"Oh, d.a.m.n you!" said Dan, leaving the room and banging the door after him.

Beth signed the cheque and left it lying on his writing-table. She never saw it again.

Then she went up to her secret chamber, and spent long hours--sobbing, sobbing, sobbing, as if the marks of her married life on her character could be washed away with tears.

CHAPTER XLIII

Beth had made fifty pounds in eighteen months by her beautiful embroideries; but after her mother's death she did no more for sale, neither did she spend the money. She had suffered so many humiliations for want of money, it made her feel safer to have some by her. She gave herself up to study at this time, and wrote a great deal. It was winter now, and she was often driven down from her secret chamber to the dining-room by the cold. When Dan came in and found her at work, he would sniff contemptuously or facetiously, according to his mood at the moment. "Wasting paper as usual, eh? Better be sewing on my b.u.t.tons," was his invariable remark. Not that his b.u.t.tons were ever off, or that Beth ever sewed them on either. She was too good an organiser to do other people's work for them.

She made no reply to Dan's sallies. With him her mind was in a state of solitary confinement always--not a good thing for her health, but better on the whole than any attempt to discuss her ideas with him, or to talk to him about anything, indeed, but himself.

Beth fared well that winter, however--fared well in herself, that is.

She had some glorious moments, revelling in the joy of creation. There is a mental a.n.a.logy to all physical processes. Fertility in life comes of love; and in art the fervour of production is also accompanied by a rapture and preceded by a pa.s.sion of its own. When Beth was in a good mood for work, it was like love--love without the lover; she felt all the joy of love, with none of the disturbance. When the idea of publication was first presented to her, it robbed her of this joy. As she wrote, she thought more of what she might gain than of what she was doing. Visions of success possessed her, and the ideas upon which her attention should have been fully concentrated were thinned by antic.i.p.ations; and during that period her work was indifferent. Later, however, she worked again for work's sake, loving it; and then she advanced. She saw little of Dan in those days, and thought less; but when they met, she was, as usual, gentle and tolerant, patiently enduring his "cheeriness," and entering into no quarrel unless he forced one upon her.

One bright frosty morning he came in rather earlier than usual and found her writing in the dining-room.

"Well, I've had a rattling good ride this morning," he began, plunging into his favourite topic as usual without any pretence of interest in her or in her pursuits. "Nothing like riding for improving the circulation! I wish to goodness I could keep another horse. It would add to my income in the long run. But I'm so cursedly handicapped by those bills. They keep me awake at night thinking of them."

Beth sucked the end of her pencil and looked out of the window, wondering inwardly why he never tried to pay them.

"I calculate that they come to just three hundred pounds," he proceeded, looking keenly at Beth as he spoke; but she remained unmoved. "Don't you think," he ventured, "it would be a good thing to expend that three hundred pounds your mother left you on the debts? I know I could make money if I once got my head above water."

"That three hundred brings me in fifteen pounds a year," said Beth.

"It is well invested, and I promised my mother not to touch any of my little capital. There is the interest, however, it arrived this morning. You can have _that_ if you like."

"Well, that would be a crumb of comfort, at all events," he said, pouncing on the lawyer's letter, which was lying beside Beth on the table, and gloating on the cheque. "But don't you think, now that you have the interest, it would be a good time to sell and get the princ.i.p.al? Of course your mother was right and wise to advise you not to part with your capital; but this wouldn't be parting with it, because I should pay you back in time, you know. It would only be a loan, and I'd give you the interest on it regularly too; just think what a relief it would be to me to get those bills paid!" He ran his fingers up through his hair as he spoke, and gazed at himself in the gla.s.s tragically.

"Any news?" said Beth, after a little pause.

Dan, baffled, turned and began to walk up and down the room. "No, there never is any news in this confounded hole," he answered, venting his irritation on the place. "Oh, by the way, though, I am forgetting.

I was at the Pettericks' to-day. That girl Bertha is not getting on as I should like."

"The hysterical one?" said Beth.

"Ye--yes," he answered, hesitating. "The one who threatened to be hysterical at one time. But that's all gone off. Now she's just weak, and she should have electricity; but I can't be going there every day to apply it--takes too much time: so I suggested to her people that she should come here for a while, as a paying patient, you know."

"And is she coming?" Beth said, rather in dismay.

"Yes, to-morrow," he replied. "I said you'd be delighted; but you must write and say so yourself, just for politeness' sake. It will be a good thing for you too, you know. You are too much alone, and she'll be a companion for you. She's not half a bad girl."

"Shall I be obliged to give her much of my time?" Beth asked lugubriously.

"Oh dear, no! She'll look after herself," Dr. Maclure cheerfully a.s.sured her. "I'll hire a piano for her. Must launch out a little on these occasions, you know. It's setting a sprat to catch a whale."

The piano arrived that afternoon. Beth wished Dan had let her choose it; but a piano of any kind was a delight. She had not had one since her marriage. Dan had said at first that a piano was a luxury which they must not think of when they could not afford the necessaries; and a luxury he had considered it ever since.

Bertha Petterick was not the kind of person that Beth would have chosen for a companion, and she dreaded her coming; but before Bertha had been in the house a week she had so enlivened it that Beth wondered she had ever objected to her. Bertha fawned upon Beth from the first, and was by way of looking up to her, and admiring her intellect. She was four or five years older than Beth, but gave herself no airs on that account. She was a dark girl, good looking in a common kind of way, with a masculine stride in her walk, a deep mannish voice; and not at all intellectual, but very practical: what some people consider a fine girl and others a coa.r.s.e one, according to their taste. She was a good shot, could make a dress, cook a dinner, ride to hounds, and play any game; and she was what is called good-natured, that is to say, ready to do for any one anything that could be done on the spur of the moment. Things she might promise to do, or things requiring thought, she did not trouble herself about; but she would finish a pretty piece of work for Beth, gather flowers or buy them and do the table decorations, and keep things tidy in the sitting-rooms. She played and sang well, and was ready to do both at any time if she were asked, which was a joy to Beth; and her bright chatter kept Dan in a good humour, which was a relief. She had plenty of money, and spent it lavishly. Every time she went out she bought Beth something, a piece of music she had mentioned, a book she longed for, materials for work, besides flowers and fruit and sweets in unlimited quant.i.ties. Beth remonstrated, but Bertha begged Beth not to deprive her of the one pleasure she had in life just then, the pleasure of pleasing Beth, and of acknowledging what she never could repay but dearly appreciated--Beth's sisterly sympathy, her consistent kindness! Such sayings were tinged with sadness, which made Beth suspect that Bertha had some secret sorrow; but if so, it was most carefully concealed, for there was not a trace of it in her habitual manner. She showed no physical delicacy either; but then, as she said herself, she was picking up in such a wonderful way under the treatment, she really began to feel that there was very little the matter with her.

Dan managed to be at home a great deal to look after his patient, and was most attentive to her. He hired a brougham three times a week to do his rounds in, that she might accompany him, and so get the air without fatigue or risk of cold; and he would have her to sit with him in the dining-room when he was smoking, and rolled cigarettes for her; or would spend the evening with her in the drawing-room, listening to her playing and singing, or playing bezique with her, and seemingly well content, although in private he sometimes said to Beth it was all a beastly bore, but he must go through with it as a duty since he had undertaken it, it being his way to do a thing thoroughly if he did it at all.

"Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might," he added piously. "If a thing's worth doing at all, it's worth doing well, I always think."

That was his formula for the time being, but Beth judged him by his demeanour, which was gay, and not by his professions, and did not pity him. She was in excellent spirits herself, for her writing was going well; and it varied the monotony pleasantly for her to have Bertha to talk to, and walk, play, or sew with, after her work. Bertha's demonstrations of affection, too, were grateful to Beth, who had had so little love either bestowed upon her or required of her.

Bertha had been in the house three months, when one day her mother called, and found Beth alone, Dan and Bertha having gone for a drive together. Mrs. Petterick had just returned from abroad, where the whole family had been living most of the time that Bertha had been with the Maclures.

"Really," Mrs. Petterick said, "I don't know how to thank you for your kindness to my girl. She's quite a different person I can see by her letters, thanks to the good doctor. Before he took her in hand she was quite hysterical, and had to lie down two or three times a day, because she said she had no strength for anything. But really three months is an abuse of hospitality; and I think she should be coming home now."

"Oh no, do let her stay a little longer if you can spare her," Beth pleaded. "It is so nice to have her here."

"Well, it is good of you to say so," said Mrs. Petterick, "but it must be a great expense to you. We weren't well off ourselves at one time.

Mr. Petterick's a self-made man, and I know that every additional mouth makes a difference. But, however, you being proud, I won't offend you by offering money in exchange for kindness, which can't be repaid, but shan't be forgotten."

When Mrs. Petterick had gone, Beth sat awhile staring into the fire.

She was somewhat stunned, for Dan had a.s.sured her that Bertha was a paying patient, and that, it seemed, had been a gratuitous lie. She was roused at last by Minna, the parlour-maid. "Please, ma'am, a lady wishes to see you," Minna said.

"Show her in," Beth answered listlessly. But the next moment she stiffened with astonishment, for the lady who entered was Mrs. Kilroy of Ilverthorpe.

"I am afraid I have taken you by surprise," Mrs. Kilroy began rather nervously.

"Will you sit down?" Beth said coldly. "You cannot wonder if I am surprised to see you. This is the first visit you have paid me, although we met directly after I came to Slane some years ago. You were kind and cordial on that occasion, but the next time I saw you--at that ball--you slighted me; and after that you shunned me until I met you the other day at Mrs. Carne's, and then you seemed inclined to take me up again. I do not understand such caprices, and I do not like them."

"It was not caprice," Mrs. Kilroy a.s.sured her. "I liked you very much the first time we met, and I should have called immediately; but when I asked for your address, I was told that your husband was in charge of the Lock Hospital----"

"Yes, the hospital for the diseases of women," Beth said. "But what difference does that make?"

"It made me jump to the hasty conclusion that you approved of the degradation of your own s.e.x," said Angelica.

"The degradation of my own s.e.x!" said Beth bewildered. "What is a Lock Hospital?"

Angelica explained the whole horrible apparatus for the special degradation of women.

"Now perhaps you will understand what we felt about you," Angelica concluded--"we who are loyal to our own s.e.x, and have a sense of justice--when we thought you were content to live on the means your husband makes in such a shameful way."

An extraordinary look of relief came into Beth's face. "Then it was not my fault--not because I was horrid," she exclaimed. All the slights were as nothing the moment she gathered that she had not deserved them. Angelica stared at her. But it was not in Beth's nature to think long about herself; only the full force of what she had just heard as it concerned others did not come to her for some seconds.

When it did, she was overcome. "How could you suppose that I knew?"

she gasped at last. "This is the first hint I have had of the loathsome business. My husband talks to me about--many things that he had better not have mentioned--but about this he has never said a word."

"Then he must have suspected that you would disapprove," said Mrs.

Kilroy.

"Disapprove!" Beth e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "The whole thing makes me sick. I ought to have been told before I married him. I never would have spoken to a man in such a position had I known. You did well to avoid me."

"No," said Angelica. "I did ill, and I feel humiliated for my own want of penetration--for my hasty conclusion. It was Sir George Galbraith who first made me suspect that you knew nothing about it, and I would have come at once to make sure, but we were just leaving the neighbourhood, and we only returned yesterday. Ideala did not believe that you knew it either, and she rated us all for the way we had treated you. She has been in America ever since she met you at Mrs.

Carne's, but she is coming home next week, and has written to entreat me to ask you to meet her. Will you? Will you come and stay with me?