Part 98 (2/2)
”I wish I could believe that Ma's temper would be an advantage to me,”
Ethel Maud Mary said, sighing; ”she's that wearing! But there, poor dear! she's sick, and there's no keeping the worries from her. There's only you and Mr. Brock in the house just now that pays up to the day, so you may guess what it is! He's getting on nicely now, I suppose; but you shouldn't be sitting here in the cold. A shawl don't make the difference; it's the air you breathe; and you ought to have your oil-stove going. Isn't the fire enough for him? I can't think so many degrees it need be in his room always, when there's no degree at all in yours.”
”Oh, I'm hardy,” said Beth. ”I never was better.”
”You look it,” Ethel Maud Mary said sarcastically, ”like a pauper just out of prison. What are you worrying about?”
”Beef-tea,” said Beth. And so she was, and bread and b.u.t.ter, fuel, light, and lodging--everything, in fact, that meant money; for the money was all but done, and she had had a shock on the subject lately that had shaken her considerably.
She had spread out a newspaper to save the carpet, and was kneeling on the floor, one morning, in front of the window, cleaning and filling the little oil-stove, and Arthur was lying contentedly watching her--”superintending her domestic duties,” he used to call it, that being all that he was equal to in his extreme weakness just then.
”You're a notable housekeeper,” he said. ”I shouldn't have expected you from your appearance to be able to cook and clean as you do.”
”I used to do this kind of thing as a child to help a lazy servant we had, bless her,” Beth answered. ”The cooking and cleaning she taught me have stood me in good stead.”
”If you had a daughter, how would you bring her up?” he asked.
Beth opened the piece of paper with which she was cleaning the oil off the stove, and regarded it thoughtfully. ”I would bring her up in happy seclusion, to begin with,” she said. ”She should have all the joys of childhood; and then an education calculated to develop all her intellectual powers without forcing them, and at the same time to fit her for a thoroughly normal woman's life: childhood, girlhood, wifehood, motherhood, each with its separate duties and pleasures all complete. I would have her happy in each, steadfast, prudent, self-possessed, methodical, economical; and if she had the capacity for any special achievement, I think that such an education would have developed the strength of purpose and self-respect necessary to carry it through. I would also have her to know thoroughly the world that she has to live in, so that she might be ready to act with discretion in any emergency. I should, in fact, want to fit her for whatever might befall her, and then leave her in confidence to shape her own career. The life for a woman to long for--and a man too, I think--is a life of simple duties and simple pleasures, a normal life; but I only call that life normal which is suited to the requirements of the woman's individual temperament.”
”You don't clamour for more liberty, then?”
”It depends upon what you mean by that. The cry for more liberty is sometimes the cry of the cowardly anxious to be excused from their share of the duties and labours of life; and it is also apt to be a cry not for liberty but for licence. One must discriminate.”
”But how?”
”By the character and principles of the people you have to deal with--obviously.”
She had lighted her little oil-stove by this time, and set a saucepan of water on it to boil. Then she fetched a chopping board and a piece of raw beef-steak, which she proceeded to cut up into dice and put into a stone jar until it was crammed full. Her sensitive mouth showed some shrinking from the rawness, and her white fingers were soon dyed red; but she prepared the meat none the less carefully for that. When the jar was filled and the contents seasoned, she put it in the pot on the stove for the heat to extract the juice.
”What is it going to be to-day?” he asked.
”Beef-jelly,” she said. ”You must be tired of beef-tea.”
”I'm tired of nothing you do for me,” he rejoined. ”This is the homiest time I've had in England.”
Beth smiled. In spite of poverty, anxiety, and fatigue, it was the ”homiest time” she had had since Aunt Victoria's death, and she loved it. Now that she had some one she could respect and care for dependent on her, whose every look and word expressed appreciation of her devotion, the time never hung heavily on her hands, as it used to do in the married days that had been so long in the living. It was all as congenial as it was new to her, this close a.s.sociation with a man of the highest character and the most perfect refinement. She had never before realised that there could be such men, so heroic in suffering, so unselfish, and so good; and this discovery had stimulated her strangely--filled her with hope, strengthened her love of life, and made everything seem worth while.
She went on with her work in silence after that last remark of his, and he continued to watch her with all an invalid's interest in the little details of his narrow life.
”It would be a real relief to me to be able to get up and do all that for you,” he finally observed. ”I don't feel much of a man lying here and letting you work for me.”
”This is woman's work,” Beth said.
”Woman's work and man's work are just anything they can do for each other,” he rejoined. ”I wonder if I should get on any quicker with a change of treatment. Resignation is generally prescribed for rheumatism, and a variety of drugs which distract attention from the seat of pain to other parts of the person, and so relieve the mind. My head is being racked just now by that last dose I took. I should like to try Salisbury.”
”What is Salisbury?” Beth asked.
”Princ.i.p.ally beef and hot water, to begin with,” he replied. ”You'll find a little work on the subject among my books.”
<script>