The Beth Book Part 94

"Perfectly," Beth said drily. "It was in those days, I suppose, that you were bitten by French literature, and began to idealise mean intrigues, and to delight in foul matter if the manner of its presentation were an admirable specimen of style."

"Ah," he said solemnly, "style is everything."

"It is all work of word-turning and little play of fancy with those who make style everything," said Beth, glad to get away from love, "and that makes your Jack-of-style a dull boy and morbid in spite of his polish. Less style and more humour would be the saving of some of you, the making of others."

"Flaubert wrote 'Madame Bovary' six times," he a.s.sured her impressively.

"I wonder how much it lost each time," said Beth. "But you know what Flaubert himself said about style before he had done--just what I am saying!"

"I cannot understand your being insensible to the charms of style," he said, evading the thrust.

"I am not. I only say it is not of the most vital importance.

Thackeray was a t.i.tan--well, look at his slipshod style in places, his careless grammar, his constant tautology. He knew better, and he could have done better, and it would have been well if he had, I don't deny it; but his work would not have been a sc.r.a.p more vital, nor he himself the greater. I have seen numbers of people here in town studying art. They go to the schools to learn to draw, not because they have ideas to express, apparently, but in the hope that ideas will come when they know how to express them. And I think it is the same in literature. One school talks of style as if it were the end and not the means. They form a style, but have nothing to express that is worth expressing. It would be better to pray the G.o.ds to send them the matter; if the matter is there in the mind it will out, and the manner will form itself in the effort to produce it--so said the great."

There was a pause, during which Alfred Cayley Pounce sighed heavily and Beth looked at the clock.

"You were stimulating as a child, Beth," he said at last, "and you are stimulating still. Think what it would be to me to have you always by my side! I cannot--I cannot let you go again now that I have found you! We were boy and girl together."

"That does not alter anything in our present position," Beth answered; "nor does it affect my principles in any way. But even if I had been inclined--if I had had no principles, I should have been just clever enough to know better than to run any risk of the kind you suggest.

You do not know perhaps that you have injured your own standing already--that there are houses in which you are not welcome because you are suspected of intrigue."

"_Me_--suspected of intrigue!" he exclaimed. "It isn't possible!"

Beth laughed. "If it is so disagreeable to be suspected," she said, "what would it be to be found out! And what have you gained by it?

What says the Dhammapada? '_There is bad reputation, and the evil way (to h.e.l.l); there is the short pleasure of the frightened in the arms of the frightened, and the king imposes heavy punishment; therefore let no man think of his neighbour's wife._'"

"It is evident that you don't trust me," he said in an injured tone.

"Ah, Beth! does the fact that we were boy and girl together not weigh with you?"

"Well, it would," Beth said soberly, "even if worldly wisdom were my only guide in life. I should think of the time that we got into that sc.r.a.pe, and you wriggled out of it, leaving me to s.h.i.+ft for myself as best I could; and I should remember the boy is father to the man. But I have been trying to show you that worldly wisdom is not my only guide in life. I have professed the most positive puritan principles of conduct, and given you the reasons upon which they are based, yet you persist; you ignore what I say as if you had not heard me or did not believe me, and pursue the subject as if you were trying to weary me into agreement. And you have wearied me, but not into agreement; so, if you please, we will not discuss it any longer."

"You will be sorry, I think, some day for the way you have treated me," he exclaimed, showing temper; "and what you expect to gain by it I cannot imagine."

"Oh, please," Beth protested, "I am not imbued with the commercial spirit of the churches. I do not expect a percentage in the way of reward on every simple duty I do."

"Virtue is its own reward," he sneered.

"It has been said that 'the pleasure of virtue is one which can only be obtained on the express condition of its not being the object sought,'" she rejoined good-naturedly. "Try it, Alfred, and see if you do not become a happier man insensibly. Order your thoughts to other and n.o.bler ends, for thoughts are things, and we are branded or beautified by them. An American scientist has been making experiments to test the effect of thought on the body, and has found that a continuous train of evil thought injures the health and spoils the personal appearance, but high and holy thoughts have a beautifying effect. Be a man and embrace a manly creed. _Live for others, live openly._ Deceit is treachery, and treachery is cowardice of the most despicable kind. Life has to be lived. It might as well be lived earnestly. Life is better lived when it is held earnestly. Personally I detest all flippancy and cynicism, all cheapening of serious subjects by lack of reverence. Irreverence portends defects of character and poverty of intellect. All serious subjects are sacred subjects, and to treat them with levity or insincerity is to prove yourself a person to be avoided."

Alfred Cayley Pounce was stooping forward with his elbows on his knees and his face between his hands, gazing blankly into the fire. The light shone on his bald forehead and accentuated the lines which wounded vanity, petty purposes thwarted, and an ign.o.ble life had written prematurely on his face, and his att.i.tude emphasised the attenuation of his body. He looked a poor, peevish, neurotic specimen; and although he had only himself to thank for it, Beth, remembering the promise of his youth, felt a qualm of pity.

"What a mistake my marriage has been!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed at last. "But I doubt if I should ever have found a woman who would have understood me enough to be all in all to me. For a man of my temperament there is nothing but celibacy."

"I don't believe in celibacy at all," Beth said cheerfully. "Celibacy is an attempt to curb a healthy instinct with a morbid idea. He is the best man and the truest gentleman who honourably fulfils every function of life. And I don't believe your marriage was of necessity a mistake either. But if you must be miserable, be loyal as well. You will find that the best in the end. If, being miserable, we are also disloyal, then we are insensibly degraded--so insensibly, perhaps, that we are not conscious of any part of the process, and only become aware of what has been going on when we have to face a crisis, and find ourselves prepared to act ign.o.bly, and to justify the act with specious excuses." She glanced up at the mantelpiece. "Come," she said, "it is four o'clock, and I am sleepy. I must go to bed."

He started to his feet. "Good heavens!" he exclaimed, "you can talk of being sleepy when I----"

"Never mind about that now," said Beth, yawning frankly. "Everybody has gone to bed and forgotten us, I suppose. I shall have to let you out."

She gathered the evening cloak she had come back in from the theatre about her as she spoke, and led the way. He let her open the hall-door for him. It was grey daylight in the street. At the foot of the steps a policeman was standing on the pavement making a note in a little book.

"Is it any use whistling for a hansom at this hour?" Beth asked.

The policeman looked up at her. "I'll try, miss, if you like," he said.

He whistled several times, but there was no response, and Alfred Cayley Pounce at last crammed his hat down on his head with a peevish show of impatience, and walked off down the street, without a word of leave-taking. The fact that Beth was sleepy had wounded his vanity more than any word she had said. She smiled and shrugged her shoulders as she watched him depart, then went down on to the pavement and strolled about, enjoying the freshness. The policeman kept watch and ward, meanwhile, at the open door, and, before she went in, Beth stood and talked to him a little in her pretty kindly way. She found his tone and manner in their simple directness strengthening and refres.h.i.+ng to the mind after the tortuous posings of Mr. Alfred Cayley Pounce.

CHAPTER XLIX

At breakfast next morning Beth described the way in which Mr. Alfred Cayley Pounce had forced his attentions upon her the night before. Mr.

Kilroy was exceedingly angry. "He shall not come into any house of mine again," he declared, and gave the old butler Roberts, who happened to be the only servant in the room at the moment, orders to that effect. "Do you mean to say," he asked Beth, "that the fellow had the a.s.surance to tell you he had actually been hanging about the house?"

"He seemed rather proud of that, as of something poetical and romantic," Beth answered.

"I suppose the illness was all an excuse," Angelica observed.

"I don't know," Beth said. "He certainly looked ill, but he's a poor neurotic creature now, and might easily work himself up into a state of hysterical collapse, I should think. What was your impression, Roberts?"

"He looked real bad, ma'am; and well he might, the way he's been goin'

on, 'anging about 'alf the night We've all seen im," Roberts rejoined imperturbably.

"Why didn't you report it to me?" Mr. Kilroy wanted to know.

"Well, sir, I couldn't be sure it was this 'ouse, sir, in partic'lar.

You see there's a good many in the square, sir. I was just waitin' to make sure. He come after you'd gone last night, and said he 'ad to meet the ladies, but he'd forgotten where they were goin' to, and James, suspectin' nothin', told 'im."

"Well, I don't think he will trouble me again," Beth said cheerfully, concerned to see Mr. Kilroy so seriously annoyed. "I told him what I thought of him in such unmistakable terms that he walked out of the house without any form of farewell."

Angelica looked grave. "I am afraid you've made a spiteful enemy, Beth," she observed. "That kind of cat-man is capable of any meanness if his vanity is wounded; if he can injure you, he will."

"Oh, as to that, I don't see what he can do," said Mr. Kilroy.

"He can supply the press with odious personal paragraphs, spread calumnies at the clubs, and write scratch-cat criticisms on the book when it appears," Angelica said. "There are plenty of people who will listen to that kind of man, and take their opinions from him."

"But what does it matter," said Beth in her tolerant way. "All you whom I love and respect will judge me and my work for yourselves. If you are pleased, I shall rejoice; if you find fault, I shall be grateful and profit. But I should be a poor shallow thing, like society itself, if I allowed myself to be disturbed or influenced by the Alfred Cayley Pounces of the press. And as to society!" Beth laughed. "At first, when I went anywhere, I used to ask myself all the time when would the pleasure begin! But now I am younger, thanks to you; and I enjoy everything. I look on and laugh. But for the rest, I must be indifferent. It would be an insult to one's intellect to set any store on such tinsel as that of which the verdicts of society are made."

Beth had been thinking a good deal about Dan lately, and had come to the conclusion that, with all his faults, he was very much to be preferred to the Alfred Cayley Pounce kind of creature. She had more hope of him, somehow; and she went back determined that it should not be her fault if they did not arrive at a better understanding. He gave her a good opportunity on the evening of her arrival. They were sitting out in the garden after dinner, on that comfortable seat by the privet hedge which Beth overlooked from her secret chamber. Behind them the hedge was thick, and in front a border of flowers surrounded a little green lawn, which was shut in beyond by a belt of old trees in full foliage. It was an exquisite evening, warm and still; and Dan, having dined well, and begun a good cigar, was in a genial mood. As he grew older he attached a more enormous importance than ever to meals.

If the potatoes were boiled when he wanted them mashed or baked, it made a serious difference to him, and he would grow red in the face and shout at the servants if his eggs for breakfast were done a moment more or less than he liked. He was a ridiculous spectacle in his impatience if dinner were late, and a sad one in his sensual satisfaction if it answered to his expectations. Beth watched him at such times with sensations that pa.s.sed through various degrees of irritation from positive contempt to the kindly tolerance one feels for the greed of a hungry child. Dan had been "doing himself well," as he called it, during her absence, and was looking somewhat bloated and blotched. His wonderful complexion was no longer so clear and bright as it had been; the red was redder and the white opaque. A few more years and his character would be seen distinctly in the shape and colour of his face; and Beth, who had marked the first signs of deterioration slowly set in, was saddened by the progress it had made.

Alfred Cayley Pounce would succ.u.mb to his nerves, Daniel Maclure to his tissues; the one was earning atrophy for himself, the other fatty degeneration. Beth was right. The real old devil is disease, and our evil appet.i.tes are his ministers.

"You seem solemn this evening," Daniel said to her. "I suppose you're regretting your friends."

"Yes," said Beth; "but I have been away long enough, and I am glad to be back. I saw some things in the great wicked city that made me think--Dan," she broke off abruptly, "I wish you and I were better friends. So very little would bring us to a right understanding, and I am sure we should both be the better and the happier."