And she was not mistaken.
CHAPTER XXI
The next 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."...
"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.""
"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 e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "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-cla.s.s, and Aunt Victoria, talking to another lady in the carriage, happened to mention that Beth was twelve years old. A gentleman, the only other pa.s.senger, 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 gla.s.s 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 Victoria had 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 att.i.tude 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 att.i.tudes, 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 appet.i.te 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 att.i.tude 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 acc.u.mulated in the cupboard, she steeped them in hot milk in a pie-dish, beat them up with an egg, a little b.u.t.ter, sugar, currants, and candied peel, and some nutmeg grated, for a bread-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 "Telemaque,"
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. _I_ chose 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. _I_ taught her French."
"How strange," said Beth; "and out of this very book? And she is dead.
And now you are teaching _me_."
The feeling in the child"s voice, and the humble emphasis on the p.r.o.noun _me_, 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.
"You _are_ like 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.