The Beth Book Part 82

Beth shrugged her shoulders. "It is your own business," she rejoined--"at least it is you who will have to pay for her entertainment."

She returned to her book as she spoke, and continued to read with apparent calmness.

Now that she had taken up her position, she found herself quite strong enough to hold it against any Dan Maclure or Bertha Petterick. But Beth was being forced into an ugly and vulgar phase, and she knew and resented it, and was filled with dismay. She was taking on something of the colour of her surroundings involuntarily, inevitably, as certain insects do, in self-defence. She had spoken to Dan in his own tone in order to make him understand her; but was it necessary? Surely if she had resisted the impulse to try that weapon, she might have found another as effective, the use of which would not have compromised her gentlehood and lessened her self-esteem. Her dissatisfaction with herself for the part she had played was a cruel ache, and she thanked Heaven for the chance which would mercifully remove her from that evil atmosphere for a while, and prayed for time to reflect, for strength to be her better self. She was angry with herself, and grieved because she had fought Dan with his own weapons, and it did not occur to her for her comfort that she had only done so because he was invulnerable to that which she would naturally have used--earnest, reasonable, calm discussion--and that fight him she must with something, somehow, or sink for ever down to the degraded level required of their wives by husbands of his way of thinking.

CHAPTER XLIV

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 pa.s.sion, 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 pa.s.s 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 cla.s.sifying 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 fort.i.tude; 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 a.s.sociate with the loyal ladies and n.o.ble 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 antic.i.p.ated 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 s.e.xes, 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 n.o.bler nature, strong in all the attributes, moral and physical, of the perfect man, that their children may be n.o.ble too, and thus the ascent of man to higher planes of being become a.s.sured."

"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 n.o.body 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 G.o.d in Man."

Beth's heart swelled at the words. This att.i.tude 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 s.p.a.ce 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 dispa.s.sionately, 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 wors.h.i.+pped 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-fas.h.i.+oned 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 s.h.i.+rt collar, and black tie with flying ends remain in my mind, intimately a.s.sociated 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 compa.s.sionately. "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 att.i.tude?" Beth objected.

"Yes, of the right kind," Ideala rejoined. "The senses have their uses, you know. And it is exactly your att.i.tude 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.