The quiet people,The old church steeple;The sandy reachesOf wreck-strewn beaches—"
The quiet people,The old church steeple;The sandy reachesOf wreck-strewn beaches—"
"Who made that up?" said Sammy suspiciously.
"I did," Beth answered offhand. "At least I didn't make it up, it just came to me. When I make it up it'll most likely be quite different. It's like the stuff for a dress, you know, when you buy it. You get it made up, and it's the same stuff, and it's quite different, too, in a way. You've got it put into shape, and it's good for something."
"I don't believe you made it up," said Sammy doggedly. "You're stuffing me, Beth. You're always trying to stuff me."
Beth, still leaning against the door-post, clasped her hands behind her head and looked up at the sky. "Things keep coming to me faster than I can say them to-night," she proceeded, paying no heed to his remark; "not things about you, though, because nothing goes with Sammy but jammy, clammy, mammy,and those aren't nice. I want things to come about you, but they won't. I tried last night in bed, and what do you think came again and again?
Yes, yes, that was his cry,While the great clouds went sailing by;Flashes of crimson on colder sky;Like the thoughts of a summer's day,Colour'd by love in a life which else were grey.
Yes, yes, that was his cry,While the great clouds went sailing by;Flashes of crimson on colder sky;Like the thoughts of a summer's day,Colour'd by love in a life which else were grey.
But that isn't you, you know, Sammy. Then when I stopped trying for something about you, there came such a singing! What was it? It seems to have gone—and yet it's here, you know, it's all here," she insisted, with one hand on the top of her head, and the other on her chest, and her eyes straining; "and yet I can't get it."
"Beth, don't get on like that," Sammy remonstrated. "You make me feel all horrid."
"Make you feel," Beth cried in a deep voice, clenching her fists and shaking them at him, exasperated because the verses continued to elude her. "Don't you know what I'm here for? I'm here to make you feel. If you don't feel what I feel, then youshallfeel horrid, if I have to kill you."
"Shut up!" said Sammy, beginning to be frightened. "I shall go away if you don't."
"Go away, then," said Beth. "You're just an idiot boy, and I'm tired of you."
Sammy's blue eyes filled with tears. He got down from the heap of sticks, intent on making his escape; but Beth changed her mind when she felt her audience melting away.
"Where are you going?" she demanded.
"I'm going home," he said deprecatingly. "I can't stay if you go on in that fool-fashion."
"It isn't a fool-fashion," Beth rejoined vehemently. "It's you that's a fool. I told you so before."
"If you wasn't a girl, I'd punch your 'ead," said Sammy, half afraid.
"I believe you!" Beth jeered. "But you're not a girl, anyway." She flew at him as she spoke, caught him by the collar, kicked his shins, slapped his face, and drubbed him on the back.
Sammy, overwhelmed by the sudden onslaught, made no effort to defend himself, but just wriggled out of her grasp, and ran home, with great tears streaming down his round red cheeks, and sobs convulsing him.
Beth's exasperation subsided the moment she was left alone in the wood-house. She sat down on the sticks, and looked straight before her, filled with remorse.
"What shall I do? What shall I do?" she kept saying to herself. "Oh dear! oh dear! Sammy! Sammy! He's gone. I've lost him.This is the most dreadful grief I have ever had in my life."
The moment she had articulated this full-blown phrase, she became aware of its importance. She repeated it to herself, reflected upon it, and was so impressed by it, that she got up, and went indoors to write it down. By the time she had found pencil and paper, she was the sad central figure of a great romance, full of the most melancholy incidents; in which troubled atmosphere she sat and suffered for the rest of the evening; but she did not think of Sammy again till she went to bed. Then, however, she was seized anew with the dread of losing him for ever, and cried helplessly until she fell asleep.
For days she mourned for him without daring to go to the window, lest she should see him pass by on the other side of the road with scorn and contempt flashing forth from his innocent blue eyes. In the evening, however, she opened the back-gate, as usual, and waited in the wood-house; but he never came. And at first she was in despair. Then she became defiant—she didn't care, not she! Then she grew determined. He'd have to come back if she chose, she'd make him. But how? Oh, she knew! She'd just sit still till something came.
She was sitting on a heap of beech branches opposite the doorway, picking off the bronze buds and biting them. The blanched skeleton of Sammy's whiting, sad relic of happier moments, grinned up at her from the earthen floor. Outside, the old pear-tree on the left, leafless now and motionless, showed distinctly in silhouette against the night-sky. Its bare branches made black bars on the face of the bright white moon which was rising behind it. What a strange thing time is! day and night, day and night, week and month, spring, summer, autumn, winter, always coming and going again, while we only come once, go, and return no more. It was getting on for Christmas now. Another year had nearly gone. The years slip away steadily—day by day—winter, spring. Winter so cold and wet; March all clouds and dust—comes in like a lion, goes out like a lamb; then April is bright.
The year slips away steadily; slips round the steady year; days come and go—no, no! Days dawn and disappear, winters and springs—springs, rings, sings? No, leave that. Winter with cold and rain—pain? March storms and clouds and pain, till April once again light with it brings.
Beth jumped down from the beech boughs, ran round to the old wooden pump, clambered up by it on to the back-kitchen roof, and made for the acting-room window. It was open, andshe screwed herself in round the bar and fastened the door. It was quite dark under the sloping roof, but she found the end of a tallow candle, smuggled up there for the purpose, lighted it, and stuck it on to the top of the rough deal box which formed her writing-table. She had a pencil, sundry old envelopes carefully cut open so as to save as much of the clean space inside as possible, margins of newspapers, precious but rare half-sheets, and any other scrap of paper on which she could write, all carefully concealed in a hole in the roof, from which she tore the whole treasure now in her haste.
"Winter, summer, Sammy," she kept saying to herself. "Autumn, autumn-tinted woods—my king—Ministering Children—ministering—king. Moon, noon. Story, glory. Ever, never, endeavour. Oh, I can do it! I can! I can! Slips round the steady year—"
It took her some days to do it to her satisfaction, but they were days of delight, for the whole time she felt exactly as she had done when first she found Sammy. She had the same warm glow in her chest, the same sort of yearning, half anxious, half pleasant, wholly desirable.
It was late in the evening when she finished, and she had to put her work away in a hurry, because her mother sent Harriet to tell her she must go to bed; but all night long she lay only half asleep, and all the time conscious of joy to come in the morning.
She was up early, but had too much self-restraint to go to the acting-room till lessons were over. She was afraid of being disturbed and so having her pleasure spoilt. As soon as she could safely lock herself up, however, she took her treasure out. It was written on the precious half-sheets in queer little crabbed characters, very distinctly:—
Slips round the steady year,Days dawn and disappear,Winters and springs;March storms and clouds and rain,Till April once againLight with it brings.Then comes the summer song,Birds in the woods prolongDay into night.Hot after tepid showersBeats down this sun of ours,Upward the radiant flowersLook their delight.O summer scents at noon!O summer nights and moon!Season of story.Labour and love for everStrengthen each hard endeavour,Now climb we up or never,Upward to glory!Winter and summer past,Autumn has come at last,Hope in its keeping.Beauty of tinted wood,Beauty of tranquil mood,Harvest of earned goodRipe for the reaping.Thus on a torrid daySlipped my fond thoughts away,Book from thy pages.Seasons of which I sing,Are they not like, my king,Thine own life's minist'ringIn all its stages?First in the spring, I ween,Were all thy powers foreseen—Storms sowed renown.Then came thy summer climb,Then came thy golden-prime,Then came thy harvest-time,Bringing thy crown.
Slips round the steady year,Days dawn and disappear,Winters and springs;March storms and clouds and rain,Till April once againLight with it brings.
Then comes the summer song,Birds in the woods prolongDay into night.Hot after tepid showersBeats down this sun of ours,Upward the radiant flowersLook their delight.
O summer scents at noon!O summer nights and moon!Season of story.Labour and love for everStrengthen each hard endeavour,Now climb we up or never,Upward to glory!
Winter and summer past,Autumn has come at last,Hope in its keeping.Beauty of tinted wood,Beauty of tranquil mood,Harvest of earned goodRipe for the reaping.
Thus on a torrid daySlipped my fond thoughts away,Book from thy pages.Seasons of which I sing,Are they not like, my king,Thine own life's minist'ringIn all its stages?
First in the spring, I ween,Were all thy powers foreseen—Storms sowed renown.Then came thy summer climb,Then came thy golden-prime,Then came thy harvest-time,Bringing thy crown.
When Beth had read these lines, she doubled the half sheets on which they were written, and put them in her pocket deliberately. She was sitting on the acting-room floor at the moment, near the window.
"Now," she exclaimed, folding her delicate nervous hands on her lap, and looking up at the strip of sky above her, "now I shall be forgiven!"
It was dark at this time when the boys left school in the evening, and Beth stood at the back-gate waiting to waylay Sammy. He came trotting along by himself, and saw her as he approached, but did not attempt to escape. On the contrary, he stopped, but he had nothing to say; the relief of finding her friendly again was too great for words. Had she looked out, she might have seen him any day since the event, bright-eyed and rosy-cheeked as usual, prowling about, anxious to obtain a reassuring smile from her on his way to and from school. It was not likely that he would lose the credit of being Beth Caldwell's sweetheart if he could help it, just because she beat him. Already he had suffered somewhat in prestige because he had not been seen with her so often lately; and he had been quite asmiserable in his own way, under the impression that she meant to cast him off, as she had in hers.
"Come in, Sammy," she cried, catching hold of his hand. "Come in, I've something to show you; but it's too cold to sit in the wood-house, and we can't have a light there either. Come up by the pump to the acting-room. I've fastened the door inside, and nobody can get in. Come! I'll show you the way."
Sammy followed her obediently and in silence, although somewhat suspiciously as usual; but she piloted him safely, and, once in the acting-room, with the candle lighted, he owned that it was jolly.
"Sammy, Ihavebeen sorry," Beth began. "I've been quite miserable about—you know what. It was horrid of me."
"I told you scratch-cats were horrid," said Sammy solemnly.
"But I've done something to atone," Beth proceeded. "Something came to me all about you. You shall have it, Sammy, to keep. Just listen, and I'll read it."
Sammy listened with his mouth and eyes open, but when she had done he shook his head. "You didn't make that up yourself," he said decidedly.
"O Sammy! yes, I did," Beth protested, taken aback and much pained.
"No, I don't believe you," said Sammy. "You got it out of a book. You're always trying to stuff me up."
"I'm not stuffing you, Sammy," said Beth, suddenly flaming. "I made it myself, every word of it. I tell you it came to me. It's my own.You've got to believe it."
Sammy looked about him. There was no escape by the door, because that led into the house, and Beth was between him and the window, with her brown hair dishevelled, and her big eyes burning.
"Well," he said, a politic desire to conciliate struggling with an imperative objection to be stuffed, "of course you made it yourself if you say so. But it's all rot anyway."
The words slipped out unawares, and the moment he uttered them he ducked his head: but nothing happened. Then he looked up at Beth, and found her gazing hard at him, and as she did so the colour gradually left her cheeks and the light went out of her eyes. Slowly she gathered up her papers and put them into the hole in the roof. Then she sat on one of the steps which led down into the room, but she said nothing.
Sammy sat still in a tremor until the silence became too oppressive to be borne; then he fidgeted, then he got up, and looked longingly towards the window.
"I shall be late," he ventured.
Beth made no sign.
"When shall I see you again?" he recommenced, deprecatingly. "Will you be at the back-gate to-morrow?"
"No," she said shortly. "It's too cold to wait for you."
"Then how shall I see you?" he asked, with a blank expression.
Beth reflected. "Oh, just whistle as you pass," she said at last, in an offhand way, "and I'll come out if I feel inclined."
The next evening Mrs. Caldwell was taking her accustomed nap after dinner in her arm-chair by the fire in the dining-room, and Beth was sitting at the table dreaming, when she was suddenly startled by a long, loud, shrill whistle. Another and another of the most piercing quality followed in quick succession. Swiftly but cautiously she jumped up, and slipped into the drawing-room, which was all in darkness. There were outside shutters to the lower windows, but the drawing-room ones were not closed, so she looked out, and there was Sammy, standing with his innocent fat face as close to the dining-room shutters as he could hold it, with his fingers in his mouth, uttering shrill whistles loud and long and hard and fast enough to rouse the whole neighbourhood. Beth, impatient of such stupidity, returned to the dining-room and sat down again, leaving Sammy to his fate.
Presently Mrs. Caldwell started wide awake.
"Whatisthat noise, Beth?" she exclaimed.
"It seems to be somebody whistling outside," Beth answered in deep disgust. Then her exasperation got the better of her self-control, and she jumped up, and ran out to the kitchen.
"Harriet," she said between her clenched teeth, "go out and send that silly fool away."
Harriet hastened to obey; but at the opening of the front door, Sammy bolted.
The next evening he began again, however, as emphatically as before; but Beth could not stand such imbecility a second time, so she ran out of the back-gate, and seized Sammy.
"What are you doing there?" she cried, shaking him.
"Why, you told me to whistle," Sammy remonstrated, much aggrieved.
"Did I tell you to whistle like a railway engine?" Beth demanded scornfully. "You've no sense at all, Sammy. Go away!"
"Oh, do let's come in, Beth," Sammy pleaded. "I've something to tell you."
"What is it?" said Beth ungraciously.
"I'll tell you if you'll let me come in."
"Well, come then," Beth answered impatiently, and led the way up over the roof to the acting-room. "What is it?" she again demanded, when she had lighted a scrap of candle and seated herself on the steps. "I don't believe it's anything."
"Yes, it is, so there!" said Sammy triumphantly. "But I'll lay you won't guess what it is. Mrs. Barnes has got a baby."
Mrs. Barnes was the wife of the head-master of the Mansion-House School, and all the little boys, feeling that there was more in the event than had been explained to them, were vaguely disgusted.
"I don't call that anything," Beth answered contemptuously. "Lots of people have babies."
"Well," said Sammy, "I wouldn't have thought it of him."
"Thought what of whom?" Beth snapped in a tone which silenced Sammy. He ventured to laugh, however.
"Don't laugh in that gigantic way, Sammy," she exclaimed, still more irritated. "When you throw back your head and open your mouth so wide, I can see you have no wisdom-teeth."
"You're always nasty now, Beth," Sammy complained.
Which was true. Love waning becomes critical. Beth's own feeling for Sammy had been a strong mental stimulant at first, and, in her enjoyment of it, she had overlooked all his shortcomings. There was nothing in him, however, to keep that feeling alive, and it had gradually died of inanition. His slowness and want of imagination first puzzled and then provoked her; and, little-boy-like, he had not even been able to respond to such tenderness as she showed him—not that she had ever showed him much tenderness, for they were just like boys together. She had kissed him, however, once or twice, after a quarrel, to make it up; but she did not like kissing him: little boys are rank. His pretty colouring was all that he had had to attract her, and that, alas! had lost its charm by this time. For a little longer she looked out for him and troubled about him, then let him go gradually—so gradually, that she never knew when exactly he lapsed from her life altogether.
Fortwo years after Beth was outlawed by her mother, Great-Aunt Victoria Bench was her one link with the civilised world. The intimacy had lapsed a little while Sammy was the prevailing human interest in Beth's life, but gradually as he ceased to be satisfactory, she returned to the old lady, and hovered about her, seeking the sustenance for which her poor little heart ached onalways, and for want of which her busy brain ran riot; and the old lady, who had not complained of Beth's desertion, welcomed her back in a way which showed that she had felt it.
For Great-Aunt Victoria Bench was lonely in the days of her poverty and obscurity. Since the loss of her money, there had been a great change in the attitude of most of her friends towards her, and such attentions as she received were of a very different kind from those to which she had been accustomed. Mrs. Caldwell had been the most generous to her, for at the time that she had offered Aunt Victoria a home in her house, she had not known that the old lady would be able to pay her way at all. Fortunately Aunt Victoria had enough left for that, but still her position in Mrs. Caldwell's house was not what it would have been had she not lost most of her means. Mrs. Caldwell was not aware of the fact, but her manner had insensibly adjusted itself to Aunt Victoria's altered circumstances, her care and consideration for her being as much reduced in amount as her income; and Aunt Victoria felt the difference, but said nothing. Slowly and painfully she learnt to realise that it was for what she had had to bestow, and not for what she was, that people used to care; they had served her as they served their God, in the hope of reaping a rich reward. Like many other people with certain fine qualities of their own, Aunt Victoria knew that there was wickedness in the outside world, but never suspected that her own immediate circle, the nice people with whom she talked pleasantly every day, could be tainted; and the awakening to find that her friends cared less disinterestedly for her than she did for them was a cruel disillusion. Her first inclination was to fly far from them all, and spend the rest of her days amongst strangers who could not disappoint her because she would have nothing to expect of them, and who might perhaps come to care for her really. Long hours she sat and suffered, shut up in her room, considering the matter, yearning to go, but restrained by the fear that, as an old woman, she would be unwelcome everywhere. In Aunt Victoria's day old people were only too apt to be selfish, tyrannical, narrow, and ignorant, a terror to their friends; and they were nearly always ill, the old men from lives of self-indulgence, and the old women from unwholesome restraint of every kind. Now we are beginning to ask what becomes of the decrepit old women, there are so few to be seen. This is the age of youthful grandmothers, capable of enjoying a week of their lives more than their own grandmothers were able to enjoy the whole of their declining years; their vitality is so much greater, their appearance so much better preserved; their knowledge so much more extensive, their interests so much more varied, and their hearts so much larger. Aunt Victoria nowadays would have struck out for herself in a new direction.She would have gone to London, joined a progressive women's club, made acquaintance with work of some kind or another, and never known a dull moment; for she would have been a capable woman had any one of her faculties been cultivated to some useful purpose; but as it was, she had nothing to fall back upon. She was just like a domestic animal, like a dog that has become a member of the family, and is tolerated from habit even after it grows old, and because remarks would be made if it were put out of the way before its time; and she had been content with the position so long as much was made of her. Now, however, all too late, a great yearning had seized upon her for an object in life, for some pursuit, some interest that would remain to her when everything else was lost; and she prayed to God earnestly that He would show her where to go and what to do, or give her something—something which at last resolved itself into something to live for.
Then one day there came a little resolute tap at the door, and Beth walked in without waiting to be asked, and seeing in a moment with that further faculty of hers into the old lady's heart that it was sad, she went to her impulsively, and laid her unkempt brown head against her arm in an awkward caress, which touched the old lady to tears. Beth was lonely too, thought Aunt Victoria, a strange, lonely little being, neglected, ill-used, and misunderstood, and the question flashed through the old lady's mind, if she left the child, what would become of her? The tangled brown head, warm against her arm, nestled nearer, and Aunt Victoria patted it protectingly.
"Do you want anything, Beth?" she asked.
"No, Aunt Victoria. I just wanted to see you. I was lying on the see-saw board, looking up through the leaves, and I suddenly got a fancy that you were here all by yourself, and that you didn't like being all by yourself.Ifeel like that sometimes. So I came to see you."
"Thank you, Beth," said Aunt Victoria, with her hand still on Beth's head as if she were blessing her; and when she had spoken she looked up through the window, and silently thanked the Lord. This was the sign. He had committed Beth to her care and affection, and she was not to think of herself, but of the child, whose need was certainly the greater of the two.
"Have you nothing to do, Beth?" she said after a pause.
"No, Aunt Victoria," Beth answered drearily—"at least there are plenty of things I could do, but everything I think of makes me shudder. I feel so sometimes. Do you? There isn't a single thing I want to do to-day. I've tried one thing after the other, but I can't think about what I'm doing. Sometimes I like to sit still and do nothing; but to-day I don't even like that. I thinkI should like to be asked to do something. If I could do something for you now—something to help you——"
"Well, you can, Beth," Aunt Victoria answered, after sitting rigidly upright for a moment, blinking rapidly. "Help me to unpick an old gown. I am going to make another like it, and want it unpicked for a pattern."
"Can you make a gown?" Beth asked in surprise.
Aunt Victoria smiled. Then she took down an old black gown that was hanging behind the door, and handed it to Beth with a pair of sharp scissors.
"I'll undo the body part," Beth said, "and that will save your eyes. I don't think this gown owes you much."
"I do not understand that expression, Beth," said Aunt Victoria.
"Don't you," said Beth, working away with the scissors cheerfully. "Harriet always says that, when she's got all the good there is to be got out of anything—the dusters, you know, or the dishcloth. I once did a piece of unpicking like this for mamma, and she didn't explain properly, or something—at all events, I took out a great deal too much, so she——"
"Don't call your mamma 'she.' 'She' is the cat."
"Mamma, then. Mamma beat me."
"Don't say she beat you."
"I said mamma."
"Well, don't talk about your mamma beating you. That is not a nice thing to talk about."
"It's not a nice thing to do either," said Beth judicially. "And I never used to talk about it; didn't like to, you know. But now she—mamma—doesn't beat me any more—at least only sometimes when she forgets."
"Ah, then, you have been a better girl."
"No, not better—bigger. You see if I struck her back again she wouldn't like it."
"Beth! Beth! strike your mother!"
"That was the danger," said Beth, in her slow, distinct, imperturbable way. "One day she made me so angry I very nearly struck her, and I told her so. That made her look queer, I can tell you. And she's never struck me since—except in a half-hearted sort of way, or when she forgot, and that didn't count, of course. But I think I know now how it was she used to beat me. I did just the same thing myself one day. I beat Sammy——"
"Who is Sammy?" said Aunt Victoria, looking over her spectacles.
"Sammy Lee, you know."
Aunt Victoria recollected, and felt she should improve theoccasion, but was at a loss for a moment what to say. She was anxious above everything that Beth should talk to her freely, for how could she help the child if she did not know all she had in her mind? It is upon the things they are never allowed to mention that children brood unwholesomely.
"I thought that you were not allowed to know Sammy Lee," she finally observed.
"No more I was," Beth answered casually.
"Yet you knew him all the same?" Aunt Victoria ventured reproachfully.
"Aunt Victoria," said Beth, "did the Lord die for Sammy?"
"Ye—yes," said Aunt Victoria, hesitating, not because she doubted the fact, but because she did not know what use Beth would make of it.
"Then why can'tIknow him?" Beth asked.
"Oh, be—because Sammy does not live as if he were grateful to the Lord."
"If he did, would he be a gentleman?" Beth asked.
"Yes," Aunt Victoria answered decidedly.
Beth stopped snipping, and looked at her as if she were looking right through her, and out into the world beyond. Then she pursed up her mouth and shook her head.
"That won't hold water," she said. "If a man must live like the Lord to be a gentleman, what is Uncle James? And if living like the Lord makes a man a gentleman, why don't we call on old Job Fisher?"
Aunt Victoria began to fear that the task she had undertaken would prove too much for her. "It is hard, very hard," she muttered.
"Well, never mind," said Beth, resuming her work. "When I grow up I mean to write about things like that. But what were we talking about? Oh, beating Sammy. I did feel bad after I beat him, and I vowed I'd never do it again however tiresome he was, and I never did. It makes it easier if you vow. It's just as if your hands were tied then. I'd like to tell mamma to try it, only she'd be sure to get waxy. You tell her, Aunt Victoria."
Aunt Victoria made some reply which was lost in the noise of vehicles passing in the street, followed by the tramp of many feet and a great chattering. An excursion train had just arrived, and the people were pouring into the place. Beth ran to the window and watched them.
"More confounded trippers," she ejaculated. "They spoil the summer, swarming everywhere."
"Beth, I wish, to please me, you would make another vow. Don't say 'confounded trippers.'"
"All right, Aunt Victoria. Jim says it. But I know all the bad words in the language were made for the men. I suppose because they have all the bad thoughts, and do all the bad things. I shall say 'objectionable excursionists' in future." She went to the door. "I'm just going to get something," she said. "You won't go away now, will you? I shall be a minute or two, but I want you to be here when I come back. I shall be wild if you're not."
She banged the door after her and ran downstairs.
Aunt Victoria looked round the room; it no longer seemed the same place to her. Beth's cheerful chatter had already driven away the evil spirit of dejection, and taken the old lady out of herself. Untidy child! She had left her work on the floor, her scissors on the bed, disarranged the window-curtain, and upset a chair. If she would not do any more unpicking when she returned, she must be made to put things straight. There was one little easy-chair in the room. Aunt Victoria sat down in it, a great piece of self-indulgence for her at that time of day, folded her hands, and closed her weary old eyes just to give them a rest, while a nice little look of content came into her face, which it was good to see there.
When she opened her eyes again, Beth was setting a tray on a tiny table beside her.
"I think you've been having a nap, Miss Great-Aunt Victoria Bench," she said. "Now, have some tea! and buttered toast!!"
"O Beth!" cried the old lady, beaming. "How could you—at this time of day? Well, to please you. It is quite delicious. So refreshing. What, another piece of toast! Must I take another?"
"You must take it all," said Beth. "I made it for you. I do like doing things for you, Aunt Victoria. It makes me feel nice all over. I'll just unpick a little more. Then I'll tidy up."
"You're a good child to think of that," said Aunt Victoria. "I did not think you would."
"Didn't you?" said Beth. "How funny! But I like things tidy. I often tidy up."
"I—I suppose Harriet says tidy up," the old lady observed gently, not liking to be censorious at this happy moment of relaxation, but still anxious to do her duty. Beth understood her perfectly and smiled.
"I like you to tell me when I say things wrong," she said; "and I like to know how Harriet talks too. You can't write if you don't know how every one talks."
"What are you going to write?" Aunt Victoria asked, taking up another piece of buttered toast.
"Oh, books," Beth answered casually.
"Write something soul-sustaining then, Beth," said Aunt Victoria. "Try to make all you say soul-sustaining. And never use a word you would be ashamed to hear read aloud."
"You mean like those things they read in church?" said Beth. "I don't think I ever could use such words. When Mr. Richardson comes close to them, I get hot all over and hate him. But I promise you, Aunt Victoria, I will never write anything worse than there is in the Bible. There's a man called Ruskin who writes very well, they say, and he learnt how to do it from reading the Bible. His mother taught him when he was a little boy, just as you taught me. I always read the Bible—search the Scriptures—every day. You say it's a sacred book, don't you, Aunt Victoria? Harriet says it's smutty."
"Sayswhat?" Aunt Victoria exclaimed, sitting bolt upright in her horror. "What does she mean by such an expression?"
"Oh, she just means stories like Joseph and Potiphar's wife, David and Bathsheba, Susanna and the elders."
"Mydearchild!" Aunt Victoria gasped.
"Well, Aunt Victoria, they're all in the Bible, at least Susanna and the elders isn't. That's in the Apocrypha."
Aunt Victoria sat silent a considerable time. At last she said solemnly: "Beth, I want you to promise me one thing solemnly, and that is that all your life long, whatever may be before you, whatever it may be your lot to learn, you will pray to God to preserve your purity."
"What is purity?" said Beth.
Aunt Victoria hesitated: "It's a condition of the mind which keeps us from ever doing or saying anything we should be ashamed of," she finally decided.
"But what kind of things?" Beth asked.
Unfortunately Aunt Victoria was not equal to the occasion. She blinked her eyes very hard, sipped some tea, and left Beth to find out for herself, according to custom.
"We must only talk about nice things," she said.
"Well, I shouldn't care to talk nastily about people as Lady Benyon does sometimes," Beth rejoined.
"But, my dear child, that is not a nice thing to say about Lady Benyon."
"Isn't it?" said Beth, then added: "Oh dear, how funny things are!" meaning how complicated.
"Where did you get this tea, Beth?" said Aunt Victoria. "It is very good, and I feel so much the better for it."
"I thought you wanted something," said Beth. "Your face went all queer. That means people want something. I got the tea out of the store-cupboard. It has a rotten lock. If you shake it, it comes open."
"But what does your mamma say?"
"Oh, she never notices. Or, if she does, she thinks she left it open herself. Harriet has a little sometimes. She takes it because she says mamma should allow her a quarter of a pound of dry tea a week, so it isn't stealing. And I took it for you because you pay to live here, so you're entitled to the tea. I don't take it for myself, of course. But I'm afraid I oughtn't to have told you about Harriet. I'm so sorry. It slipped out. It wasn't sneaking. But I trust to your honour, Aunt Victoria. If you sneaked on Harriet, I could never trust you again, now could I?" She got up as she spoke, folded her work, picked up the chair, arranged the window-curtain, moved the tray, and put the table back in its place, at the same time remarking: "I shall take these things downstairs now, and go for a run."
She left Aunt Victoria with much to reflect upon. The glimpse she had accidentally given the old lady of Harriet's turpitude had startled her considerably. Mrs. Caldwell had always congratulated herself on having such a quiet respectable person in the house as Harriet to look after Beth, and now it appeared that the woman was disreputable both in her habits and her conversation, the very last person whom a girl, even of such strongly marked individuality as Beth, should have been allowed to associate with intimately. But what ought Miss Victoria to do? If she spoke to Mrs. Caldwell, Beth would never forgive her, and the important thing was not to lose Beth's confidence; but if she did not speak to Mrs. Caldwell, would she be doing right? Of course, if Mrs. Caldwell had been a different sort of person, her duty would have been clear and easy; but as it was, Aunt Victoria decided to wait.
The next day Beth returned of her own accord to finish the unpicking. She wanted to know what "soul-sustaining" meant; and in ten minutes she had cross-questioned Aunt Victoria into such a state of confusion that the old lady could only sit silently praying to Heaven for guidance. At last she got up, and took a little packet out of one of her trunks. She had to live in her boxes because there was no closet or wardrobe or chest of drawers in the room.
"See, Beth," she said, "here is some tea and sugar. I don't think it nice of you to go to your mother's cupboard without her leave. That's rather a servant's trick, you know, and not honest; so give it up, like a dear child, and let us have tea together, you and I, up here, when we want it. I very much enjoy a good cup of tea, it is so refreshing, and you make it beautifully."
Beth changed colour and countenance while Aunt Victoria was speaking, and she sat for some time afterwards looking fixedly at the empty grate; then she said, "You always tell methings nicely, Aunt Victoria; that's what I like about you. I'll not touch the cupboard again, I vow; and if you catch me at any other 'servant's tricks' just you let me know."
The old lady's heart glowed. The Lord was showing her how to help the child.
But the holidays were coming on; she would have to go away to make room for the boys; and she dreaded to leave Beth at this critical time, lest she should relapse, just as she was beginning to form nice feminine habits. For Beth had taken kindly to the sewing and tea-drinking and long quiet chats; it was a delight to her to have some one to wait on, and help, and talk to. "I'm so fond of you, Aunt Victoria," she said one day; "I even like you to snap at me; and if we lived quite alone together, you and I, I should do everything for you."
"Would you like to come away with me these holidays?" said Aunt Victoria, seized suddenly with a bright idea.
"Oh, wouldn't I!" said Beth. "But then, the expense!"
"I think I can manage it, if your mamma has no objection," said Aunt Victoria, nodding and blinking, and nodding again, as she calculated.
"I should think mamma would be only too glad to get rid of me," said Beth hopefully.
And she was not mistaken.
Thenext few weeks, in their effect upon Beth's character, were among the most important of her life. She did not know until the day before where she was to go with Aunt Victoria. It was the habit of the family to conceal all such arrangements from the children, and indeed from each other as much as possible. Aunt Victoria observed that Caroline was singularly reticent, and Mrs. Caldwell complained that Aunt Victoria made a mystery of everything. It was a hard habit, which robbed Beth of what would have been so much to her, something to look forward to. Since she knew that she was to go somewhere, however, she had lived upon the idea; her imagination had been busy trying to picture the unknown place, and her mind full of plans for the comfort of Aunt Victoria.
It was after breakfast one day, while her mother and Aunt Victoria were still at table, that the announcement was made. "You need not do any lessons this morning, children," Mrs. Caldwell said. "Beth is going to Harrowgate with Aunt Victoria to-morrow, and I must see to her things and get them packed."
Aunt Victoria looked round at Beth with a carefully restrained smile, expecting some demonstration of joy. Beth was standing in the window looking out, and turned with a frown of intentness on her face when her mother mentioned Harrowgate, as if she were trying to recall something.
"Harrowgate!" she said slowly. "Harrowgate!"
"Beth, do not frown so," Mrs. Caldwell exclaimed irritably. "You'll be all wrinkled before you're twenty."
Beth gazed at her solemnly without seeing her, then fixed her eyes upon the ground as if she were perusing it, and began to walk slowly up and down with her head bent, her hands clasped behind her, her curly brown hair falling forward over her cheeks, and her lips moving.
"What is it you're muttering, child?" Aunt Victoria asked.
"I'm trying to think," Beth rejoined.
"''Twas in the prime of summer time,An evening calm and cool...."'Two sudden blows with a ragged stick,And one with a heavy stone...."'And yet I feared him all the more,For lying there so still...."'I took the dreary body up.'...
"''Twas in the prime of summer time,An evening calm and cool....
"'Two sudden blows with a ragged stick,And one with a heavy stone....
"'And yet I feared him all the more,For lying there so still....
"'I took the dreary body up.'...
"Ah, I know—I have it!" she exclaimed joyfully, and with a look of relief; "Harrowgate—Knaresboro'—the cave there——
"'Two stern-faced men set out from Lynn,Through the cold and heavy mist;And Eugene Aram walked between,With gyves upon his wrist.'"
"'Two stern-faced men set out from Lynn,Through the cold and heavy mist;And Eugene Aram walked between,With gyves upon his wrist.'"
"My dear child," said Aunt Victoria sternly, "what is it you are trying to say? and how often are you to be told not to work yourself up into such a state of excitement about nothing?"
"Don't you know about Eugene Aram, Aunt Victoria?" Beth rejoined with concern, as if not to know about Eugene Aram were indeed to have missed one of the great interests of life. Then she sat down at the table with her elbows resting on it, and her delicate oval face framed in her slender hands, and gave Aunt Victoria a graphic sketch of the story from Bulwer Lytton.
"Dear me, Caroline," said Aunt Victoria, greatly horrified, "is it possible that you allow your children to read such books?"
"I read such books to my children myself when I see fit,"Mrs. Caldwell rejoined. "I may be allowed to judge what is good for them, I suppose?"
"Good for them!" Aunt Victoria ejaculated. "Accounts of murder, theft, and executions!"
"But why not, Aunt Victoria?" Beth put in. "Why not read about Eugene Aram as well as about Barabbas?"
Aunt Victoria looked so shocked, however, at the mention of Barabbas in this connection, that Beth broke off and hastened to add for the relief of the old lady's feelings—"Only of course Barabbas was a sacred sort of thief, and that is different."
On the journey next day a casual remark let fall by a stranger made a curious impression upon Beth. They were travelling second-class, and Aunt Victoria, talking to another lady in the carriage, happened to mention that Beth was twelve years old. A gentleman, the only other passenger, who was sitting opposite to Beth, looked up at her over his newspaper when her age was mentioned, and remarked—"Are you only twelve? I should have thought you were older. Rather nice-looking too, only freckled."
Beth felt her face flush hotly, and then she laughed. "Nice-looking! Nice-looking!" She repeated the words to herself again and again, and every time they recurred to her, she lost countenance in spite of herself, and laughed and flushed, being strangely surprised and pleased.
It was that remark that first brought home to Beth the fact that she had a personal appearance at all. Hitherto she had thought very little of herself. The world without had been, and always would be, much more to her than the world within. She was not to be one of those narrow, self-centred, morbid beings whose days are spent in introspection, and whose powers are wasted in futile efforts to set their own little peculiarities forth in such a way as to make them seem of consequence. She never at any time studied her own nature, except as a part of human nature, and in the hope of finding in herself some clue which would help her to a sympathetic understanding of other people.
Great-Aunt Victoria Bench, in these days of her poverty, lodged with an old servant of the family, who gave her for ten shillings a week a bedroom at the top of the house, and a little sunny sitting-room on the ground-floor at the back, looking out into an old-fashioned garden, full of flowers such as knights in olden times culled for their ladies. The little sitting-room was furnished with Chippendale chairs, and a little Chippendale sideboard with drawers, and a bookcase with glass doors above and a cupboard below, in which Aunt Victoria used to keep her stores of tea, coffee, sugar, and currants in mustard-tins. Beth heard with surprise that the hearthrug was one which Aunt Victoriahad worked herself as a present for Prentice when she married. Prentice was now Mrs. Pearce, but Aunt Victoria always called her Prentice. The hearthrug was like a Turkey carpet, only softer, deeper, and richer. Aunt Victoria had sat on Chippendale chairs in her youth, and she was happy amongst them. When she sat down on one she drew herself up, disdaining the stiff back and smiled and felt young again, while her memory slipped away to pleasant days gone by; and Mrs. Pearce would come and talk to her, standing respectfully, and reminding her of little things which Aunt Victoria had forgotten, or alluding with mysterious nods and shakings of the head to other things which Beth was not to hear about. When this happened Beth always withdrew. She was becoming shy of intruding now, and delicate about overhearing anything that was not intended for her; and when she had gone on these occasions, the two old ladies would nod and smile to each other, Prentice in respectful approval, and Aunt Victoria in kindly acknowledgment. Prentice wore a cap and front like Aunt Victoria, but of a subdued brown colour, as became her humble station.
Beth took charge of the housekeeping as soon as they arrived, made tea, arranged the groceries in the cupboard, and put the key in her pocket; and Aunt Victoria, who was sitting upright on a high Chippendale chair, knitting, and enjoying the dignity of the old attitude after her journey, looked on over her spectacles in pleased approval. Before they went to bed, they read the evening psalms and lessons together in the sitting-room, and Aunt Victoria read prayers. When they went upstairs they said their private prayers, kneeling beside the bed, and Aunt Victoria made Beth wash herself in hot water, and brush her hair for half-an-hour. Aunt Victoria attributed her own slender, youthful figure and the delicate texture of her skin to this discipline. She said she had preserved her figure by never relaxing into languid attitudes, and her complexion by washing her face in hot water with fine white soap every night, and in cold water without soap every morning. She did not take her fastidious appetite into consideration, nor her simple, regular life, nor the fact that she never touched alcohol in any shape or form, nor wore a tight or heavy garment, nor lost her self-control for more than a moment whatever happened, but Beth discovered for herself, as she grew older, that these and that elevated attitude of mind which is religion, whatever the form preferred to express it, are essential parts of the discipline necessary for the preservation of beauty.
In the morning Beth made breakfast, and when it was over, if crusts had accumulated in the cupboard, she steeped them in hot milk in a pie-dish, beat them up with an egg, a little butter, sugar, currants, and candied peel, and some nutmeg grated, for abread-pudding, which Prentice took out to bake for dinner, remarking regularly that little miss promised to be helpful, to which Aunt Victoria as regularly responded Yes, she hoped Miss Beth would become a capable woman some day.
After breakfast they read the psalms and lessons together, verse by verse, and had some "good talk," as Beth called it. Then Aunt Victoria got out an old French grammar and phrase-book, a copy of "Télémaque," and a pocket-dictionary, treasured possessions which she always carried about with her, and had a kind of pride in. French had been her speciality, but these were the only French books she had, and she certainly never spoke the language. She would have shrunk modestly from any attempt to do so, thinking such a display almost as objectionable as singing in a loud professional way instead of quietly, like a well-bred amateur, and showing a lack of that dignified reserve and general self-effacement which she considered essential in a gentlewoman.
But she was anxious that Beth should be educated, and therefore the books were produced every morning. Mrs. Caldwell had tried in vain to teach Beth anything by rule, such as grammar. Beth's memory was always tricky. Anything she cared about she recollected accurately; but grammar, which had been presented to her not as a means to an end but as an end in itself, failed to interest her, and if she remembered a rule she forgot to apply it, until Aunt Victoria set her down to the old French books, when, simply because the old lady looked pleased if she knew her lesson and disturbed if she did not, she began at the beginning of her own accord, and worked with a will—toilsomely at first, but by degrees with pleasure as she proceeded, and felt for the first time the joy of mastering a strange tongue.
"You learnt out of this book when you were a little girl, Aunt Victoria, didn't you?" she said, looking up on the day of the first lesson. She was sitting on a high-backed chair at one end of the table, trying to hold herself as upright as Aunt Victoria, who sat at the other and opposite end to her, pondering over her knitting. "I suppose you hated it."
"No, I did not, Beth," Aunt Victoria answered severely. "I esteemed it a privilege to be well educated. Our mother could not afford to have us all instructed in the same accomplishments, and so she allowed us to choose French, or music, or drawing and painting.Ichose French."
"Then how was it grandmamma learned drawing and painting, and playing, and everything?" Beth asked. "Mamma knows tunes she composed."
"Your dear grandmamma was an exceedingly clever girl,"Aunt Victoria answered stiffly, as if Beth had taken a liberty when she asked the question; "and she was the youngest, and desired to learn all we knew, so we each did our best to impart our special knowledge to her.Itaught her French."
"How strange," said Beth; "and out of this very book? And she is dead. And now you are teachingme."
The feeling in the child's voice, and the humble emphasis on the pronounme, touched the old lady; something familiar too in the tone caused her to look up quickly and kindly over her spectacles, and it seemed to her for a moment as if the little, long-lost sister sat opposite to her—great grey eyes, delicate skin, bright brown hair, expression of vivid interest, and all.
"Strange! strange!" she muttered to herself several times.
"I am supposed to be like grandmamma, am I not?" said Beth, as if she read her thoughts.
"Youarelike her," Aunt Victoria rejoined.
"But you can be a plain likeness of a good-looking person, I suppose?" Beth said tentatively.
"Certainly you can," Miss Victoria answered with decision; and the spark of pleasure in her own personal appearance, which had recently been kindled in Beth, instantly flickered and went out.
Their little sitting-room had a bow-window down to the ground, the front part of which formed two doors with glass in the upper part and wood below, leading out into the garden. On fine days they always stood wide open, and the warm summer air scented with roses streamed in. Both Beth and Aunt Victoria loved to look out into the garden. From where Beth sat to do her French at the end of the table, she could see the soft green turf, a bright flower-border, and an old brick wall, mellowed in tone by age, behind it; and a little to the left, a high, thick screen of tall shrubs of many varieties, set so close that all the different shades of green melted into each other. The irregular roof of a large house, standing on lower ground than the garden, with quaint gables and old chimneys, rose above the belt of shrubs; the tiles on it lay in layers that made Beth think of a wasp's nest, only that they were dark-red instead of grey; but she loved the colour as it appeared all amongst the green trees and up against the blue sky. She often wondered what was going on under that roof, and used to invent stories about it. She did not write anything in these days, however, but stored up impressions which were afterwards of inestimable value to her. The smooth grey boles of the beeches, the green down on the larches, the dark, blue-green crown which the Scotch fir held up, as if to accentuate the light blue of the sky, and the wonderfulruddy-gold tones that shone on its trunk as the day declined; these things she felt and absorbed rather than saw and noted, but because she felt them they fired her soul, and resolved themselves into poetic expression eventually.
They dined early, and on the hot afternoons they sat and worked together after dinner, Beth sewing and Aunt Victoria knitting, until it was cool enough to go out. Aunt Victoria was teaching Beth how to make some new underclothing for herself, to Beth's great delight. All of her old things that were not rags were patches, and the shame of having them so was a continual source of discomfort to her; but Aunt Victoria, when she discovered the state of Beth's wardrobe, bought some calico out of her own scanty means, and set her to work. During these long afternoons, they had many a conversation that Beth recollected with pleasure and profit. She often amused and interested the old lady; and sometimes she drew from her a serious reprimand or a solemn lecture, for both of which she was much the better. Aunt Victoria was severe, but she was sympathetic, and she was just; she seldom praised, but she showed that she was satisfied, and that was enough for Beth; and she never scolded or punished, only spoke seriously when she was displeased, and then Beth was overwhelmed.
One very hot day when they were working together, Aunt Victoria sitting on a high-backed chair with her back to the open doors because the light was too much for her eyes, and Beth sitting beside her on a lower seat, but so that she could look up at her, and also out into the garden, it occurred to her that once on a time, long ago, Aunt Victoria must have been young, and she tried artfully to find out first, if Aunt Victoria remembered the fact, and secondly, what little girls were like at that remote period.
"Was your mamma like mine, Aunt Victoria?" she asked.
Aunt Victoria had just made a mistake in her knitting, and answered shortly: "No, child."
"When you were all children," Beth pursued, "did you play together?"
"Not much," Aunt Victoria answered grimly.
"Did you quarrel?"
"My dear child! what could put such a notion into your head?"
"What did you do then?" said Beth. "You couldn't have been all the time learning to sit upright on a high-backed chair; and I am trying so hard to think what your home was like. I wish you would tell me."
"It was not at all like yours," Aunt Victoria replied with emphasis. "We were most carefully brought up children. Ourmother was an admirable person. She lived by rule. If one of her children was born at night, it was kept in the house until the morning, and then sent out to nurse until it was two years old. If it was born by day, it was sent away at once."
"And didn't great-grandmamma ever go to see it?"
"Yes, of course; twice a year."
"I think," said Beth, reflecting, "I should like to keep my babies at home. I should want to put their little soft faces against mine, and kiss them, you know."
"Your great-grandmamma did her duty," said Aunt Victoria with grim approval. "She never let any of us loll as you are doing now, Beth. She made us all sit up, asIalways do, and as I am always telling you to do; and the consequence was our backs grew strong and never ached."
"And were you happy?" Beth said solemnly.
Aunt Victoria gazed at her vaguely. She had never asked herself the question. Then Beth sat with her work on her lap for a little, looking up at the summer sky. It was an exquisite deep blue just then, with filmy white clouds drawn up over it like gauze to veil its brightness. The red roofs and gables and chimneys of the old house below, the shrubs, the dark Scotch fir, the copper-beech, the limes and the chestnut stood out clearly silhouetted against it; and Beth felt the forms and tints and tones of them all, although she was thinking of something else.
"Mamma's back is always aching," she observed at last, returning to her work.
"Yes, that is because she was not so well brought up as we were," Aunt Victoria rejoined.
"Shesays it is because she had such a lot of children," said Beth. "Did you ever have any children, Aunt Victoria?"
Miss Victoria Bench let her knitting fall on her lap—"My—dear—child!" she gasped, holding up both her hands in horror.
"Oh, I forgot," said Beth. "Only married ladies have children. Servants have them, though, sometimes before they are married, Harriet says, and then they call them bad girls. Grandmamma wasn't as wise as great-grandmamma, I suppose, but perhaps great-grandmamma had a good husband. Grandpapa was an awful old rip, you know."
Aunt Victoria stared at her aghast.
"He used to drink," Beth proceeded, lowering her voice, and glancing round mysteriously as the old servants at Fairholm did when they discussed these things; "and grandmamma couldn't bear his ways or his language, and used to shut herself up in her own room more and more, and they never agreed, and at last she went quite mad, so the saying came true. Did you never hear thesaying? Why, you know her father's crest was a raven, and grandpapa's crest was a bee, and for generations the families had lived near each other and never been friends; and it was said, if the blood of the bees and the ravens were ever put in the same bowl it wouldn't mingle. Do you say 'if it were,' or 'if it was,' Aunt Victoria? Mamma says 'if it were.'"
"Wewere taught to say 'if it was,'" Aunt Victoria answered stiffly; "but your mamma may know better."
Beth thought about this for a minute, then set it aside for further inquiry, and dispassionately resumed. "That was a mean trick of Uncle James's, but it was rather clever too; I should never have thought of it. I mean with the fly, you know. When grandpapa died, Uncle James got his will and altered it, so that mamma mightn't have any money; and he put a fly in grandpapa's mouth, and swore that the will was signed by his hand while there was life in him."
"My dear child," said Aunt Victoria sharply, "who told you such a preposterous story?"
"Oh, I heard it about the place," Beth answered casually; "everybody knows it." She took another needleful of thread, and sewed on steadily for a little, and Aunt Victoria kept glancing at her meanwhile, with a very puzzled expression.
"But what I want to know iswhydid grandmamma stay with grandpapa if he were, or was, such a very bad man?" Beth said suddenly.
"Because it was her duty," said Aunt Victoria.
"And what was his duty?"
"I think, Beth," said the old lady, "you have done sewing enough for this afternoon. Run out into the garden."
Beth knew that this was only an excuse not to answer her, but she folded her work up obediently, observing as she did so, however, with decision, "IfIever have a bad husband, I shallnotstay with him, for I can't see what good comes of it."
"Your grandmamma had her children to think of," said Aunt Victoria.
"But what good did she do them?" Beth wanted to know. "She devoted herself to Uncle James, but she didn't make much of a man of him! And she had no influence whatever with mamma. Mamma was her father's favourite, and he taught her to despise grandmamma because she couldn't hunt, and shrieked if she saw things killed. I think that's silly myself, but it's better than being hard. Of course mamma is worth a dozen of Uncle James, but—" Beth shrugged her shoulders, then added temperately, "You know mamma has her faults, Aunt Victoria, it's no use denying it. So what good did grandmamma do by staying? She just went mad and died! If she'd goneaway, and lived as you do, she might have been alive and well now."
"Ah, my dear child," said the old lady sorrowfully, "that never could have been; for I have observed that no woman who marries and becomes a mother can ever again live happily like a single woman. She has entered upon a different phase of being, and there is no return for her. There is a weight of meaning in that expression: 'the ties of home.' It is 'the ties of home' that restrain a loving woman, however much she suffers; there are the little daily duties that no one but herself can see to; and there is always some one who would be worse off if she went. There is habit too; and there are those small possessions, each one with an association of its own perhaps, that makes it almost a sacred thing; but above all, there is hope—the hope that matters may mend; and fear—the fear that once she deserts her post things will go from bad to worse, and she be to blame. In your grandmamma's day such a thing would never have been thought of by a good woman; and even now, when there are women who actually go away and work for themselves, if their homes are unhappy—" Aunt Victoria pursed up her lips, and shook her head. "It may be respectable, of course," she concluded magnanimously; "but I cannot believe it is either right or wise, and certainly it is not loyal."
"Loyal!" Beth echoed; "that was my father's word to me: 'Be loyal.' We've got to be loyal to others; but he also said that we must be loyal to ourselves."
Aunt Victoria had folded up her knitting, and now rose stiffly, and went out into the garden with an old parasol, and sat meditating in the sun on the trunk of a tree that had been cut down. She often sat so under her parasol, and Beth used to watch her, and wonder what it felt like to be able to look such a long, long way back, and have so many things to remember.