Part 55 (2/2)
”Beth, Beth, Beth!” said that poor good lady tenderly, ”you naughty girl, how could you! Running in debt with nothing to pay; why, it isn't honest!”
”So _I_ think,” said Beth in cordial agreement, taking herself aside from her own acts, as it were, and considering them impartially. ”Help me out of this sc.r.a.pe, Aunt Grace Mary, and I'll never get into such another.”
”But how much do you owe, Beth dear?”
”I'm sure I don't know,” Beth answered. ”Pounds for Tom Briggs alone.”
”Who's _he_?” was Aunt Grace Mary's horrified exclamation.
”Oh, only the horse--a dark bay with black points. I rode him a lot, and oh! it _was_ nice! It was like poetry, like living it, you know, like being a poem one's self. And I'm glad I did it. If I should die for it, I couldn't regret it. And I shouldn't wonder if I did die, for I feel as if those knocks had fairly knocked me to bits.”
”Nonsense, Beth, you silly child, don't talk like that,” said Aunt Grace Mary. ”What else do you owe?”
”Oh, then there's Mrs. Andrews, the confectioner's, bill.”
”Confectioner's!” Aunt Grace Mary exclaimed. ”O Beth! I never thought you were greedy.”
”Well, I don't think I am,” Beth answered temperately. ”I've been very hungry, though. But I never touched any of those good things myself. I only got them for Charlotte when she had heavy work to do for the Secret Service of Humanity.”
”The _what_?” Aunt Grace Mary demanded.
”The game we played. Then there's the hairdresser's bill, that must be pretty big. I had to get curls and plaits and combs and things, besides having my hair dressed for entertainments to which I was obliged to go----”
”Beth! _are_ you mad?” Aunt Grace Mary interrupted. ”You've never been to an entertainment in your life.”
”No,” Beth answered casually, ”but I've played at going to no end of a lot.”
”Well, this is the most extraordinary game I ever heard of!”
”But it was such an exciting game,” Beth pleaded with a sigh.
”But, my dear child, such a reckless, unprincipled game!”
”But you don't think of that at the time,” Beth a.s.sured her. ”It's all real and right then. We----”
But here the colloquy was interrupted by the arrival of Mrs. Caldwell in a state of distraction with the hairdresser's bill in her hand.
Aunt Grace Mary made her sit down, and patted her shoulder soothingly.
Uncle James was out. Beth, greatly relieved, looked on with interest.
She knew that the worst was over.
”Never mind, Caroline,” Aunt Grace Mary said cheerfully. ”Beth has just been telling me all about it. Confession is good for the saints, you know, or the soul, or something; so that's cheering. She has been very naughty, very naughty indeed, but she is very sorry. She sincerely regrets. Hairdresser, did you say? Oh, give it to me! Now, do give it to me, _there's_ a dear! And we won't have another word about it. Beth, you bad girl, be good, and say you repent.”
”Say it!” Beth e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, coughing. ”Look at me, and you'll see it, Aunt Grace Mary. I've been repenting myself to pieces for months.”
”Well, dear; well, dear,” Aunt Grace Mary rejoined, beaming blandly, ”that will do; that's enough, I'm sure. Mamma forgives you, so we'll have no more about it.”
The hairdresser's bill was the only one Mrs. Caldwell ever heard of, for Aunt Grace Mary got the use of her pony carriage next day, by telling Uncle James her mamma had sent Caroline to say she particularly wished her to take Beth to see her. Uncle James, to whom any whim of Lady Benyon's was wisdom, ordered the carriage for them himself; and, as they drove off together, Aunt Grace Mary remarked to Beth, ”I think I managed that very cleverly; don't you?” Naturally estimable women are forced into habits of dissimulation by the unreason of the tyrant in authority in many families; and Aunt Grace Mary was one of the victims. She had been obliged to resort to these small deceits for so many years, that all she felt about them now was a sort of mild triumph when they were successful. ”I mean to go and see mamma, you know, so it won't be any story,” she added.
She went with Beth first, however, to the various shops where Beth owed money, and paid her debts; and Beth was so overcome by her generosity, and so anxious to prove her repentance, that she borrowed sixpence more from her, and went straightway to the hairdresser's, and had all her pretty hair cropped off close like a boy's, by way of atonement. When she appeared, Lady Benyon burst out laughing; but her mother was even more seriously annoyed than she had been by the hairdresser's bill. Beth's hair had added considerably to her market value in Mrs. Caldwell's estimation. She would not have put it so coa.r.s.ely, but that was what her feeling on the subject amounted to.
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