Part 25 (2/2)

”Phew--w--w!” Beth jeered, mimicking her whine. ”You'd 'tell mamma' if you got a scratch.”

”I won't, Beth, if you'll fight,” Bernadine protested.

”We'll see after dinner,” Harriet put in significantly, and then returned to her work.

After the four o'clock dinner, during the dark winter months, Mrs.

Caldwell dozed for half-an-hour in her chair by the fire. This was the children's opportunity. They were supposed to sit still and amuse themselves quietly while their mother slept; and, until she slept, they would sit motionless, watching her, the greater their anxiety to get away the more absolute their silence. Mrs. Caldwell looked as if she were being mesmerised to sleep by the two pairs of bright eyes so resolutely and patiently fixed upon her. The moment her breathing showed she was sound asleep, the children stole to the kitchen, shutting the doors after them softly, and instantly set to work.

It was a gruesome sight, those two children, with teeth set and clenched fists, battering each other in deadly earnest, but with no noise save the fizzle of feet on the brick floor, an occasional thump up against a piece of furniture, or the thud when they fell. They were afraid to utter a sound lest Aunt Victoria, up in her room, should hear them, and come down interfering; or their mother should wake, and come out and catch them. They bruised and blackened and scratched each other, and were seldom without what they considered the honourable scars of these battles. Sometimes, when Bernadine was badly mauled, she lost her temper, and threatened to tell mamma. But Beth could always punish her, and did so, by refusing to fight next time, although, without that recreation, life were a blank.

Harriet always cleared away obstacles to give them room, and then sat down to eat her dinner, and watch the fight. She had the tastes, and some of the habits, of a Roman empress, and encouraged them with the keenest interest for a long time, but when she had finished her dinner she usually wearied of the entertainment, and would then stop it.

”I say, yer _ma's_ comin'! I can 'ear 'er!” she would exclaim. ”'Elp us to wash up, or I shan't be done for the reading.”

When Harriet wanted help, Bernadine usually slipped away, helping anybody not being much in her line; but Beth set to work with a will.

Beth, always sociable, had persuaded her mother to let Harriet come to the reading; and Harriet accordingly, in a clean cap and ap.r.o.n, with a piece of sewing, was added to the party.

So long as she sat on a high chair, at a respectful distance, and remembered that she was a servant, her being there rather gratified Mrs. Caldwell than otherwise, once she had yielded to Beth's persuasion, and saw the practical working of the experiment; it made her feel as if she were doing something to improve the lower cla.s.ses.

It was a pity she did not try to improve Beth and Bernadine by finding some sewing for their idle hands to do. During the reading, dear little Bernadine, ”so good and affectionate always,” would sit on the floor beside her mother, whose pocket she often picked of a penny or sixpence to vary the monotony when she did not understand the book.

Beth also sat idle, listening intently, and watching her sister. If the reading had been harrowing or exciting, she would fight Bernadine for the sixpence when they went to bed. There were lively scenes during the readings. They all wept at the pathetic parts, laughed loudly when amused, and disputed about pa.s.sages and incidents at the top of their voices. Mrs. Caldwell forgot that Harriet was a servant, Harriet forgot herself, and the children, unaccustomed to wordy warfare, forgot their fear of their mother, and flew at each other's throats.

When the story was very interesting, Mrs. Caldwell read until she was hoa.r.s.e, and then went on to herself--”dipping,” the children called it. It was a point of honour with them not to dip, and they would remonstrate with their mother loudly when they caught her at it. Their feeling on the subject was so strong that she was ashamed to be seen dipping at last. She used to put the book away until they were safe in bed, and then gratify her curiosity; but they suspected her, because once or twice they noticed that she was unaffected by an exciting part; so one night they came down in their night-dresses and caught her, and after that the poor lady had to be careful. She might thump the children for coming downstairs, but she could not alter the low opinion they had of a person who dipped.

CHAPTER XVI

Beth's brain began to be extraordinarily busy. She recorded nothing, but her daily doings were so many works of her imagination. She was generally somebody else in these days, seldom herself; and people who did not understand this might have supposed that she was an exceedingly mendacious little girl, when she was merely speaking consistently in the character which she happened to be impersonating.

She would spend hours of the afternoon alone in the drawing-room, standing in the window looking out while she wove her fancies; and she soon began to go out also, by the back-door, when the mood was upon her, without asking anybody's leave. She had wandered off in this way on one occasion to the south side, whither her people rarely went. At the top of the cliff, where the winding road began which led down to the harbour, a paralysed sailor was sitting in a wickerwork wheeled chair, looking over the sea. Beth knew the man by sight. He had been a yachtsman in the service of one of her great-uncles, and she had heard hints of extraordinary adventures they had had together. It filled her with compa.s.sion to see him sitting there so lonely and helpless, and as she approached she resolved herself into a beneficent being, able and willing to help. She had a book under her arm, a costly volume which Mrs. Caldwell had borrowed to read to the children. Beth had been looking at the pictures when the desire to go out suddenly seized upon her, and had carried the book off inadvertently.

”How are you to-day, Tom?” she said, going up to the invalid confidently. ”I'm glad to see you out. We shall soon have you about again as well as ever. I knew a man in Ireland much worse than you are. He couldn't move his hands and arms. Legs are bad enough, but when it's hands and arms as well, you know, it's worse. Well, now you couldn't tell there'd ever been anything the matter with him.”

”And what cured 'im?” Tom asked with interest.

”Oh, he just _thought_ he'd get well, you know. You've got to set yourself that way, don't you see? If mountains can be moved by faith, you can surely move your own legs!”

”That sounds reasonable any way,” Tom e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.

”Do you like reading?” said Beth.

”Yes, I read a bit at times.”

”Well, I've brought you a book,” Beth proceeded, handing him the borrowed volume. ”You'll find it interesting, I'm sure. It's a great favourite of mine.”

”You're mighty good,” the sailor said.

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