"At the Charing Cross Hotel? Gracious! that must have cost you a small fortune."
"I didn't know what to do," Beth explained apologetically.
"You should have tried the Strand, Surrey Street, and there. You'd have got bed and breakfast for five shillings, and that's more than enough. However, it's no use crying over spilt milk. You'll have to fetch your luggage, I suppose. You can go by train from Nottinghill Gate to Charing Cross. It's about as cheap as the 'bus, and much quicker. I'll come with you, and show you the way, if you like. A breath of fresh air will do me good."
"Yes, do come," Beth answered gratefully, glad of the kindly human fellowship. "What is your name, may I ask?"
"Ethel Maud Mary Gill; and what is yours, if you please?"
"Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure."
Beth had emptied her secret chamber and packed all her little possessions before she left Slane. She had sometimes suspected that Dan would be glad of an excuse to get rid of her, to relieve himself of the cost of her keep; and that he would do it in some gross way, and so as to put all the blame of it upon her, if possible, she also expected. She was therefore prepared to consider the matter settled the moment he threatened her, and would have felt it useless to remonstrate even had she been inclined. But she was not inclined. She had for years done everything patiently that any one in any code of morality could expect of her in such a marriage, and no good had come of it. As Daniel Maclure was, so would he remain for ever; and to associate with him intimately without being coarsened and corrupted was impossible. Beth had fought hard against that, and had suffered in the struggle; but she had been lowered in spite of herself, and she knew it, and resented it. She was therefore as glad to leave Maclure as he was to get rid of her; and already it seemed as if with her married life a great hampering weight had fallen from her, and left her free to face a promising future with nothing to fear and everything to hope. Poverty was pleasant in her big bright attic, where all was clean and neat about her. There she could live serenely, and purify her mind by degrees of the garbage with which Dan's habitual conversation had polluted it.
The settling-in occupied her for some days, and the housekeeping was a puzzle when she first began. She had only been able to bring the most precious of her possessions, her books and papers, and clothes enough for the moment, away with her from Slane; the rest she had left ready packed to be sent to her when she should be settled. When she wrote to Maclure for them, she sent him some housekeeping keys she had forgotten to leave behind, and an inventory of everything she had had charge of, which she had always kept carefully checked. He acknowledged the receipt of this letter, and informed her that he had gone over the inventory himself, and found some of the linen in a bad state and one silver teaspoon missing. Beth replied that the linen had been fairly worn out, but she could not account for the missing spoon, and offered to pay for it. Dr. Maclure replied by return of post on a post-card that the price was seven shillings. Beth sent him a postal order for that amount. He then wrote to say that the cost of the conveyance of the luggage to the station was half-a-crown. Beth sent him half-a-crown, and then the correspondence ended. She received letters from some of her relations, however, to whom Maclure had hastened to send his version of the story. Poor old Aunt Grace Mary was the only one, who did not accept it. "Write and tell me the truth of the matter, my dear," she said. The others took it for granted that Beth could have nothing to say for herself, and her brother Jim was especially indignant and insulting, his opinion of her being couched in the most offensive language. Having lived with disreputable women all his life, he had the lowest possible opinion of the whole sex, his idea being that any woman would misconduct herself if she had the chance and was not well watched. He warned Beth not to apply to him if she should be starving, or to claim his acquaintance should she meet him in the street. Beth's cheeks burned with shame when she read this letter and some of the others she received, and she hastened to destroy them; but the horror they set up in her brought on a nervous crisis such as she had suffered from in the early days when Dan first brought her down to his own low level of vice and suspicion, and turned her deadly sick. She answered none of these letters, and, by dint of resolutely banishing all thought of them and of the writers, she managed in time to obliterate the impression; but she had to live through some terrible hours before she succeeded.
Once settled in her attic home, she returned to the healthy, regular, industrious habits which had helped her so much in the days when she had been at her best. Her life was of the simplest, but she had to do almost everything for herself, such time as Gwendolen could command for attendance being wholly insufficient to keep the attic in order. Her daily duties kept her in health, however, by preventing indolence either of mind or body, and so were of infinite use. She had added a few things to the scanty furniture of her attic—a new bath, a second-hand writing-table, book-shelves with a cupboard beneath for cups, saucers, and glasses, and a grandfather chair—all great bargains, as Ethel Maud Mary assured her. Ethel Maud Mary's kindness was inexhaustible. She took Beth to the second-hand shop herself, and showed her that the writing-table and book-shelves would be as good as new when they were washed and rubbed up a bit; and all the grandfather chair wanted was a new cretonne cover at sixpence a yard—four yards, two shillings, and she could make it herself. She also advised Beth to buy a little oil-stove, the only one she knew of that really didn't smell if you attended to it yourself; and a tin to hold oil for it—crystal oil at sevenpence a gallon, the best.
"You can do all you want with that, and keep yourself warm enough too when the weather's bad," she said; "and there's no waste, for you can turn it out when you've done with it. Fires are too dear for you at sixpence a scuttle for coals, and they're dirtier besides, and a trouble to light and look after. You'll find it as good as a lamp, too, if you're doing nothing particular at night."