The Beth Book

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."

"This morning!" Beth cried. "Why that was at eight o'clock, and now it is four!"

"I'll get 'em at once," Gwendolen said with contrition. But the girl herself looked worn to death. She had been on her feet since early morning, and had no prospect of a rest till she dropped on her bed late at night, too exhausted to undress.

"Never mind," Beth said. "Give me the coals, and I'll carry them up, and see to the rest. I have nothing else to do."

"Bless you," Gwendolen muttered.

Beth found Mr. Brock in bed, with bright eyes, and burning spots of colour on each cheek. A lamp was burning beside him. When he saw who it was, he raised his eyebrows; but smiled at the same time, as if he were both surprised and pleased. The room struck cold to Beth.

"What! no fire?" she exclaimed.

"I tried to light the pesky thing," he said, "but it wouldn't burn."

"Gwendolen forgot you altogether," Beth said. "She has far too much to do, poor girl, and I have only just heard that you were ill. Why didn't you call me?"

He smiled again.

"We are all of the same family here, you know," Beth said, "the great human family. You had only to say 'Sister!' and I should have come."

The smile faded from his lips, but it was replaced by another expression, which, when she saw it, caused Beth to ejaculate inwardly, "Surely of such are the Kingdom – "

Each had seen in the other's face at the same time something there is no human utterance to describe, and, recognising it, had reverently held their peace.

Beth fetched her oil-stove first, with the kettle on it, and, while the water was boiling, she cut bread and butter and lighted the fire.

"We'll have tea together, if you please," she said cheerfully. "I've a horrible suspicion that you've had nothing to eat or drink all day."

Her sympathy recalled his pleasant, patient smile.

"My appetite is not devouring," he said, "but my thirst is. Talk about selling one's birthright! I'd sell my brains, I believe, for a cup of tea at this moment."

"There's a bowl full for nothing, then," Beth rejoined. "Sip it while I boil you an egg."

He took the bowl in both hands and tried the tea.

"Oh!" he exclaimed with a long-drawn sigh, "it's nectar! it's mead! it's nepenthe! it's all the drinks ever brewed for all the gods in one! But I'm afraid to touch it lest I should finish it."

"Don't be afraid, then," said Beth, "for you'll find it like liquor for the gods in another respect; it will be to be had whenever you want it. What's the matter?"

"Did I make lament?" he asked. "I didn't know it. But I'm all one ache. I can't lie still for it, and I can't move without adding to it. I've been watching the ice-floes on the river from the Embankment and bridges by all lights lately; I never saw finer effects – such colour! It's wonderful what colour there is under your sombre sky if you know how to look for it; and it has the great advantage over the colour other countries teem with of being unexpected. It's not obvious; you have to look out for it; but when you have found it, you rejoice in it as in something rare and precious, and it excites you to enthusiasm beyond your wont – which should prevent chills, but it doesn't, as witness my aches."

Beth felt his hand and found it dry and burning.

"The doctor is the next and only thing for you, young man, after this frugal meal," she said, "and I'll go and fetch him. I hope to goodness these are the right things to give you."

He objected to the doctor, but she paid no attention to his remonstrance, and when she had done all she could think of for the moment, she put on her wet boots and walking things again, got the address of a good man from Ethel Maud Mary, and sallied out into the snow once more.

Rheumatic fever was the doctor's diagnosis, and his directions to Beth concluded with a long list of expensive medical comforts which it seemed were absolutely necessary. She went out again when he had gone, and brought back everything, toiling up the long flights of stairs with both arms full, breathless but cheerful; and having set all in order for use – sheets of medicated cotton-wool, medicines, Valentine's extract, clinical thermometer and chart – she settled herself to watch the patient, the clock, and the temperature of the room, which had to be equable, with the exactness and method of a capable nurse. Before the household retired, she went downstairs to fetch more coals, fearing they might run short in the night.

"He's 'ad one scuttle to-day," Gwendolen reminded her, warningly.

"He must have two more, then, if necessary," said Beth.

"They're sixpence a scuttle, you know," Gwendolen remonstrated.

"Two for a shilling, and no charge for delivery," said Beth as she toiled up the long ascent once more with her heavy burden.

"Eh! it would be a gay glad world if they all took it like you," Gwendolen muttered, as she stood, with the pencil in her mouth, studying the slate that hung outside the coal-cellar, and let her generosity war with her accuracy and honesty for a little before she made two more strokes on the line that began with the name of Brock; and no sooner done than regretted.

"I wish to goodness I'd put 'em down to old Piggot and Mother Hauseman," she thought. "They'd never miss the money, and it 'ud be a good deed for the likes of them to help their betters, and might likely profit their own souls, though unbeknown."

For many weeks Beth watched beside the sick man's bed, doing all that was possible to ease his pain day and night, snatching brief intervals of rest when she could, and concealing her weariness at all times. She used to wonder at the young man's uncomplaining fortitude, his gentleness, gratitude, and unselfish concern about her fatigue. Even when he was at his worst, he would struggle back to consciousness in order to entreat her to lie down; and when, to please him, she had settled herself on a little couch there was in his room, he would make a superhuman effort to keep still as long as his flickering consciousness lasted. There was only one thing he was ever exacting about – to keep her in sight. So long as he could see her he was satisfied, and would lie for hours, patiently controlling himself for fear of disturbing her by uttering exclamations or making other signs of suffering; but when she had to leave him alone, he broke down and moaned in his weakness and pain for her to come back and help him.

The doctor having declared that the north-east aspect of his attic was all against the patient, Beth insisted on changing with him, and, as soon as he could be moved, she, Ethel Maud Mary, and Gwendolen, with the doctor's help, carried him into her room in a sheet; an awkward manœuvre because of his length, which made it hard to turn him on the narrow landing; his weight was nothing, for he was mere skin and bone by that time – all eyes, as Beth used to tell him.

It was Christmas Eve when they moved him, and late that night Beth kept her vigil by him, sitting over the fire with her elbows on her knees and her face between her hands, listening dreamily to the clang and clamour of the church-bells, which floated up to her over the snow, mellowed by distance and full-fraught with manifold associations. As she sat there she pondered. She thought of the long way she had drifted from the days when she knelt in spirit at the call of the bells and lost herself in happy prayer. She thought of her husband's hypocrisy, and the way in which, when it dawned upon her, her own faith had melted from her; and she pondered on the difference it would have made if only she had been married early – just to a good man. It would not have been necessary for her to have loved him – not with passion – only to have relied upon him. Some one to trust, she craved for, more than some one to love; yet she allowed that a loveless marriage is a mock marriage. She did not regret the loss of her conventional faith, but she wished she could join the congregation just for the human fellowship. She felt the need of union, of some central station, a centre of peace, unlike the church, the house of disunion. Without knowing it, she leant to Quaker-Catholicism, the name assumed for her religious principles by Caroline Fox – Quaker-Catholicism having direct spiritual teaching for its distinctive dogma.

"What are you thinking about?" Arthur Brock said suddenly from the bed.

Beth started. She thought he was asleep.

"God," she said; with a gasp, "and going to church," she added, laughing at her own abruptness. "I was wanting a church to go to."

"You don't belong to the Established Church, then," he said. "Well, I don't go to church myself; but I make a difference on Sundays. I don't work, and I read another kind of book. It is my day for the plains of heaven. I should like to be there all the time, if I could manage it; but I can't, not being a monk in a cell. When I can, I make the ascent, however, with the help of the books that take one there."

"I used to read religious books too," said Beth; "but I found little illumination in them, most of them being but the dry husks of the subject, uninformed of the spirit, containing no vital spark, and stained with blood."

"How?" he exclaimed.

"This God of the Hebrews," Beth began, looking dreamily into the fire, "what is his history? He loved cruelty and bloodshed. The innocent animals first suffered in his service; but, not content with that, he went from bad to worse, as men do, and ended by demanding human sacrifice, the sacrifice of his own son. And for that specially we are required to adore him, although it must be clear to the commonest capacity to-day that the worship of such a deity is devil-worship. I do not say there is no God; I only say this is not God – this blood-lover, this son-slayer, this blind omniscience, this impotent omnipotence, this merciful cruelty, this meek arrogance, this peaceful combatant; this is not God, but man. The mind of man wars with the works of God to mar them. Man tries to make us believe that he is made in the image of God; but what happened was just the reverse. Man was of a better nature originally, a more manifold nature. He had intellect for a toy to play with on earth, and spirit for a power to help him to heaven. But instead of toiling to strengthen his spirit, he preferred to play with his intellect; and he played until he became so expert in the use of it, and so interested in the game, that he forgot his origin. And then it was that he projected an image of himself into space, and was so delighted with his own appearance from that point of view, that he called it God and fell down and worshipped it. If you would understand man, consider God; if you would know his God, study man."

Arthur Brock reflected for a little.

"What you say sounds real smart," he said at last, "and there's a kind of glamour in your words that dazzles and prevents one seeing just how much they mean at first. It is true that religion culminates in human sacrifice both here and in Africa, and, for refinement of horror, we have here the literal bloody sacrifice of a son by his father. But that is not God, as you say; that is the ultimate of the priest. And the priest is the same at all times, in all ages, beneath all veneers of civilisation. His credit depends upon a pretence to power. He is not a humble seeker after truth, but a bigoted upholder of error and an impudent time-server. He destroys the scientific discoverer in one age; in the next he finds his own existence is threatened because he refuses to acknowledge that the discoverer was right; then he confesses the truth, and readjusts his hocus-pocus to suit it. He does not ask us to pin our faith to fancies which seem real to a child in its infancy, yet he would have us credulous about those which were the outcome of the intellectual infancy of the race. What he can't get over in himself is the absence of any sense of humour. I'm real sorry for him at times, and I tell him so."

Beth smiled. "I could not be so kindly courteous," she said. "Some things make me fierce. The kingdom of heaven is or is not within us, I believe; and half the time I know it is not in me, because there is no room for anything in me but the hate and rage that rend me for horror of all the falsehood, injustice, and misery I know of and cannot prevent. A sense of humour would save the church perhaps; but I'm too sore to see it. All I can say is: your religion to me is horrifying – human sacrifice and devil-worship, survivals from an earlier day welded on to our own time, and assorting ill with it. I would not accept salvation at the hands of such futile omnipotence, such cruel mercy, such blood-stained justice. The sight of suffering was grateful to man when the world was young, as it still is to savages; but we revolt from it now. We should not be happy in heaven, as the saved were said to be in the old tales, within sight of the sinners suffering in hell."

"Which is to say that there is more of Christ in us now than there was in the days of old," he said, speaking dispassionately, and with the confident deliberation of one who takes time to think. "I believe those old tales were founded on muddle-headed confusion of mind in the days when dreams were as real to mankind as the events of life. There are obscure tribes still on earth who cannot distinguish between what they have done and what they have only dreamt they did, and probably every race has gone through that stage of development. I don't know if excessive piety be a disease of the nerves, as some say, although what is piety in one generation does appear to be perversity in the next, as witness the sons of the clergy, and other children of pious people, who don't answer to expectation, as a rule. And I don't go much on churches or creeds, or faith in this personality or that. The old ideas have lost their hold upon me, as they have upon you; but that is no reason why we should give up the old truths that have been in the world for all time, the positive right and wrong, which are facts, not ideas. I believe that there is good and evil, that the one is at war with the other always; and that good can do no evil, evil no good. I've got beyond all the dogma and fiddle-faddle of the intellect with which the church has overlaid the spirit, and all the ceremonial so useful and necessary for individual souls in early stages of development. I used to think if I could find a religion with no blood in it, I would embrace it. Now I feel sure that it does not matter what the expression of our religious nature is so that it be religious. Religion is an attitude of mind, the attitude of prayer, which includes reverence for things holy and deep devotion to them. I would not lose that for anything – the right of appeal; but now, when I think of our Father in heaven, I do not despise our mother on earth."