Part 52 (2/2)

”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 was.h.i.+ng up and up and up towards her. She saw the silver surface, too, stretching on to those s.h.i.+ning 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 paris.h.i.+oners, 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.”

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