The Beth Book

She led the way upstairs, talking all the time with cheerful inconsequence. "He's a real gentleman is Mr. Brock, as doubtless you know, though an American, and dry, and you never know which is his fun; and in Art, which is not much to reckon on, and that's why I thought that you might be, though you do look more like Fashion. Art is apt to be towzled, but why, goodness knows. You're not used to the stairs, I see. I wish it wasn't such a height up."

"Oh, I don't mind the height, if the price is proportionately low," Beth said. "I must live within my means, and keep out of debt, you know."

"That's a rhyme – low and you know. Did you do it on purpose?" Ethel Maud Mary asked with interest.

"No," said Beth.

"Then that's for luck," said Ethel. "You'll keep out of debt all right. I see it in your face. And I know a face when I see it. They'll keep you on the Lady's for the sake of your appearance, even if you're not much use. You're elegant and speak nice, and that's what they want to go about for them, particularly if it's a man."

"If what is a man?" Beth asked.

"The editor, you know. We 'ad a young lady here who used to say she'd undertake to get an extra half-sovereign out of any editor in town; but editresses there was no managing. Which is yours?"

"I don't know yet," said Beth. "I've only just arrived."

"What are you getting?"

"A pound a week," Beth answered, that being her exact income; "but I have a little by me besides, to keep me going till I get started, you know."

Ethel Maud Mary nodded her yellow head intelligently, and began to climb the narrow flight of stairs which led to the attics, moving her lips the while, as if she were making calculations. There was no carpet on this last flight of stairs, but the boards were well washed, and the attic itself smelt sweet and clean.

"This is it," Ethel explained. "Mr. Brock is in the other, next door. There's only two of them. This is the biggest room, but the other is north, and has the biggest window, and being in Art, he's got to think of the light. If you look out there to the right, you'll see some green in the Park. You'll like the Park. It's no distance if you're a walker. Now, just let's see. I've been calculating about the money. Mr. Brock pays fourteen shillings, but you'll not be able to afford more than seven out of a pound. You shall have it for seven."

"But surely that will be a loss to you!" Beth exclaimed.

Ethel sat herself down on the side of the bed and smiled up at her. "I'll not pretend we couldn't get more if we waited," she said; "but waiting's a loss, and we're doing very well downstairs, and can afford to pick and choose. You'll find in business that it pays better in the end to get a good tenant you can trust, who'll stay, than one who gives you double the amount for a month, and then goes off with the blankets."

"You don't deceive me a bit," said Beth, sitting down opposite to her on a cane-bottomed chair. "Your good-heartedness shines out of your face. But I'm not going to take a mean advantage of it. There's an honest atmosphere in this house that would suit me, I feel, and I am sure I shall do well here; but all the same I won't come unless you make a bargain with me. If I take the rooms for such a small sum now, while I am poor, will you let me make it up to you when I succeed? I shall succeed!" The last words burst from her involuntarily, forced from her with emphasis in spite of herself.

"That's what I like to hear; that's spirit, that is!" Ethel Maud Mary exclaimed, nodding approvingly. "You'll do all right. So it's a bargain. Washing's included, you know. You didn't bring your box, did you?"

"No, I left my luggage at Charing Cross when I arrived last night. I slept at the hotel," Beth answered.

"At the Charing Cross Hotel? Gracious! that must have cost you a small fortune."

"I didn't know what to do," Beth explained apologetically.

"You should have tried the Strand, Surrey Street, and there. You'd have got bed and breakfast for five shillings, and that's more than enough. However, it's no use crying over spilt milk. You'll have to fetch your luggage, I suppose. You can go by train from Nottinghill Gate to Charing Cross. It's about as cheap as the 'bus, and much quicker. I'll come with you, and show you the way, if you like. A breath of fresh air will do me good."

"Yes, do come," Beth answered gratefully, glad of the kindly human fellowship. "What is your name, may I ask?"

"Ethel Maud Mary Gill; and what is yours, if you please?"

"Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure."

Beth had emptied her secret chamber and packed all her little possessions before she left Slane. She had sometimes suspected that Dan would be glad of an excuse to get rid of her, to relieve himself of the cost of her keep; and that he would do it in some gross way, and so as to put all the blame of it upon her, if possible, she also expected. She was therefore prepared to consider the matter settled the moment he threatened her, and would have felt it useless to remonstrate even had she been inclined. But she was not inclined. She had for years done everything patiently that any one in any code of morality could expect of her in such a marriage, and no good had come of it. As Daniel Maclure was, so would he remain for ever; and to associate with him intimately without being coarsened and corrupted was impossible. Beth had fought hard against that, and had suffered in the struggle; but she had been lowered in spite of herself, and she knew it, and resented it. She was therefore as glad to leave Maclure as he was to get rid of her; and already it seemed as if with her married life a great hampering weight had fallen from her, and left her free to face a promising future with nothing to fear and everything to hope. Poverty was pleasant in her big bright attic, where all was clean and neat about her. There she could live serenely, and purify her mind by degrees of the garbage with which Dan's habitual conversation had polluted it.

The settling-in occupied her for some days, and the housekeeping was a puzzle when she first began. She had only been able to bring the most precious of her possessions, her books and papers, and clothes enough for the moment, away with her from Slane; the rest she had left ready packed to be sent to her when she should be settled. When she wrote to Maclure for them, she sent him some housekeeping keys she had forgotten to leave behind, and an inventory of everything she had had charge of, which she had always kept carefully checked. He acknowledged the receipt of this letter, and informed her that he had gone over the inventory himself, and found some of the linen in a bad state and one silver teaspoon missing. Beth replied that the linen had been fairly worn out, but she could not account for the missing spoon, and offered to pay for it. Dr. Maclure replied by return of post on a post-card that the price was seven shillings. Beth sent him a postal order for that amount. He then wrote to say that the cost of the conveyance of the luggage to the station was half-a-crown. Beth sent him half-a-crown, and then the correspondence ended. She received letters from some of her relations, however, to whom Maclure had hastened to send his version of the story. Poor old Aunt Grace Mary was the only one, who did not accept it. "Write and tell me the truth of the matter, my dear," she said. The others took it for granted that Beth could have nothing to say for herself, and her brother Jim was especially indignant and insulting, his opinion of her being couched in the most offensive language. Having lived with disreputable women all his life, he had the lowest possible opinion of the whole sex, his idea being that any woman would misconduct herself if she had the chance and was not well watched. He warned Beth not to apply to him if she should be starving, or to claim his acquaintance should she meet him in the street. Beth's cheeks burned with shame when she read this letter and some of the others she received, and she hastened to destroy them; but the horror they set up in her brought on a nervous crisis such as she had suffered from in the early days when Dan first brought her down to his own low level of vice and suspicion, and turned her deadly sick. She answered none of these letters, and, by dint of resolutely banishing all thought of them and of the writers, she managed in time to obliterate the impression; but she had to live through some terrible hours before she succeeded.

Once settled in her attic home, she returned to the healthy, regular, industrious habits which had helped her so much in the days when she had been at her best. Her life was of the simplest, but she had to do almost everything for herself, such time as Gwendolen could command for attendance being wholly insufficient to keep the attic in order. Her daily duties kept her in health, however, by preventing indolence either of mind or body, and so were of infinite use. She had added a few things to the scanty furniture of her attic – a new bath, a second-hand writing-table, book-shelves with a cupboard beneath for cups, saucers, and glasses, and a grandfather chair – all great bargains, as Ethel Maud Mary assured her. Ethel Maud Mary's kindness was inexhaustible. She took Beth to the second-hand shop herself, and showed her that the writing-table and book-shelves would be as good as new when they were washed and rubbed up a bit; and all the grandfather chair wanted was a new cretonne cover at sixpence a yard – four yards, two shillings, and she could make it herself. She also advised Beth to buy a little oil-stove, the only one she knew of that really didn't smell if you attended to it yourself; and a tin to hold oil for it – crystal oil at sevenpence a gallon, the best.

"You can do all you want with that, and keep yourself warm enough too when the weather's bad," she said; "and there's no waste, for you can turn it out when you've done with it. Fires are too dear for you at sixpence a scuttle for coals, and they're dirtier besides, and a trouble to light and look after. You'll find it as good as a lamp, too, if you're doing nothing particular at night."

When Beth had made a cosy corner of the window for work, arranged her books, put her ornaments about on mantelpiece and brackets, hung her pictures and the draperies she had used in her secret chamber, spread the rugs and covered the grandfather chair, her attic looked inviting. The character of her little possessions gave the poor place a distinction which enchanted Ethel Maud Mary.

Beth fetched up the water overnight for her bath in the morning, and made coffee for her breakfast on the little oil-stove. She lived principally on bread and butter, eggs, sardines, salad, and slices of various meats bought at a cook-shop and carried home in a paper. Sometimes, when she felt she could afford it, she had a hot meal at an eating-house for the good of her health; but she scarcely required it, for she never felt stronger in her life, and so long as she could get good coffee for her breakfast and tea for her evening meal, she missed none of the other things to which she had been accustomed. She made delicious coffee in a tin coffee-pot, and brewed the best tea she had ever drunk in brown earthenware, which Ethel Maud Mary considered the best thing going for tea. She used to join Beth in a cup up in the attic, but she never came empty-handed. Dull wet days, likely to be depressing, were the ones on which her yellow head appeared oftenest at the top of the attic stairs.

"Miss Maclure, may I come in?" she would say, after knocking.

And Beth would answer, rising from her work with a smile of welcome, "Yes, by all means. I'm delighted to see you. You take the big chair and I'll make the tea. I'm dying for a cup."

Then Ethel Maud Mary would uncover something she held in her hand, which would prove to be cakes, or hot buttered toast and watercresses, or a bag of shrimps and some thin bread and butter; and Beth, sparkling at the kindness, would exclaim, "I never was so spoilt in my life!" to which Ethel Maud Mary would rejoin, "There'll not be much to boast about between two of us."

Beth was busy with another book by this time, but found the work more of a task and less of a pleasure than it used to be. Ethel Maud Mary still took it for granted that she was a journalist, and showed no interest in her work beyond hoping that she got her pay regularly, and would soon be making more. Beth wondered sometimes when the little book which had been accepted in the summer would appear, and what she would get for it, if anything, and she thought of inquiring, but she put it off. Her new work took all her time and strength, and wearied her, so that nothing else seem to signify.

Besides Ethel Maud Mary and Gwendolen, the only person she had to talk to was Arthur Milbank Brock, the young American, her neighbour in the next attic. She met him coming upstairs with his hat in his hand soon after her instalment, and was even more attracted by his face than she had been when she first saw him in the street.

"You've settled in by this time, I hope," he said.

"Yes, and very comfortably too, thanks to you," Beth answered.

"Ah, Ethel Maud Mary's a good sort," he replied, "golden hair, blue eyes, and all. She has the looks of a lady's novel and the heart of a holy mother. Her grammar and spelling are defective, but her sense is sound. I wouldn't give much for her opinion of a work of art, but I'd take her advice in a difficulty if it came anywhere within range of her experience. She knows this world well, but picks her steps through it in such a way that I guess she'll reach the threshold of the next with nice clean shoes."

He stepped aside for Beth to pass when he had spoken, and stood a moment watching her thoughtfully as she descended. "And may you too," he said to himself as he turned to go up, then, perceiving that the hope implied a doubt, he began to wonder whence it came.

As Beth went out, she reflected on his face, on a certain gravity which heightened its refinement. It was a young face, but worn, as by some past trial or present care, and with an habitually sober expression which contrasted notably with the cheery humour of his speech, adding point to it, as is frequently the case with his countrymen. He wore his thick brown hair rather longer than is usual, but was clean shaven. His features were delicate and regular, his eyes deep and dark, his head large and finely formed. In figure he was tall and slim, and in his whole appearance there was something almost ethereal, as of a young poet or philosopher still moving among his fellow-men, yet knowing himself to be prematurely smitten, set apart, and consecrated to death, by some insidious slow disease from which there is no escape. This was Beth's first notion of him, but she always hoped it was fanciful. She thought about him a good deal in the solitary walks which were her principal recreation. When she was tired of working or wanted to think, she used to go out and wander alone. At first she was afraid to venture far, for she had always been assured that she had no head for topography, and would never be able to find her way; and so long as she went about under escort, with some one to save her the necessity of observing, she never knew where she was. Now, however, that she had to look after herself, she found no difficulty after her first timidity wore off; and this little experience taught her why it is that the intelligence of women seems childishly defective as regards many of the details of the business of life. They have the faculty, but when they are not allowed to act for themselves, it remains imperfectly developed or is altogether atrophied for want of exercise.

It was in these days of peace that the ugly downward droop of the corners of Beth's mouth, which had always spoilt the expression of her face, entirely disappeared, and her firm-set lips softened into keeping with the kindliness of her beautiful grey eyes; but she still wanted much loving to bring out the natural tenderness which had been so often and so cruelly nipped back in its growth. Beth had been born to be a woman, but circumstances had been forcing her to become a career. Strangely enough, some of the scenes she saw during her rambles in London helped to soften her. While she was under her husband's influence, she saw the evil only, and was filled with bitterness. London meant for her in those days the dirt and squalor of the poor, the depravity of the rich, the fiendish triumph of the lust of man, and the horrible degradation of her own sex; but now that her mind was recovering its tone, and she could see with her own eyes, she discovered the good at war with the evil, the courage and kindliness of the poor, signs of the growth of better feeling in the selfish and greedy rich, the mighty power of purity at war with the license of man, and the noble attitude of women wherever injustice was rife, the weak oppressed, and the wronged remained unrighted; then her heart expanded with pity, and instead of the torment of unavailing hate, she began to revive in the glow of strengthening gleams of hope. It was in those days too that she learnt to appreciate the wonder and beauty of the most wonderful and beautiful city ever seen; and her eyes grew deep from long looking and earnest meditating upon it. She occasionally experienced the sickening sensation of being followed about by one of those specimens of mankind so significantly called "sly dogs" by their fellow-men. They made themselves particularly objectionable in Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park; but she found that an appeal to a policeman or a Park-keeper, or to any decent workman, was enough to stop the nuisance. Genuine respect for women, which is an antidote to the moral rottenness that promotes the decay of nations, and portends the indefinite prolongation of the life of a race, is of slow growth, but it is steadily increasing among the English-speaking peoples.

During her rambles, Beth composed long letters to her friends, but somehow none of them were ever written. She had managed to send a few hurried lines of explanation to Mrs. Kilroy in the midst of her packing before she left Slane. As she had not known where she would be, she had asked Angelica to address her letters to Slane to be forwarded; but no reply had come as yet, and Beth was just a little sore and puzzled about it. However, she knew that, what with her public and private duties, Angelica was overwhelmed with work, and might well have overlooked the fact that she had not answered Beth's letter, so Beth determined to write again. Time passed, however, and she got into such a groove of daily duties that anything outside the regular routine required a special effort which she always postponed, and letters were quite outside the regular routine. After the first no one wrote to her except the old lawyer who sent her half-yearly dividend; and she had written to no one. She had dropped altogether out of her own world, yet, because of her work and of her power to interest herself in every one about her, and to appreciate the goodness of her humblest friends, her life was full, and she had not known a moment's discontent. Little things were great pleasures now. To be able to get on the top of an omnibus at Piccadilly Circus when the sun was setting, and ride to Hammersmith Broadway, engrossed in watching the wonderful narrow cloudscape above the streets, changing from moment to moment in form and colour; the mystery of the hazy distances, the impression of the great buildings and tall irregular blocks of houses appearing all massed together among the trees from different points of view, and taking on fine architectural effects, now transformed into huge grey palaces, large and distinct, now looming in the mist, sketchily, with uncertain outlines, and all the fascination of the fabrics, innocent of detail, that confront the dreamer in enchanted woods, or lure him to the edge of fairy lakes with twinkling lights all multiplied by their own reflection in the water. Beth had rolled in that direction in luxurious carriages often, and never joyed in the scene, her mind being set on other things – things prosaic, such as what she should wear, or whether she was late, scraps of society gossip, conversations which had satiated without satisfying her, and remained in her mind to be items of weariness if not of actual irritation. She had noticed in those days how very seldom she saw a happy face in a carriage, unless it was a very young face, full of expectation. Even the very coachmen and footmen in the Park looked enervated, as the long lines of carriages passed in wearisome procession. And in everything there had been that excess which leaves no room for healthy desire. At first, the shop windows, set out with tasteless profusion, no article in the heterogeneous masses telling, however beautiful, each being eclipsed by the other in the horrible glut, had interested her, and she had looked at everything. But she soon sickened at the sight. The vast quantities of things, crowded together, robbed her of all pleasure of choice, and made her feel as if she had eaten too much. Occasionally she would see two or three things of beauty displayed with art in a large window; but everywhere else excessive quantity produced indifference, disgust, or satiety, according to the mood of the moment. And even in the days of her poverty and obscurity, when her faculties were sharpened into proper appreciation by privation, those congested windows teeming with jewels, with wearing apparel, with all things immoderately, set up a sort of mental dyspepsia that was distressing, and she was glad to turn away to relieve the consequent brain-fag. But by degrees she became accustomed to the tasteless profusion. It did not please her any better, but at all events it did not afflict her by always obtruding itself upon her attention. She saw it, not in detail, but as a part of the picture; and she found in the new view of London and of London life from the top of omnibuses more of the unexpected, of delight, of beauty for the eyes and of matter for the mind, of humour, pathos, poetry, of tragedy and comedy, suggestive glimpses caught in passing and vividly recollected, than she could have conceived possible when she rolled along with society on carriage cushions, soothed by the stultifying ease into temporary sensuous apathy.

Winter set in suddenly and with terrible severity that year. London became a city of snow, cruelly cold, but beautiful, all its ugliness disguised by the white mantle, all its angles softened, all its charms enhanced. Commonplace squares, parks, gardens, and dirty streets were transformed into fairyland by the delicate disposition of snow in festoons on door-post and railing, ledge and lintel, from roof to cellar. The trees especially, all frosted with shining filigree, were a wonder to look upon; and Beth would wander about the alleys in Kensington Gardens, and gaze at the glory of the white world under the sombre grey of the murky clouds, piled up in awesome magnificence, until she ached with yearning for some word of human speech, some way to express it, to make it manifest.

She returned one afternoon somewhat wet and weary from one of her rambles. The little window of her attic was half snowed up, and the gloom under the sloping roof struck a chill to her heart as she entered; but when she had lighted the lamp (a new investment that helped up the temperature besides giving light), and set her little oil-stove going with the kettle on it, her surroundings took on an air of homely comfort that was grateful. As she busied herself preparing the tea, she noticed that her neighbour in the next attic was coughing a good deal, and then it occurred to her that she had not seen him about lately, and she wondered if he could be ill. The thought of a young man of small means, ill alone in a London lodging, probably without a bell in the room, and certainly with no one anxious to answer it if he should ring, though not cheering, is stimulating to the energy of the benevolent, and Beth went downstairs to ask as soon as the notion occurred to her.

"Mr. Brock? there now!" Gwendolen exclaimed in dismay. "If I didn't forget altogether! I've so much to see to, and the missus ill in bed with bronchitis, and Miss Ethel run off her feet, and not too fit 'erself with that cold as 'ud be called influenza if it wasn't for frightening the lodgers. Whatever it is, it's going through the 'ouse, and Mr. Brock seems to have got it bad. 'E ast me when I went wiv 'is shyving-water this morning to tike 'im some coals and mike 'im some tea, an' I never thought no more about it – I clean forgot."