversion while there were so many others still sitting in darkness who might be brought to the light. No sooner was she convinced herself than she began to proselytise among the other girls, and in a short time her eloquence and force of character attracted a following from all parts of the school. Miss Crow told Miss Clifford that she spoke like one inspired, and high hopes were entertained of the work which they somewhat prematurely concluded she was destined to do. Unfortunately Beth's fervent faith received a check at a critical time when it was highly important to have kept it well nourished--that is to say, when she was being prepared for confirmation. It happened when Miss Crow was hearing the girls their Scripture lesson one morning, the subject being the escape of the children of Israel from Egypt, and the destruction of Pharaoh's hosts in the Red Sea.

"I know a man who says the whole of that account has been garbled,"

Beth remarked in a dreamy way, meaning Count Gustav Bartahlinsky, but not thinking much of what she was saying.

Miss Crow nearly dropped the Bible, so greatly was she startled and shocked by the announcement.

"Beth!" she exclaimed, directly the cla.s.s was over and she could speak to Beth privately, "how could you be so wicked as to say that anything in Holy Scripture is a garbled account?"

"I said I knew a man who said so," Beth answered, surprised that so simple a remark should have created such consternation.

But Miss Crow saw in her att.i.tude a dangerous tendency to scepticism, and expressed strong condemnation of any one who presumed to do other than accept Holy Writ in blind unquestioning faith. She talked to Beth with horror about the unG.o.dly men who cast doubt on the unity of the Bible, called its geology in question, and even ventured to correct its chronology by the light of vain modern scientific discoveries; and Beth shocked her again by the questions she asked, and the intelligent interest she showed in the subject. She told Miss Crow that Count Gustav had also said that the Old Testament was bad religion and worse history, but she did not know that other people had thought so too.

Whereupon Miss Crow went to Miss Clifford and reported Beth's att.i.tude as something too serious for her to deal with alone, and Miss Clifford sent for Beth and talked to her long and earnestly. She told her that it was absurd for a girl of her age to call in question the teaching of the best and greatest men that ever lived, which somehow reminded Beth of the many mistakes made by the best and greatest men that ever lived, of their differences of opinion and undignified squabbles, the instances of one man discovering and suffering for a truth which the rest refused to accept, and the constant modification, alteration, and rejection by one generation of teaching which had been upheld by another with brutality and bloodshed,--instances of all of which were notorious enough even to be known at a girls' school. Beth said very little, however; but she determined to read the Bible through from beginning to end, and see for herself if she could detect any grounds for the mischief-making doubts and controversies she had been hearing about. She began in full faith, but was brought up short at the very outset by the discrepancy between the first and second chapters of Genesis, which she perceived for the first time. She went steadily on, however, until she had finished the Book of Job, and then she paused in revolt. She could not reconcile the dreadful experiment which had entailed unspeakable suffering and loss irreparable upon a good man with any attribute she had been accustomed to revere in her deity.

There might be some explanation to excuse this game of G.o.d and devil, but until she knew the excuse she would vow no adhesion to a power whose conduct on that occasion seemed contrary to every canon of justice and mercy. She did not belong to the servile age when men, forgetting their manhood, fawned on patrons for what they could get, and cringingly accepted favours from the dirtiest hands. Even her G.o.d must be worthy to help her, worthy to be loved, good as well as great.

The G.o.d who connived at the torment of Job could not be the G.o.d of her salvation.

Beth had spoken casually in cla.s.s. She had never questioned her religion, and would not have done so now if the remark had been allowed to pa.s.s; but the fuss that was made about it, and the severity with which she was rebuked, by putting her mind into a critical att.i.tude, had the effect of concentrating her attention on the subject; so that it was the very precautions which were taken to check her supposed scepticism that first made her sceptical. The immediate consequence was that she gave up preaching and refused to be confirmed. Miss Clifford, Miss Crow, and the chaplain argued, expostulated, and punished in vain. It was the first case of the kind that had occurred in the school, and Beth was treated as a criminal; but she felt more like a martyr, and was not to be moved. She did not try to make partisans for herself, however; on the contrary, she deserted her family as well as her congregation, and took to wandering about alone again; but she was not unhappy. Her old faith had gone, it is true, but it had left the way prepared for a new one. She did not believe in the G.o.d of Job--because she was sure that there must be a better G.o.d--that was all.

From this time, however, her imagination rode rampant once more over everything. The vision and the dream were upon her. All wholesome interest in her work was over. There was an old piano in the reception-room which the girls were allowed to use for their amus.e.m.e.nt on half-holidays, and she often went there; but even when she practised, she moved her fingers mechanically, her mind busy with vivid scenes and moving dramatic incidents; so that her beloved music was gradually converted from an object in itself into an aid to thought.

It was only six weeks to the holidays, but oh! how the days dragged!

She struggled to be conscientious, to be good, to please Miss Crow, to escape bad marks; but everything was irksome. Getting up, lessons, breakfast, making her bed, practising, lessons again, dressing, going out, dinner--the whole round of regular life was an effort. Her face grew thin and pale, she began to cough, and was put upon extras again.

"We can't let you go home looking like that, you know," nurse said.

Beth looked up at her out of her dream absently and smiled. She was enjoying a visionary walk at the moment with a vague being who loved her. They were out on a white cliff overlooking the sea in a wild warm region. The turf they trod on was vivid green, and short and springy; the water below was green and bright and clear, sea-birds skimmed the surface, and the air was sweet. But presently the road was barred by a rail, so they had to stop, and he put his arm round her, and she laid her head on his shoulder; and the murmur of wind and water was in her ears, and she became as the lark that sang above them, the curlew that piped, the quiet cattle, and all inanimate things--untroubled, natural, complete. All intellectual interest being suspended, she had begun to yearn for a companion, a mate. Her delicate mind refused to account for the tender sensation; but it was love, or rather the mood for love she had fallen into--the pa.s.sive mood, which can be converted into the active in an ordinary young girl by almost any man of average attractions, provided she is not already yearning happily for some one in particular. It is not until much later that she learns to discriminate. There were girls at the school who saw in every man they met a possible lover, and were ready to accept any man who offered himself; but they were of coa.r.s.er fibre than Beth, more susceptible to the physical than to the ideal demands of love, and fickle because the man who was present had more power to please than the one who was merely a recollection. The actual presence was enough for them, they had no ideals. With Beth it was different. Her present was apt to be but a poor faded subst.i.tute for the future with the infinite range of possibilities she had the power to perceive in it, or even for the past as she glorified it.

While she was in this mood she was particularly provoking to those in authority over her.

"Beth," said Miss Crow one day severely, "you are to go to Miss Clifford directly." Beth went.

"I hear," said Miss Clifford in her severest tone, "that you have not made your bed this morning."

"I went up to make it," Beth answered, trying dreamily to recollect what had happened after that.

"I must give you a bad mark," Miss Clifford said, and then paused; and Beth, who had not been attending, becoming conscious that something had been bestowed upon her, answered politely, "Thank you."

"Beth, you are impertinent," Miss Clifford exclaimed, "and I must punish you severely. Stay in the whole of your half-holiday and do arithmetic."

Then Beth awoke with a start, and realising what she had done, struggled to explain; but the moment she became herself again, an agony of dumbness came upon her, and she left the room without a word.

She spent the long bright afternoon cowering over her arithmetic, and crying at intervals, being in the lowest spirits, so that by prayer-time she was pretty well exhausted. She tried to attend to the psalms, but in the middle of them she became a poor girl suffering from a cruel sense of injustice. All her friends misunderstood her and were unkind to her, in consequence of which she pined away, and one day, in the midst of a large party, she dropped down dead.

And at this point she actually did fall fainting with a thud on the floor. Miss Clifford, who was giving out the hymn, stopped startled, and some of the girls shrieked. Miss Crow and one of the other teachers carried Beth out by the nearest door.

"Poor little thing!" said Miss Crow, looking pityingly at her drawn white face and purple eyelids. "I'm afraid she's very delicate."

Miss Clifford came also, when prayers were over, and said kind things; and from that time forward Beth received a great deal of sympathetic attention, which did her good, but in no way reconciled her to her imprisonment.

The following term, Beth watched the spring come in at school with infinite yearning. To be out--to be free to sit under the apple-trees and look up through the boughs at the faintly flushed blossom, till the vision and the dream came upon her, and she pa.s.sed from conscious thought into a higher phase of being--just to do that was her one desire till the petals fell. Then pleasure-boats began to be rowed on the river, rowed or steered by girls no older than herself, in summer dresses delicately fresh; and she, seeing them, became aware of the staleness of her own shabby clothing, and writhed under the rules which would not allow her even to walk on the path overlooking the river, and gaze her fill at it. The creamy white flowers of the great magnolia on the lawn came out, and once she slipped across the gra.s.s to peer into them and smell them. She got a bad mark for that, the second she had had.

At preparation that evening she sat so that she could see the river, and watched it idly instead of working; and presently there floated into her mind the rhyme she made when she was a little child at Fairholm--

"The fairy folk are calling me."

Suddenly she caught her breath, her cheeks flushed, her eyes sparkled, her whole aspect changed from apathy to animation, and she laughed.