Beth"s eyes filled with tears. To be thought unlike other people was the one thing that made her quail.
"Well, mamma, what am I to do?" she said. "I hate to vex you, goodness knows; but I must be doing something. The days are long and dreary."
She wiped her eyes. "When people warned you that you would have trouble with me, they always said unless you sent me to school."
Mrs. Caldwell rocked herself on her chair forlornly. "School would do you no good," she declared at last. "No, Beth, you are my cross, and I must bear it. If I forgive you again this time, will you be a better girl in future?"
"I don"t believe it"s my fault that I ever annoy you," Beth answered drily.
"Whose fault is it, then?" her mother demanded.
Beth shrugged her shoulders and began to balance the pencil on her fingers once more.
Mrs. Caldwell got up and stood looking at her for a little with a gathering expression of dislike on her face which it was not good to see; then she went towards the door.
"You are incorrigible," she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed as she opened it, making the remark to cover her retreat.
Beth sighed heavily, then resolved herself into a Christian martyr, cruelly misjudged--an idea which she pursued with much satisfaction to herself for the rest of the day.
In consequence of that conversation with her mother, when the evening came her conscience accused her, and she made no attempt to go out.
She was to meet Alfred and d.i.c.ksie on Sat.u.r.day, their next half-holiday, and she would wait till then. That was Wednesday.
During the interval, however, a strange chill came over her feelings.
The thought of Alfred was as incessant as ever, but it came without the glow of delight; something was wrong.
They were to meet on the rocks behind the far pier at low water on Sat.u.r.day. Few people came to the far pier, and, when they did, it was seldom that they looked over; and they could not have seen much if they had, for the rocks were brown with seaweed, and dark figures wandering about on them became indistinguishable. Beth went long before the time. It was a beautiful still grey day, such as she loved, and she longed to be alone with the sea. The tide was going out, and she had a fancy for following it from rock to rock as it went. Some of the bigger rocks were flat-topped islands, separated from the last halting-place of the tide by narrow straits, across which she sprang; and on these she would lie her length, peering down into the clear depths on the farther side, where the healthy happy sea-creatures disported themselves, and seaweeds of wondrous colours waved in fantastic forms. The water lapped up and up and up the rocks, rising with a sobbing sound, and bringing fresh airs with it that fanned her face, and caused her to draw in her breath involuntarily, and inhale long deep draughts with delight. As the water went out, bright runnels were left where rivers had been, and miniature bays became sheltered coves, paved with polished pebbles or purple mussels, and every little sandy s.p.a.ce was ribbed with solid waves where the busy lob-worms soon began to send up their ropy castings. Beyond the break of the water the silver sea sloped up to the horizon, and on it, rocking gently, far out, a few cobles were scattered, with rich red sails all set ready, waiting for a breeze. It was an exquisite scene, remote from all wail of human feeling, and strangely tranquillising. Gradually it gained upon Beth. Her bosom heaved with the heaving water rhythmically, and she lost herself in contemplation of sea and sky scape. Before she had been many minutes p.r.o.ne upon the farthest rock, the vision and the dream were upon her. That other self of hers unfurled its wings, and she floated off, revelling in an ecstasy of gentle motion. Beyond the sea-line were palaces with terraced gardens, white palaces against which gra.s.s and trees showed glossy green; and there she wandered among the flowers, and waited. She was waiting for something that did not happen, for some one who did not come.
Suddenly she sat up on her rock. The sun was sinking behind her, the silver sea shone iridescent, the tide had turned. But where were the boys? She looked about her. Out on the sands beyond the rocks on her right, a man was wading in the water with a net, shrimping. Close at hand another was gathering mussels for bait, and a gentleman was walking towards her over the slippery rocks, balancing himself as though he found it difficult to keep his feet; but these were the only people in sight. The gentleman was a stranger. He wore a dark-blue suit, with a shirt of wonderful whiteness, and Beth could not help noticing how altogether well-dressed he was--too well-dressed for climbing on the rocks. She noticed his dress particularly, because well-dressed men were rare in Rainharbour. He was tall, with glossy black hair inclining to curl, slight whiskers and moustache, blue eyes, and a bright complexion. A woman with as much colour would have been accused of painting; in him it gave to some people the idea of superabundant health, to others it suggested a phthisical tendency.
Beth looked at him as he approached as she looked at everybody and everything with interest--nothing escaped her; but he made no great impression upon her. She thought of him princ.i.p.ally as a man with a watch; and when he was near enough she asked him what time it was. He told her, looking hard at her, and smiling pleasantly as he returned his watch to his pocket. She noticed that his teeth were good, but too far apart, a defect which struck her as unpleasant.
"Why, it is quite late!" she exclaimed, forgetting to thank him in her surprise.
"Are you all alone here?" he asked.
"I was waiting for some friends," she answered, "but they have not come. They must have been detained."
She began to walk back as she spoke, and the gentleman turned too perforce, for the tide was close upon them.
"Let me help you," he said, holding out his hand, which was noticeably white and well-shaped; "the rocks are rough and slippery."
"I can manage, thank you," Beth answered. "I am accustomed to them."
Beth involuntarily resolved herself into a young lady the moment she addressed this man, and spoke now with the self-possession of one accustomed to courtesies. Even at that age her soft cultivated voice and easy a.s.surance of manner, and above all her laugh, which was not the silvery laugh of fiction, but the soundless laugh of good society, marked the cla.s.s to which she belonged; and as he stumbled along beside her, her new acquaintance wondered how it happened that she was at once so well-bred and so shabbily dressed. He began to question her guardedly.
"Do you know Rainharbour well?" he asked.
"I live here," Beth answered.
"Then I suppose you know every one in the place," he pursued.
"Oh, no," she rejoined. "I know very few people, except my own, of course."
"Which is considered the princ.i.p.al family here?" he asked.
"The Benyon family is the biggest and the wickedest, I should think,"
she answered casually.
"But I meant the most important," he explained, smiling.
"I don"t know," she said. "Uncle James Patten thinks that next to himself the Benyons are. He married one of them. He"s an awful sn.o.b."
"And what is his position?"
"I don"t know--he"s a landowner; that"s his estate over there," and she nodded towards Fairholm.
"Indeed! How far does it extend?"
"From the sea right up to the hills there, and a little way beyond."
They had left the rocks by this time, and were toiling up the steep road into the town. When they reached the top, Beth exclaimed abruptly, "I am late! I must fly!" and leaving her companion without further ceremony, turned down a side street and ran home.
When she got in, she wondered what had become of Alfred and d.i.c.ksie, and she was conscious of a curious sort of suspense, which, however, did not amount to anxiety. It was as if she were waiting and listening for something she expected to hear, which would explain in words what she held already inarticulate in some secret recess of her being--held in suspense and felt, but had not yet apprehended in the region of thought. There are people who collect and hold in themselves some knowledge of contemporary events as the air collects and holds moisture; it may be that we all do, but only one here and there becomes aware of the fact. As the impalpable moisture in the air changes to palpable rain so does this vague cognisance become a comprehensible revelation by being resolved into a shower of words on occasion by some process psychically a.n.a.logous to the condensation of moisture in the air. It is a natural phenomenon known to babes like Beth, but ill-observed, and not at all explained, because man has gone such a little way beyond the bogey of the supernatural in psychical matters that he is still befogged, and makes up opinions on the subject like a divine when miracles are in question, instead of searching for information like an honest philosopher, whose glory it is, not to prove himself right, but to discover the truth.
Beth did not sleep much that night. She recalled the sigh and sob and freshness of the sea, and caught her breath again as if the cool water were still washing up and up and up towards her. She saw the silver surface, too, stretching on to those shining palaces, where gra.s.s and tree showed vivid green against white walls, and flowers stood still on airless terraces, shedding strange perfumes. And she also saw her new acquaintance coming towards her, balancing himself on the slippery, wrack-grown rocks, in boots and things that were much too good for the purpose; but Alfred and d.i.c.ksie never appeared, and were not to be found of her imagination. They were nowhere.
She expected to see them in church next day--at least, so she a.s.sured herself, and then was surprised to find that there was no sort of certainty in herself behind the a.s.surance, although they had always. .h.i.therto been in church. "Something is different, somehow," she thought, and the phrase became a kind of accompaniment to all her thoughts.
d.i.c.ksie was the first person she saw when she entered the church, but Alfred was not there, and he did not come. She went up the field-path after the service, and waited about for d.i.c.ksie. When Alfred was detained himself, d.i.c.ksie usually came to explain; but that day he did not appear, and they were neither of them at the evening service. Beth could not understand it, but she was more puzzled than perturbed.
She was reading French to her mother next morning by way of a lesson, when they both happened to look up and see Mrs. Richardson, the vicar"s worn-out wife, pa.s.sing the window. The next moment there was a knock at the door.
"Can she be coming here?" Mrs. Caldwell exclaimed.
"What should she come here for?" Beth rejoined, her heart palpitating.
"Oh dear, oh dear! this is just what I expected!" Mrs. Caldwell declared. "And if only she had come last week, I should have known nothing about it."
"You don"t know much as it is," Beth observed, without, however, seeing why that should make any difference.
The next moment the vicar"s wife was ushered in with a wink by Harriet. Mrs. Caldwell and Beth both rose to receive her haughtily.
She had entered with a.s.surance, but that left her the moment she faced them, and she became exceedingly nervous. She was surprised at the ease and grace of these shabbily-dressed ladies, and the refinement of their surroundings--the design of the furniture, the colour of curtains and carpet, the china, the books, the pictures, all of which bespoke tastes and habits not common in the parish.
"I must apologise for this intrusion," she began nervously. "I have a most unpleasant task to perform. My husband requested me to come----"
"Why didn"t he come himself?" Beth asked blandly. "Why does he make you do the disagreeable part of his duties?"
The vicar"s wife raised her meek eyes and gazed at Beth. She had not antic.i.p.ated this sort of reception from poor parishioners, and was completely nonplussed. She was startled, too, by Beth"s last question, for she belonged to the days of brave unhonoured endurance, when women, meekly allowing themselves to be cla.s.sed with children and idiots, exacted no respect, and received none--no woman, decent or otherwise, being safe from insult in the public streets; when they were expected to do difficult and dirty work for their husbands, such as canva.s.sing at elections, without acknowledgment, their wit and capacity being traded upon without scruple to obtain from men the votes which they were not deemed wise and worthy enough to have themselves; the days when they gave all and received nothing in return, save doles of bread and contempt, varied by such caresses as a good dog gets when his master is in the mood. That was the day before woman began to question the wisdom and goodness of man, his justice and generosity, his right to make a virtue of wallowing when he chose to wallow, and his disinterestedness and discretion when he also arrogated to himself the power to order all things. Mrs. Richardson had no more thought of questioning the beauty of her husband"s decisions than she had thought of questioning the logic and mercy of her G.o.d, and this first flash of the new spirit of inquiry from Beth"s bright wit came upon her with a shock at first--one of those shocks to the mind which is as the strength of wine to the exhausted body, that checks the breath a moment, then rouses and stimulates.
"May I sit down?" she gasped, then dropped into a chair. "He might have come himself, to be sure," she muttered. "I have more than enough to do that is disagreeable in my own womanly sphere without being required to meddle in parish matters."