The Beth Book. Grand Sarah
Uncle James had manœuvred Lady Benyon into the seat of honour he intended her to take in order to complete the picture, she frankly inspected each member of the group, ending with Beth.
"And who may you be?" she asked.
Beth smiled and shrugged her shoulders.
"Why don't you speak?"
Beth made another gesture.
"Goodness!" Lady Benyon cried; "is the child an idiot?"
"Beth, answer Lady Benyon directly," Mrs. Caldwell angrily commanded.
"Uncle James requested mamma to request me not to speak when you were present," Beth explained suavely.
The old lady burst out laughing. "Well, that's droll," she said – "requested mamma to request me – why, it's James Patten all over. And who may you be, you monkey?"
"I am Elizabeth Caldwell, but I only answer to Beth. Papa called me Beth."
"Good!" said the little old lady. "And what's Ireland like?"
"Great dark mountains," Beth rattled off, with big eyes dilated and fixed on space, as if she saw what she described. "Long, long, long, black bogs; all the poor people starving; and the sea rough – just like hell, you know, but without the fire."
"Oh, now, this is delightful!" the old lady chuckled. "I'm to enjoy myself to-day, it seems. You didn't prepare me for this treat, James Patten!"
Uncle James simpered, as though taking to himself the credit of the whole entertainment.
"So you hate Ireland?" said Lady Benyon.
"No, I love it," said Beth. "It's me native country; and they don't give you little bits of cake there the size of sixpence. What they have you're welcome to. Long live Ireland!"
"Good!" Lady Benyon ejaculated; then turned to Mildred. "And are you another naughty little patriot?" she asked.
"No, I'm not naughty," Mildred answered piously.
"Beth's naughty," said Bernadine.
"I'm sure I don't know what Beth is not," the old lady declared, turning to Beth again.
"Riley said I was one of the little girls the devil put out when he gave up housekeeping," Beth remarked casually.
"Beth!" Mrs. Caldwell remonstrated.
"He did, mamma. He said it the day that perjured villain Pat Murphy killed my magpie. And Riley's a good man. You said so yourself."
"You can hear that the young lady has been in Ireland, I suppose, mamma," Uncle James observed.
"I hear she can imitate the Irish," Lady Benyon rejoined bluntly; "and not the Irish only," she added with a chuckle.
Beth was still sitting on the music-stool opposite the window, and presently she saw some one cross the lawn. "Oh, do look at the lovely lady," she cried enthusiastically. "She's just like the Princess Blue-eyes-and-golden-hair."
Lady Benyon glanced over her shoulder. "Why, it's my maid," she said.
Beth's countenance dropped, then cleared again. Even a maid might be a princess in disguise.
Lady Benyon was going to stay all night, and at her special request Mildred and Beth were allowed to sit up to late dinner and prayers. She expected Beth to amuse her, but Beth was busy the whole time weaving a romance about the lovely lady's-maid, and scarcely spoke a word. When the servants came in to prayers, she sat and gazed at her heroine, and forgot to stand or kneel. She noticed, however, that Uncle James read the evening prayers with peculiar fervour.
When Beth went to bed, she found Bernadine, who slept with her, fast asleep. Beth was not at all sleepy. Her intellect had been on the alert all day, and would not let her rest now; she must do something to keep up the excitement. She pulled the blind aside, and, looking out of the window, discovered an enchanted land, all soft shadow and silver sheen, and above it an exquisite moon, in an empty sky, floated serenely. "Oh, to be out in the moonlight!" she sighed to herself. "The fairy-folk – the fairy-folk." For a little her mind was a blank as she gazed; then words came tripping a measure —
"The fairy-folk are calling me,
Are calling me, are calling me;
They come across the stormy sea,
To play with me, to play with me."
Beth's vague longing crisped itself into a resolution. She looked at the big four-post bed. The curtains were drawn on one side of it. Should she draw them on the other, on the chance of her mother not looking in? No, she must wait, because of Mildred. Mildred was undressing, and would say her prayers presently. Beth waited until she knelt down, then slipped her night-dress on over her clothes, and got into bed, without disturbing Bernadine. Now she must wait for her mother; but Mrs. Caldwell came up very soon, Uncle James having hurried every one off to bed unusually early that evening. Mrs. Caldwell was a long time undressing, as it seemed to Beth; but in the meantime Mildred had fallen asleep, and very soon after her mother got into bed she too began to breathe with reassuring regularity.
Then Beth got up, opened the door very gently, and slipped out into the dark passage.
"The fairy-folk are calling me,
Are calling me, are calling me;
They come across the stormy sea,
To play with me, to play with me."
The words set themselves to a merry tune, and carried Beth on with them.
All was dark in the hall. The front door was locked and bolted, and the shutters were up in all the rooms; how was she to get out? She felt for the green baize double-door which shut off the kitchen from the other parts of the house, opened it, and groped her way down the passage. As she did so, she saw a faint glimmer of light at the far end – not candlelight, moonlight – and at the same moment she became aware of some one else moving. At the end of the passage she was in, there was a little door leading out into a garden. If that were open all would be easy. She had stopped to listen. Certainly some one else was moving quite close to her. What was she near? Oh, the store-room. Something grated like a key in a lock – a door was opened, a match struck, a candle lighted; and there was Mrs. Cook in the store-room itself, hurriedly filling paper-bags with tea, sugar, raisins, currants, and other groceries from Uncle James's carefully guarded treasure, and packing them into a small hamper with a lid. When the hamper was full she blew out the candle, came out of the store-room, locked the door after her, and went into the kitchen, without discovering Beth. She left the kitchen door open; the blind was up; and Beth could see a man, whom she recognised as the cook's son, standing in the moonlight.
"Is there much this time, mother?" he asked.
"A goodish bit," cook replied, handing him the hamper.
"'E 'asn't 'ad 'is eyes about 'im much o' late, then?"
"Oh, 'e allus 'as 'is eyes about 'im, but 'e doan't see much. You'll get me what ye can?"
"I will so," her son replied, and kissed cook as she let him out of the back-door, which she fastened after him. Then she went off herself up the back-stairs to bed.
When all was quiet again, Beth thought of the garden-door at the end of the passage. To her relief she found it ajar; the gleam of light she had seen in that direction was the moonlight streaming through the crevice. She slipped out cautiously; but the moment she found herself in the garden she became a wild creature, revelling in her freedom. She ran, jumped, waved her arms about, threw herself down on the ground, and rolled over and over for yards, walked on all fours, turned head over heels, embraced the trunks of trees, and hailed them with the Eastern invocation, "O tree, give me of thy strength!"
For a good hour she rioted about the place in this way, working off her superfluous energy. By that time she had come to the stackyard. There, among the great stacks, she played hide-and-seek with the fairy-folk for a little. Very cautiously she would steal round in the black shadows, stalking her imaginary play-fellows, and then would go flying out into the moonlight, pursued by them in turn; and looking herself, with her white night-dress