"Blessed be God," said the old priest, "for those whom He has received into glory; and blessed be His holy name for those whom He deigns to let live."
Beth, standing beside him, heard the words, and wonderingly contrasted him with Parson Richardson, who remained shut up with his fourth wife in his fat living, making cent. per cent. out of his school, and heedless of the parish, while one so old and feeble as Canon Hunter stood by his people at all times, careless of himself, enduring hardship, braving danger, a man among men in spite of age and weakness, by reason of great love.
The pinch of poverty was severely felt again that winter in the Caldwell household. Beth, who was growing rapidly, became torpid from excessive self-denial; she tried to do without enough, to make it as if there were one mouth less to feed, and the privation told upon her; her energy flagged; when she went out, she found it difficult to drag herself home, and the exuberant spirit of daring, which found expression in naughty enterprises, suddenly subsided. She poached on principle still for the benefit of the family; but the cool confidence born of a sort of inward certainty, which is a premonition of success, if it is not the power that compels it, was wanting; and it was as if her own doubts when she set the snares released the creatures from the fascination that should have lured them, so that she caught but little. The weather, too, was very severe; every one in the house, including Beth, was more or less ill from colds and coughs, and Aunt Victoria suffered especially; but none of them complained, not even to themselves; they just endured. They felt for each other, however.
"Mamma, don't you think Aunt Victoria should have a fire in her room?" Beth said one day.
"I do, my dear child," Mrs. Caldwell answered tartly; "but I can't afford the fuel, and she can't afford it either."
"I wish I had known that," said Beth. "I wouldn't have let her afford to take me away in the summer, spending all her money for nothing."
"What a grateful and gracious child you are!" her mother exclaimed.
Beth went frowning from the room.
The snow was several feet deep on the ground already, and was still falling heavily. Beth put on her things and stole out, her idea being to gather sticks to make a fire for the old lady; but after a weary trudge she was obliged to return empty-handed, wet, weary, and disheartened. The sticks were deep down under the snow; there were none to be seen.
"O God!" Beth prayed as she stumbled home, raising her pinched face to the sombre sky, "O God, save Aunt Victoria all suffering. Don't let her feel the cold, dear Lord, don't let her feel it."
Aunt Victoria herself was stoical. She came down to breakfast every morning, and sat up stiffly at the end of the table away from the fire, her usual seat, eating little, and saying little, but listening with interest when the others spoke. Beth watched her, waited on her, and lay awake at night fretting because there was nothing more to be done for her.
One stormy night in particular, Beth could not sleep. There was a great gale blowing. It came in terrific gusts that shook the house, rattled the windows, and made the woodwork creak; then died away, and was followed by an interval of comparative quiet, broken by strange, mysterious sounds, to which Beth listened with strained attention, unable to account for them. One moment it was as if trailing garments swept down the narrow stairs, heavy woollen garments that made a soft sort of muffled sound, but there was no footfall, as of some one walking. Then there came stifled voices, whisperings, as of people talking eagerly yet cautiously. Then there were heavy steps, distinct yet slow, followed, after an interval, by the tramp of shuffling feet, like those of people carrying an awkward burden, and stumbling under it. But always, before Beth could think what the noise meant, the gust came again, racking her nerves, rattling the windows, making the doors creak; then dying away, to be followed by more mysterious sounds, but of another character.
"If only there were time – if only they would last long enough, I should know – I should understand," Beth thought, full of foreboding. She was not frightened, only greatly excited. Something was coming, something was going to happen, and these were the warnings, of that she was certain. It was as if she were sensitive to some atmosphere that surrounds an event and becomes perceptible to those whom it concerns if they are of the right temperament to receive the impression.
When the blast struck the house, blotting out the strange sounds which puzzled Beth, it released her strained attention, and had the effect of silence upon her after noise. In one of these pauses, she wondered if her mother and Bernadine, in the next bed, were asleep.
"Mamma," she said softly, "mamma!" There was no response. The gale dropped. Then Beth heard some one coughing hard.
"Mamma," she said again, "mamma!"
"What's the matter?" Mrs. Caldwell answered, awaking with a start.
"Aunt Victoria is coughing."
"Well, my dear child, I'm very sorry, but I can't help it; and it is hardly enough to wake me for," Mrs. Caldwell answered. She settled herself to sleep again, and the gale raged without; but Beth remained, resting on her elbow, not listening so much as straining her attention out into the darkness in an effort to perceive with her further faculty what was beyond the range of her limited senses.
"Mamma!" she exclaimed once more, "Aunt Victoria is moaning."
"Nonsense, Beth," Mrs. Caldwell rejoined. "You couldn't possibly hear her if she were."
There was another little interval, then Beth jumped out of bed, crying as she did so, "Mamma, Aunt Victoria is calling me."
"Beth," Mrs. Caldwell said, rousing herself, and speaking sternly, "get into bed again directly, and lie down and go to sleep. It is the gale that is making you so nervous. Put the bed-clothes over your head, and then you won't hear it."
Beth had been huddling on the first thing she laid hold of in the dark, a thick woollen dressing-gown of her mother's, while she was speaking. "I shall go and see for myself," she replied.
"Oh, very well," said Mrs. Caldwell. "It wouldn't be you if you didn't upset the whole house for your fancies. When you have awakened your aunt, and spoilt her night for nothing, as you have spoilt mine, you'll be satisfied."
Beth opened the door, and stepped down into darkness, unrelieved by the slightest glimmer of light. She had to descend some steps and go up some others to get to Aunt Victoria's room; and, after the first step, she felt as if she were floating in some new element, not moving of her own accord, but borne along confidently, without seeing and without feeling her way; and, as she went, she found that the long thick garment she wore was making the same soft muffled sound she had already heard, and also that there was no footstep audible.
She went into Aunt Victoria's room without knocking. It struck Beth as being intensely cold. A candle was burning on the little table beside the bed. The old lady was sitting, propped up uncomfortably with two thin pillows and a hassock. She was breathing with difficulty, and showed no surprise when she saw Beth enter. Her lips were moving, and Beth could see she was mumbling something, but she could distinguish no word until she went quite close, when she heard her say, "Comfort ye, comfort ye My people," several times.
"Aunt Victoria, are you ill?" Beth said. The old lady looked at her with dim eyes, then stretched out her hand to her. Beth clasped it. It was deadly cold.
"I shall light the fire," Beth said with determination, "and I shall make you some tea to ease your cough. You won't mind if I take the candle a moment to go downstairs and get the things?"
Beth was practical enough now. The vision and the dream had passed, and she was wide awake again, using her eyes, and requiring a candle. Before she went downstairs she fetched extra pillows from the spare room, and propped Aunt Victoria up more comfortably. Then she set to work to light the fire, and soon had the kettle boiling. As the room began to warm, Aunt Victoria revived a little, and smiled on Beth for the first time with perfect recognition. Beth had made her some tea, and was giving it to her in spoonfuls.
"Is that nice?" she said.
"Delicious," the old lady answered.
The gale was all on the other side of the house, so that here in front it was comparatively quiet; besides, the wind was dying away as the day approached. Beth put the teacup down when Aunt Victoria had taken the little she could, and sat on the side of the bed, holding the old lady's hand, and gazing at her intently; and, as she watched, she saw a strange change come over her. The darkness was fading from the sky and the light from Aunt Victoria's face. Beth had seen nothing like this before, and yet she had no doubt of what was coming. She had known it for days and days; she seemed to have known it always.
"Shall I go for mamma?" she asked at last.
The old lady shook her head.
Beth felt strangely benumbed. She thought of rousing Harriet to fetch the doctor, but she could not move. All feeling was suspended except the sensation of waiting. This lasted awhile, then a lump began to mount in her throat, and she had to gulp it down several times.
"Poor little girl," Aunt Victoria muttered, looking at her in her kindly way. Beth melted. "Oh, what shall I do?" she whimpered, "you have been so very good to me. You've taught me all the good I know, and I have done nothing for you – nothing but bother you. But I love you, Aunt Victoria; stay, do stay. I want to do everything you would like."
The old lady faintly pressed her hand, then made a last great effort to speak. "Bless you, Beth, my dear child," she managed to say with great difficulty. "Be comforted; you have helped me more than you know. In my sore need, I was not left comfortless. Neither will you be. May the Lord bless you, and keep you always. Amen."
Her head sank upon her breast. She seemed to settle down in the bed as if her weight had suddenly grown greater.
The sombre dawn had broken by this time, and by its light Beth saw the shadow of death come creeping over the delicate patient face.
"Aunt Victoria," she gasped breathlessly, like one in haste to deliver a message before it is too late, "shall I say 'Lift up your heads, O ye gates?' That was the first thing you taught me."
The old lady spoke no more, but Beth saw that she understood. The faint flicker of a smile, a pleased expression, came into her face and settled there. Beth, feeling the full solemnity of the moment, got down from the bed, and stood beside it, holding fast still to the kind old hand that would nevermore caress or help her, as if she could keep the dear one near her by clinging to her.
"Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in His holy place?" she began, with a strange vibration in her voice. "He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul to vanity; nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive the blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation. Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in." Beth's voice broke here, but with a great effort she began again fervently: "Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors – "
There she stopped, for at the words the dear good kind old lady, with a gentle sigh, as of relief, passed from the scene of her sufferings, out of this interval of time, into the measureless eternity.
CHAPTER XXIV
Aunt Victoria Bench died of failure of the heart, the medical man decided; and, he might have added, if the feelings of the family had not had to be considered, that the disease was accelerated by privation and cold.
For days after the event, Beth was not to be roused. She would sit in the tenantless room by the hour together, with the dear old aunt's great Bible on her knee open at some favourite passage, thinking of all that ought to have been done to save her, and suffering the ache and rage of the helpless who would certainly have done all that could have been done had they had their way. Again and again her mother fetched her down to the dining-room where there was a fire, and tried to reason with her, or scolded her for her persistent grief when reasoning produced no effect.
"You must begin your lessons again, Beth," she said to her at last one morning in despair. "Giving you a holiday is doing you no good at all."
Beth went upstairs without a word, and brought down the old aunt's French books, and sat at the dining-table with one of them open before her; but the sight of it recalled the happy summer days in the bright little parlour looking out on the trees and flowers, and the dear old lady with her delicate face sitting at the end of the table placidly knitting while Beth prepared her lesson, and the tears welled up in her eyes once more, and fell on the yellow pages.
"Beth," said her mother emphatically, "you must not go on like this. Why are you so selfish? Don't I feel it too? Yet I control myself."
"You don't feel it as I do," Beth answered doggedly. "She was not so much to you when she was here, how can you miss her so much now she has gone?"
"But you have others to love," Mrs. Caldwell remonstrated. "She was not your nearest relation."
"No, but she was the dearest," Beth replied. "I may have others to love, but she was the one who loved me. She never said I had no affection for any one; she never said I was selfish and thought of nothing but my own interests. If she had to find fault with me, she did it so that she made me want to be better. She was never unkind, she was never unjust, and now I've lost her, I have no one."
"It is your own fault then," said Mrs. Caldwell, apt as usual to say the kind of thing with which fatuous parents torment the genius-child. "You are so determined not to be like other people that nobody can stand you."
"I am not determined to be unlike other people," Beth exclaimed, turning crimson with rage and pain. "I want to be like everybody else, and I am like everybody else. And I am always ready to care for people too, if they will let me. It isn't my fault if they don't like me."
"It is your fault," Mrs. Caldwell rejoined. "You have an unhappy knack of separating yourself from every one. Look at your Uncle James. He can hardly tolerate you."
"He's a fool, so that doesn't matter," said Beth, who always dealt summarily with Uncle James. "I can't tolerate him. But you can't say I separate myself from Aunt Grace Mary. She likes me, and she's kind; but she's silly, and when I'm with her any time it makes me yawn. Is that my fault? And did I separate myself from Kitty? Did I separate myself from papa? Do I separate myself from Count Bartahlinsky? Have I separated myself from Aunt Victoria? – and who else is there?"
"You gave Aunt Victoria plenty of trouble while she was here," Mrs. Caldwell rejoined drily.
"Well, that is true, at all events," Beth answered in a broken voice; and then she bowed her head on the old French grammar, and sobbed as if her heart would break.
Mrs. Caldwell looked up from her work at her from time to time frowning, but she was too much ruffled by some of Beth's remarks to say anything consoling; and Beth, absorbed in her grief, lost all consciousness of everything outside herself.
At last, however, a kindly hand was laid on her head, and some one stroked her hair.
"That is the way she goes on, and I don't know what to do with her," Mrs. Caldwell was saying. "Come, Beth, rouse yourself," she added sharply.
Beth looked up, and found that it was Aunt Grace Mary who was stroking her hair.
"Poor little body!" said Aunt Grace Mary as if she were speaking to an infant, then added in a sprightly tone: "Come, dear! Come, dear! Wipe your eyes. Mamma will be here directly – my mamma – and Uncle James, and Mr. Watson."
"What are they coming for?" said Beth.
"Oh, your mamma knows," Aunt Grace Mary answered archly. "Mr. Watson was poor dear Aunt Victoria's lawyer, and he has brought her will, and is going to read it to us."
"Am I to be sent out of the room?" Beth asked.
"Of course," said Mrs. Caldwell. "It isn't a matter for you at all."
"Everything is a matter for me that concerned Aunt Victoria," Beth rejoined, "and if Lady Benyon is to be here, I shall stay."
Before Mrs. Caldwell could reply, Lady Benyon herself was ushered into the little room with great deference by Uncle James. They were followed by a little old gentleman dressed in black, with spectacles, and a pair of badly-fitting black kid gloves. He shook hands with Mrs. Caldwell, and then with Beth, whom he looked at over his spectacles shrewdly. Uncle James also shook hands, and kissed his sister. "This is a solemn occasion," he said, with emotion in his voice. Then he looked at Beth, and added, "Had she not better go?"
Beth sat down beside Aunt Grace Mary, with her mouth obstinately set; and Mrs. Caldwell, afraid of a scene, merely shrugged her shoulders helplessly. Meanwhile the lawyer was blowing his nose, wiping his spectacles, taking papers out of a pocket at the back of his frock-coat, and settling himself at the table.
"You would like this young lady to retire, I suppose," said Uncle James blandly.
"By no means," the little old gentleman answered, looking up at him over his spectacles, and then at Beth. "By no means; let the young lady remain."
Aunt Grace Mary put her arm round Beth. The lawyer broke the seal, unfolded the will, and remarked by way of preface: "The document is in the handwriting of the deceased. Ahem!"
Instantly into every face there came the expression that people wear in church. Mr. Watson proceeded to read; but in a dry, distinct, matter-of-fact tone, devoid of all emotion. A lawyer reading a will aloud is sure of the interest of his audience, and, on this occasion, it was evident that each member of the little group listened with strained attention, but with very different feelings. What they gathered was that Miss Victoria Bench, spinster, being of sound mind, did will and bequeath everything of which she might die possessed to her beloved great-niece, Elizabeth Caldwell, commonly called Beth. Should Beth marry, the money was to be settled upon her for her exclusive use. The present income from the property, about fifty pounds a year, was to be devoted to the education of the said Elizabeth Caldwell, commonly called Beth.
Uncle James's jaw dropped during the reading. "But," he stammered when it was over, "if the investments recover?"
"Then Miss Elizabeth Caldwell, commonly called Beth, will have an income of between six and seven hundred a year, at least," said the lawyer, smiling.
Aunt Grace Mary clasped Beth close in a spasm of congratulation. Mrs. Caldwell burst into tears. Beth herself, with an unmoved countenance, perceived the disgust of Uncle James, her mother's emotion, and something like amusement in Lady Benyon's face; and she also perceived, but at a great distance as it were, that there was a dim prospect of some change for the better in her life.
"Poor little body!" said Aunt Grace Mary, caressing her.
"Rich little body!" said Lady Benyon. "Come and kiss me, Puck, and let me congratulate you."
"It is very nice for you, Beth, I am sure," said Mrs. Caldwell plaintively, holding out her hand to Beth as she passed. Beth accepted this also as a congratulation, and stooped and kissed her mother. Then the lawyer got up and shook hands with her, and thereupon Uncle James, feeling forced for decency's sake to do something, observed pointedly: "I suppose Miss Victoria Bench was quite sane when she made this bequest?"
"I should say that your supposition was correct," said the lawyer. "Miss Victoria Bench always seemed to me to be an eminently sane person."
There was no allusion whatever to Uncle James in Aunt Victoria's will. She thanked her niece, Caroline Caldwell, kindly for the shelter she had given her in her misfortune, and hoped that by providing for Beth she would relieve her mother's mind of all anxiety about the child, to whom, she proceeded to state, she left all she had in proof of the tender affection she felt for the child, and in return for the disinterested love and duty she had received from Beth. Aunt Victoria wished Beth to have her room when she was gone, in order that Beth might, as she grew up, have proper privacy in her life, with undisturbed leisure for study, reflection, and prayer. She added that she considered Beth a child of exceptional temperament, that peculiar care and kindness would be necessary to develop her character; but Miss Victoria hoped, prayed, and believed that, with the help of the excellent abilities with which she had been endowed, Beth would not only work out her own salvation eventually, but do something notable to the glory of God and for the good of mankind.
Beth's heart glowed when she heard this passage, and ever afterwards, when she recalled it, she felt strangely stimulated.
After the last solemn words of the will had been read, and the little scene of congratulation had been enacted, there was a pause in the proceedings, then Uncle James remarked in his happiest manner: "The importance which old ladies attach to their little bequests is only to be equalled by the strength of their sentiments, and the grandeur of the language in which they are expressed. One would think a principality was being bequeathed to a princess, instead of a few pounds to an obscure little girl, to judge by the tone of the whole document. Well, well!"
Beth looked at him, then drew down the corners of her mouth impertinently. "There is one thing I can console you with, Uncle James," she said. "You may be quite sure that when I do come into my kingdom, I shall carefully conceal the fact that I am any relation of yours."
Later in the day, Beth found her mother sitting in her accustomed place by the dining-table, rocking herself sideways over her work, and with a worried expression of countenance, as if she were uneasy in her mind.
"Aren't you pleased, mamma," said Beth, "that I should be left the money?"
"Why, yes, of course, my dear child," Mrs. Caldwell rejoined. Her tone to Beth had altered very much since the morning. Even in a few short hours Beth had been made to feel that mere money was making her a person of more importance than she had ever before been considered.
Her mother had stopped short, but Beth waited, and Mrs. Caldwell recommenced: "I am delighted on your account. Only, I was just thinking. The money is of no use to you just now, and it would have made all the difference to Jim. He ought to be making friends now who will last him his life and help him on in his career; but he can do nothing without an allowance, and I cannot make him one. There is no hurry for your education. In fact, I think it would be better for your health if you were not taught too much at present. But you shall have your aunt's room, Beth, to study in if you like. You may even sleep there, although I shall feel it when you leave mine. It will be breaking up the family. That remark in the will about proper privacy seems to me great nonsense, and you know I am not legally bound to give you a room to yourself. However, it was the dear old lady's last request to me, and that makes it sacred, so it shall be carried out to the letter. The room is yours, and I hope you will enjoy your privacy."
"Oh, I shall," Beth exclaimed with uncomplimentary fervour.
Mrs. Caldwell sighed and sewed on in silence for a little.
"The dear old lady left you the money because she believed you would do some good with it," she resumed. "'For the good of mankind.' Those are her own words. And I do think that is rather your line, Beth; and what greater good can you do to begin with than help your brother on in the world? To spend the money on him instead of on yourself would really be a fine, unselfish thing to do."
Beth's great grey eyes dilated; the prospect was alluring. "I suppose there would not be enough for both of us?" she ventured tentatively – "enough for me to be taught some few things properly, you know – English, music, French."
"On fifty pounds a year, my dear child!" her mother exclaimed sorrowfully. "Fifty pounds goes no way at all." Beth sighed. "Besides," Mrs. Caldwell pursued, "I can teach you all these things. You've got beyond your childish tiresomeness now, and have only to ask, and then I will tell you all you don't know. It would be a pleasure and an occupation for me, and indeed, Beth, I have very little pleasure in life. The days are long and lonely." Beth looked up with sudden sympathy. "But if you will let me give you the lessons, and earn the money, I could send it to Jim, and that would comfort me greatly, and add also to your happiness, I should think."
It was not in Beth to resist such an appeal. She always forgot herself at the first symptom of sorrow or suffering in another, and never considered her own interests if she could help somebody else by sacrificing them.
"It would add to my happiness," she answered brightly. "And if you will just explain to me, mamma, when I don't understand things, I shall remember all right, and not be a bother to you. Will you be kind to me, and not scold me, and jeer at me, and make my life a burden to me? When you do that, I hate you."
Mrs. Caldwell stopped short with her needle up in the air, in the act of drawing the thread through her work. She was inexpressibly shocked.
"Hate your mother, Beth!" she gasped.
"I know it's abominable," said Beth, filled with compunction; "but I can't help it. It's the devil, I suppose. He gets hold of us both, and makes you torment me, and makes me – not like you for it."
Mrs. Caldwell quietly resumed her sewing. She was too much startled by this glimpse of herself from Beth's point of view to say another word on the subject; and a long silence ensued, during which she saw herself as a sadly misunderstood mother. She determined, however, to try and manage Beth on a new principle.
"I should like to help you to make the best of yourself, Beth," she burst out again abruptly; "and I think I can. You are a tall girl for your age, and are beginning to hold yourself well already. Your poor dear aunt was very particular to teach you that. And you have the complexion of the Bench family, if you will take care of it. You should wash your face in buttermilk at night after being out in the sun. I'll get you some, and I'll get you a parasol for the summer. Your hands are not nearly so coarse as they used to be, and they would really be quite nice if you attended to them properly. All your father's people had good hands and feet. I must see to your gloves and boots. I don't know what your waist is going to be, but you shall have some good stays. A fine shape goes a long way. With your prospects you really ought to make a good match, so do not slouch about any more as if you had no self-respect at all. You can really do a great deal to make yourself attractive in appearance. Your Uncle William Caldwell had a very ugly nose, but he pinched it, and pinched it every day to get it into shape, until at last he made it quite a good one."
Bernadine came into the room in time to hear this story, and was so impressed by it that she tried the same experiment on her own nose without asking if it were ugly or not, and pinched it and rubbed it so diligently that by the time it was formed she had thickened it and changed it from a good ordinary nose into something quite original.
This was the kind of thing that happened to ladies in the days when true womanliness consisted in knowing nothing accurately, and always taking advice. Efforts to improve themselves in some such way were common enough among marriageable maidens, and their mothers helped them to the best of their ability with equally happy hints. Because small feet were a beauty, therefore feet already in perfect proportion must be squeezed to reduce their size till they were all deformed; and because slenderness was considered elegant, therefore naturally well-formed women must compress their bodies till they looked like cylinders or hour-glasses, and lace till their noses swelled and their hair fell out. Never having heard of proportion, all their ambition was to reduce themselves to something less than they were designed to be. Those were the days when women had "no nonsense about them, sir, I tell you," none of those new-fangled ideas about education and that.
It was a new notion to Beth that she could do anything to make herself attractive, and she took a solemn interest in it. She listened with absolute faith to all that her mother said on the subject, and determined to be high-principled and make the most of herself. When her mother talked to her in this genial friendly way, instead of carping at her or ignoring her, Beth's heart expanded and she was ready to do anything to please her. Lessons on the new method went on without friction. Beth never suspected that her mother was unequal to the task of educating her in any true sense of the word; her mother never suspected it, neither did anybody else; and Beth had it all her own way. If she were idle, her mother excused her; if she brought a lesson only half-learnt, her mother prompted her all through; if she asked questions, her mother answered them pleasantly; so that they got on very well together, and everybody was satisfied – especially Jim, who was benefiting by Aunt Victoria's bequest to the extent of being able to keep up with the best of his bar-loafing acquaintances.