Sarah Grand - The Beth Book

During the next week he drove every day to the station in Aunt Grace Mary's pony-carriage, to see if Mrs. Caldwell's furniture had arrived from Ireland; and when at last it came, he sent every available servant he had to set the house in order, so that it might be ready for immediate occupation. He also persuaded Harriet Elvidge, his invaluable kitchen-maid, to enter Mrs. Caldwell's service as maid-of-all-work. There is reason to believe that this arrangement was the outcome of Uncle James's peculiar sense of humour; but Mrs. Caldwell never suspected it.

"It will be nice for you to have some one I know all about," Uncle James insisted, "and with a knowledge of cooking besides. And how glad you will be to sleep under your own roof to-night!" he added in a tone of kindly congratulation.

"And how glad you will be to get rid of us," said Beth, thus early giving voice to what other people were only daring to think.

As soon as they were settled in the little bow-windowed house, it became obvious that there would be differences of opinion between mamma and Great-Aunt Victoria Bench. They differed about the cooking, about religion, and about the education of children. Aunt Victoria thought that if you cooked meat a second time it took all the goodness out of it. Mrs. Caldwell liked stews, and she said if the joints were under-done at first, as they should be, re-cooking did not take the goodness out of the meat; but Aunt Victoria abominated under-done joints more than anything.

The education of the children was a more serious matter, however – a matter of principle, in fact, as opposed to a matter of taste. Mrs. Caldwell had determined to give her boys a good start in life. In order to do this on her very limited income, she was obliged to exercise the utmost self-denial, and even with that, there would be little or nothing left to spend on the girls. This, however, did not seem to Mrs. Caldwell to be a matter of much importance. It is customary to sacrifice the girls of a family to the boys; to give them no educational advantages, and then to jeer at them for their ignorance and silliness. Mrs. Caldwell's own education had been of the most desultory character, but such as it was, she was content with it. "The method has answered in my case," she complacently maintained, without the slightest suspicion that the assertion proved nothing but extreme self-satisfaction. Accordingly, as she could not afford to send her daughters to school as well as the boys, she decided to educate them herself. Everybody who could read, write, and cipher was supposed to be able to teach in those days, and Mrs. Caldwell undertook the task without a doubt of her own capacity. But Aunt Victoria was not so sanguine.

"I hope religious instruction will be a part of their education," she said, when the subject was first discussed.

"They shall read the Bible from beginning to end," Mrs. Caldwell answered shortly.

"That, I should think, would be hardly desirable," Aunt Victoria deprecated gently.

"And I shall teach them their Catechism, and take them to church," Mrs. Caldwell proceeded. "That is the way in which I was taught."

" We were instructed in doctrine, and taught to order our conduct on certain fixed principles, which were explained to us," Aunt Victoria ventured.

"Indeed, yes, I dare say," Mrs. Caldwell observed politely; so there the subject had to drop.

But Aunt Victoria was far from satisfied. She shook her head sadly over her niece's spiritual state, and determined to save the souls of her great-nieces by instructing them herself as occasion should offer.

"What is education, mamma?" Beth asked.

"Why, learning things, of course," Mrs. Caldwell replied, with a smile at the child's simplicity.

"I know that," Beth snapped, irritated by her mother's manner.

"Then why did you ask?" Mrs. Caldwell wished to know.

"The child has probably heard that that is not all," said Aunt Victoria. "'Learning things' is but one item of education – if you mean by that the mere acquisition of knowledge. A well-ordered day, for instance, is an essential part of education. Education is a question of discipline, of regular hours for everything, from the getting up in the morning to the going to bed at night. No mind can be properly developed without routine. Teach a child how to order its time, and its talents will do the rest."

"Get out your books, children," said Mrs. Caldwell, and Aunt Victoria hurriedly withdrew.

Beth put a large Bible, Colenso's arithmetic, a French grammar, and Pinnock (an old-fashioned compilation of questions and answers), on the table, and looked at them despondently. Then she took a slate, set herself the easiest addition sum she could find in Colenso, and did it wrong. Her mother told her to correct it.

"I wish you would show me how, mamma," Beth pleaded.

"You must find out for yourself," her mother answered.

This was her favourite formula. She had no idea of making the lessons either easy or interesting to the children. Teaching was a duty she detested, a time of trial both to herself and to her pupils, to be got over as soon as possible. The whole proceeding only occupied two or three dreadful hours of the morning, and then the children were free for the rest of the day, and so was she.

After lessons they all went out together to the north cliffs, where Aunt Victoria and Mrs. Caldwell walked to and fro on a sheltered terrace, while the children played on the sands below. It was a still day when Beth first saw the sands, and the lonely level and the tranquil sea delighted her. On her left, white cliffs curved round the bay like an arm; on her right was the grey and solid old stone pile, and behind her the mellow red brick houses of the little town scrambled up an incline from the shore irregularly. Silver sparkles brightened the hard smooth surface of the sand in the sunshine. The tide was coming in, and tiny waves advanced in irregular curves, and broke with a merry murmur. Joy got hold of Beth as she gazed about her, feeling the beauty of the scene. With the infinite charity of childhood, she forgave her mother her trespasses against her for that day, and her little soul was filled with the peace of the newly shriven. She flourished a little wooden spade that Aunt Victoria had given her, but did not dig. The surface of the sand was all unbroken; no disfiguring foot of man had trodden the long expanse, and Beth hesitated to be the first to spoil its exquisite serenity. Her heart expanded, however, and she shouted aloud in a great, uncontrollable burst of exultation.

A man with a brown beard and moustache, short, crisp, curly hair, and deep-set, glittering dark grey eyes, came up to her from behind. He wore a blue pilot-coat, blue trousers, and a peaked cap, the dress of a merchant-skipper.

"Don't desecrate this heavenly solitude with discordant cries," he exclaimed.

Beth had not heard him approach, and she turned round, startled, when he spoke.

"I thought I was singing!" she rejoined.

"Don't dig and disfigure the beautiful bare brown bosom of the shore," he pursued.

"I did not mean to dig," Beth said, looking up in his face; and then looking round about her in perfect comprehension of his mood – "The beautiful bare brown bosom of the shore," she slowly repeated, delighting in the phrase. "It's the kind of thing you can sing, you know."

"Yes," said the man, suddenly smiling; "it is pure poetry, and I make you a present of the copyright."

"But," Beth objected, "the shore is not brown. I've been thinking and thinking what to call it. It's the colour – the colour of – the colour of tarnished silver," she burst out at last triumphantly.

"Well observed," he said.

"Then I make you a present of the copyright," Beth answered readily.

"Thank you," he said; "but it will not scan."