Part 32 (2/2)

She hung out of the window now, heedless of Harriet's appeals to be ”'elped wi' the beds,” and watched the games going on in the next garden with pathetic gravity. The girls were playing rounders among the old fruit-trees on the gra.s.s-plot, with a loud accompaniment of shrieks and shouts of laughter. They tumbled up against the trees continually, and shook showers of autumn leaves down upon themselves; and then, tiring of the game, they began to pelt each other with the leaves, and laughed and shrieked still louder. Some of them looked up and made faces at Beth, but she did not acknowledge the discourtesy.

She knew that they were not ladies, but did not feel, as her mother did, that this was a fault for which they should be punished, but a misfortune, rather, for which she pitied them, and she would have liked to have made it up to them by knowing them. Suddenly she remembered that Aunt Victoria was coming back that day, which was something to look forward to. She took Harriet's duster, and went to see if the old lady's room was all in order for her, and arranged as she liked it. Then she returned to the drawing-room, and sat down on the piano-stool, and rage and rebellion uprose in her heart. The piece of music still lay on the floor, and she stamped her foot on it. As she did so, her mother came into the room.

”Do you know your lesson?” she demanded.

”No, I do not,” said Beth, and then she doubled her fist, and brought it down bang on the keyboard.

”How dare you!” Mrs. Caldwell exclaimed, startled by the vehemence of the blow, and jarred by the discordant cry of the poor piano.

”I felt I _must_--I felt I must make something suffer,” said Beth, in a deep chest-voice and with knitted brows, twisting her fingers and rising to face her mother as she spoke; ”and if I had not struck the piano, I should have struck _you_.”

Mrs. Caldwell could not have been more taken aback if Beth had struck her. The colour left her face, a chill succeeded the heat of temper, and her right mind returned as to a drunken man suddenly sobered. She noticed that Beth's eyes were almost on a level with her own, and once again she realised that if Beth chose to rebel, she would be powerless to control her. For some seconds they looked at each other without a word. Then Beth stooped, picked up the piece of music, smoothed it out, and put it on the stand; and then she shut up the piano deliberately, but remained standing in front of it with her back to her mother. Mrs. Caldwell watched her for a little in silence.

”It's your own fault, Beth,” she said at last. ”You are so conceited; you try to play things that are too difficult for you, and then you get into trouble. It is no pleasure to me to punish you.”

Beth remained with her back turned, immovable, and her mother looked at her helplessly a little longer, and then left the room. When she had gone, Beth sat down on the piano-stool. Her shabby shoes had holes in them, her dress was worn thread-bare, and her sleeves were too short for her. She had no collar or cuffs, and her thin hands and long wrists looked hideous to her as they lay in her lap. Great tears gathered in her eyes. So conceited indeed! What had she to be conceited about? Every one despised her, and she despised herself.

Here the tears overflowed, and Beth began to cry at last, and cried and cried for a long time very bitterly.

That afternoon, after Aunt Victoria had arrived, Lady Benyon and Aunt Grace Mary called. Mrs. Caldwell had recovered her good-humour by that time, and was all smiles to everybody, including Beth, when she came sauntering in, languid and heavy-eyed, with half a sheet of notepaper in her hand.

”What have you there, Puck?” said Lady Benyon, catching sight of some hieroglyph drawn on the paper. Beth gave it to her, and she turned it this way and that, but could make nothing of it.

”Mamma will tell us what it is,” said Beth, taking it to her mother.

Mrs. Caldwell, still smiling, looked at the drawing. ”It's an astronomical sign, surely,” she ventured.

”No, it is not,” Beth said.

”Then I don't know what it is,” her mother rejoined.

”Oh, but you must know, mamma,” said Beth. ”Look again.”

”But I don't know, Beth,” Mrs. Caldwell insisted.

”Couldn't you make it out if Aunt Victoria beat you?” Beth suggested.

Mrs. Caldwell changed countenance.

”That is what you expect me to do, at all events,” Beth pursued. ”Now, you see, you can't do it yourself; and I ask you, was it fair to expect me to make out a strange sign by staring at it?” She set her mouth hard when she had spoken, and looked her mother straight in the face. Mrs. Caldwell winced.

”What's the difficulty, Puck?” Lady Benyon asked.

”The difficulty is between me and mamma,” Beth answered with dignity, and then she left the room, sauntering out as she had come in, with an utterly dispirited air.

The next morning she went to practice as usual, but Mrs. Caldwell did not come to give her her music-lesson. Beth thought she had forgotten it, and went to remind her.

”No, Beth, I have not forgotten,” said Mrs. Caldwell; ”but after your conduct yesterday, I do not know how you can expect me to give you another music-lesson.”

”Are you not going to give me any more?” Beth exclaimed.

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