Part 28 (2/2)

Beth's blood boiled at the accusation.

”How does the old aunt get on?” Lady Benyon asked presently.

”Oh, she seems to be very well.”

”Don't you find it rather a trial to have her about always?”

Mrs. Caldwell shrugged her shoulders with an air of resignation. ”Oh, you know, she means well,” she replied, ”and there really was nothing else for it. But I must say I have no patience with cant.”

Beth, in opposition, still smarting from her mother's accusation of selfishness, determined at once to inquire into Aunt Victoria's religious tenets, with a view to approving of them.

”Well, James Patten played a mean part in that business,” Lady Benyon observed. ”But I always say, beware of a man who does his own housekeeping. When they keep the money in their own hands, and pay the bills themselves, don't trust them. That sort of man is a cur at heart, you may be sure. And as for a man who takes possession of his wife's money, and doles it out to her a little at a time--! I know one such--without a penny of his own, mind you! He gives his wife a cheque for five pounds a month; the rest goes on other women, and she never suspects it! He's one of those plausible gentlemen who's always looking for a post that will pay him, and never gets it--you know the kind of thing.” Here the old lady caught Beth's eye. ”You take my advice,” she said. ”Don't ever marry a man who does his own housekeeping. He's a crowing hen, that sort of man, you may be sure. I warn you against the man who does a woman's work.”

”And if a woman does a man's work?” said the intelligent Beth.

”It is often a very great help,” Mrs. Caldwell put in, with a quick mental survey of the reams of official letters she had written for her husband.

Lady Benyon pursed up her mouth.

Aunt Victoria was one of those forlorn old ladies who have n.o.body actually their own to care for them, although they may have numbers of relations, and acquire odd habits from living much alone. She was a great source of interest to Beth, who would sit silently watching her by the hour together, her bright eyes steady and her countenance a blank. The intentness of her gaze fidgeted the old lady, who would look up suddenly every now and then and ask her what she was staring at. ”Nothing, Aunt Victoria; I was only thinking,” Beth always answered; and then she affected to occupy herself until the old lady returned to her work or her book, when Beth would resume her interrupted study. But she liked Aunt Victoria. The old lady was sharp with her sometimes, but she meant to be kind, and was always just; and Beth respected her. She had more faith in her, too, than she had in her mother, and secretly became her partisan on all occasions. She had instantly detected the tone of detraction in the allusions Lady Benyon and her mother had made to Aunt Victoria that afternoon, and stolidly resented it.

When they went home, she ran upstairs and knocked at Aunt Victoria's door. It was immediately opened, and Beth, seeing what she took for an old gentleman in a short black petticoat and loose red jacket, with short, thick, stubbly white hair standing up all over his head, started back. But it was only Aunt Victoria without her cap and front.

When she saw Beth's consternation, the old lady put her hand up to her head. ”I had forgotten,” she muttered; then she added severely, ”But you should never show surprise, Beth, at anything in anybody's appearance. It is very ill-bred.”

”I don't think I shall ever be surprised again,” Beth answered quaintly. ”But I want you to tell me, Aunt Victoria. What do you believe in?”

”What do you mean, child?”

”Oh, you know, about G.o.d, and the Bible, and cant, and that sort of thing,” Beth answered evenly.

”Come in and sit down,” said Aunt Victoria.

Beth sat on a cla.s.sical piece of furniture that stood in the window, a sort of stool or throne, with ends like a sofa and no back. It had belonged to Aunt Victoria's father, and she valued it very much.

Beth's feet, as she sat on it, did not touch the ground. Aunt Victoria stood for a moment in the middle of the room reflecting, and, as she did so, she looked, with her short, thick, stubbly white hair, more like a thin old gentleman in a black petticoat and loose red jacket than ever.

”I believe, Beth,” she said solemnly, ”I believe in G.o.d the Father Almighty. I believe that if we do His holy will here on earth, we shall, when we die, be received by Him into bliss everlasting; but if we do not do His holy will, then He will condemn us to the bad place, where we shall burn for ever.”

”But what _is_ His holy will?” Beth asked.

”It is His holy will that we should do right, and that we should not do wrong. But this is a big subject, Beth, and I can only unfold it to you bit by bit.”

”But will you unfold it?”

”I will, as best I can, if you will listen earnestly.”

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