‘And, when the day was done, relieved at once.’ Browning, How it strikes a Contemporary.
At the beginning of the year 1905 Miss Beale sought to induce Bishop Ellicott, who had then resigned his see of Gloucester, to continue to visit the Ladies’ College, Cheltenham, as he had done for upwards of thirty years. He declined on the ground of ill-health, saying, ‘Among the many things that I regret being unable to attend to, I regret none more than the addresses to the bright-eyed attentive hearers I always secured at the College. But all things must have an end.’ This was written but a few months before the Bishop’s death.
Miss Beale, happily for her active spirit, was not thus summoned to retire from work owing to age or feeble health. She had expressed more than once the wish that she might die in harness, and her letters since 1900 had frequently breathed the wonder that she should still last on, and up to the summer of 1906 there was nothing to suggest that the end was really drawing near.
The last Christmas holidays were happy. Miss Beale made a round of visits. At Lindfield she stayed with Miss Keyl, an old Gloucestershire friend, in London with Mrs. Tallents, an old pupil. Lastly, having been joined by Miss Alice Andrews, she went for a few days to[350] Miss Wedgwood, whose sister, Lady Farrer, was also staying with her. Miss Beale greatly enjoyed her time with these old friends whom she had first known as pupils at Queen’s College. She was singularly active. ‘I dare say you would like to do just one thing each day,’ said one hostess to her, little realising the vitality which would carry her on through a long series of events such as would tire out most younger people.
The spring passed with little special incident, but for Miss Beale it was saddened by the death of Mrs. Charles Robinson in March.
In the Easter holidays Miss Beale much enjoyed a visit to Miss Mellish, Head-mistress of the Ladies’ College, Guernsey. Here she made many new acquaintances, took drives, saw places of interest, and kept an account of all in her diary. But the draft of a letter to some friend during this visit shows, that in spite of her courageous spirit, she felt her own term of work in this world to be practically over.
‘Guernsey, April 1906.
‘I arrived here yesterday. I am staying with a very nice old girl who is Head-mistress of the College here. I have long wished to see this beautiful island where I have many friends. I have one of our staff with me who is a geologist, and is enjoying rambles. I don’t go about now without some one, a “lady-in-waiting,” to take care of me.
‘The revolutionary changes make one anxious, the Bill to legalise “peaceful persuasion” especially. Perhaps the German conquest may change all. That a contest must come there seems no doubt, but it is better not to prophesy till after the event....
‘There are problems enough for our successors on this planet. I wonder what we shall find to do,—what battles to fight when we pass out of sight.... I don’t think we shall want only rest.’
In the summer, having at first declined the invitation, Miss Beale was persuaded to address the Head-mistresses’[351] Conference, which met on June 8 and 9 at the Clapham High School. In spite of the deafness, which made her dread committee meetings, she took her share in the discussions. Speaking on a resolution concerning the suffrage she said: ‘The underpayment of women went to the heart of all as a crying evil, and made every one earnest about the extension of the suffrage.’ She also in a later discussion expressed her emphatic disapproval of afternoon compulsory school, and related the history of the change made at Cheltenham in 1864.
The address to the assembled head-mistresses on the following morning, Miss Beale’s last public utterance, may well find a place here. Full of the tenderest regard for the past, appreciating as no younger worker could the ideals and conflicts of her own generation, that utterance showed a front of marvellous courage and hope to the anxieties of the present and future.
‘I feel a sorrowful pride as I remember some of the Heads of the great Schools, who have passed out of sight, but whose works follow them. We were happy in our founder:[97] with such a leader one felt ashamed of any evil spirit of competition: she always wanted to impart any good gift and introduce improved methods of teaching: to recommend new books, and to propose arrangements for the better organisation of schools, for the training of teachers, for extending the sphere of women’s work, for relieving them of the pressure of anxiety about old age: these things occupied her thoughts while she was still herself bearing the burden of financial responsibility, and generously caring for those bound to her by strong ties of family affection.... It was the celestial light which shone inwardly that irradiated her outward life. Of external work she undertook perhaps more than she ought to have done. She was on the Governing Body of the Church Schools Company, a member of our Governing Body, and of that of several other schools. She spared no pains in labouring for others, always sympathising and sustaining, fighting for the best good. Above all, actuating her, and enabling her to go on bravely, was that optimism[352] which came from the belief that God had given her this work to do, and that His Spirit would sustain her. Most gracefully did she descend from her throne when the end came. I shall not forget our last interview, when she playfully alluded to the fact that she had now to become again as a little child, to obey where she had ruled, and she was content to pass on the work into the hands of one so able, so beloved, so trusted as Mrs. Bryant.
‘Another early member was Miss Benson, the first Head-mistress of the Girls’ Public Day Schools Company’s School at Oxford, and afterwards, for a few months, at Bedford; she was a burning and a shining light, unsparing in her demands upon herself and others;—she might have been called Zelotes.
‘Of her successor, our own beloved Miss Belcher, it is hard for me to speak. She was the soul of honour. I remember one day she and her friend[98] came to me and said one of them would like to apply for a good post, at a time when head-mistress-ships did not abound. I said, “I think I ought to tell you that events are impending which may shake our College to its foundations.” Some would have said, “Let us seek another shelter.” Their answer was, “We shall not apply.” Sometimes one thinks that if she could have had a less onerous work than the rule over the great school at Bedford, which left but little leisure for exercise, she might be at work now. But we will put aside “Might-have-beens,” as we see how her spirit lives in her school. One of the Bedford Council thought when a salary of over ￡1000 was offered, there would be many applications—thought we might send a second Head as her successor, but not one of our staff would apply, for Miss Belcher had chosen.
‘This year has taken from us one of my best-beloved pupils, the late Head-mistress of Truro High School, afterwards the wife of Canon Charles Robinson; all who knew her regarded her as indeed a saint.
‘I may not speak of the living—none are happy till their death—but it is a joy to me (now the most ancient grandmother of all) to see with intimate knowledge the good work being done by those whom I have learned to know as friends and fellow-workers. Specially close ties bind me to those Head-mistresses whom we ourselves have sent forth. Of these in the Association there are now twenty presiding over important schools, and ten who are no longer Heads, not to name many who for various reasons do not belong to our Association.
‘To turn to less personal matters, we who belong to[353] Secondary Schools have been happy in escaping the troubles which beset those schools which receive Government grants. So far, Secondary Schools have been allowed some individuality. I think we may give thanks for the liberty of “prophesying,” that we have hitherto enjoyed. I rather dread the result of the absorption into Trusts of the great School Companies. “Wha dare meddle wi’ me?” has been the cry of some of us, and the prickles have protected the flower.
‘Then we have escaped payment by results, and interference from inspectors, some of whom are able to see the body but not the soul which moves it.
‘The present troubles bring us into closer sympathy with those who have been enduring what seemed to us an Egyptian bondage, but who were doing grand work in disciplining and drilling the masses. Many of those who are now to take up the management of Council schools are now brought into closer relation with ours.
‘ ... And now what is the main issue before us? When the Secondary Schools are absorbed into the national system, and orders are issued to us from the Education Department, shall we be told that we also are to give only secular instruction, and forbidden to give definite teaching regarding the creeds and ritual which express the truths by which we live;—shall we be forbidden to ask any questions about the fitness of the teachers whom we wish to appoint? These are matters which seem to press for answers.
‘Only a few thoughts can I throw out to-day on this subject. First, it seems inconceivable that there should be any such limitations of the realms of knowledge as is implied in the word “secular.” Man’s thoughts cannot be shut in by space or time, he must seek the real beneath the phenomenal, he must search for the ultimate; more than any earthly or secular good he desires to know and live for the things which belong to an eternal world,—the true, the beautiful, the good. All literature, all history, attests this. Whence then the discordant cries, some demanding secular teaching only, others fearing it?
‘I think we are confused sometimes, because we do not remember or recognise sufficiently that there are two ways of approaching the subject of religious teaching and of all subjects of thought. Take for an illustration the subject now occupying the scientific world. Can we retain the conception of the atom as formulated in the last century? Is matter an aggregate of impenetrable, indivisible nodules, or is an atom merely a centre of force? Have we nothing that we should call solid,[354] only vortices? Is solidity a flux of ions? These are all matters on which the wisest may differ, but there are certain fundamental facts on which all are agreed—the fact that there must be one all-embracing medium through which relations are realised. So in the world of spirit, the fact is indisputable that we are conscious of forces affecting us and on which we individually react, indisputable that we can interpret facts of sensation, and this necessitates a belief in the correspondence of our mind with one all-embracing spirit; it seems impossible to doubt that in interpreting the universe we are corresponding with and holding communion with an infinite mind revealed in Nature, and we repeat with inner conviction the first article of our Creed—“God created,”—we pass on to the second half—“God created man in His own image,” and so we go on to speak of other articles of faith. Philosophy, which has so large a place in the Bible teaching and which is always based on the facts of our inner consciousness and our moral sense, ought, I believe, to have a larger space in our teaching, but we should endeavour more to build on foundations which cannot be shaken. The mystery of our own being, the distinction of the “I” and the “Me,” the facts of conscience, the συνε?δησι? which lifts us out of the mere individual or animal, and speaks of the relation of the true self to the eternal, the kingdom of righteousness,—the evolution of human thought through the ages,—leads on to the faith that man is indeed the child of God, that His Spirit is inspiring us.
‘What seem to us present troubles are perhaps intended to make us dig deeper in the field wherein the great treasure of spiritual truth is hidden, so that we may say with fuller conscious conviction, “The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand”—“is within you.”’
On her way to Paddington after the Head-mistresses’ Conference, the cab which contained Miss Beale and Miss Andrews was run into by another, a shaft shattering the window beside Miss Beale.
She did not realise her danger or that her shawl was full of bits of broken glass. The accident is alluded to in the letter she afterwards wrote to Mrs. Woodhouse, whose guest she had been at Clapham.
[355]
‘I am so glad I was able to be present. It was a most interesting meeting; and very glad to see your beautiful school....
‘Lord Aberdeen [once] complimented me on not suffering from “train fever”; I am afraid I seemed to do so at lunch. It was well that we allowed a little spare time to be run into. One needs to allow for motors!’
It was the year of the Guild meetings. A very large number of old pupils, larger than ever before, came to Cheltenham in June, for every year saw additions to the roll of members and no falling off among the elder ones, who felt each time might be the last occasion on which the beloved Principal would preside. The subject chosen for the play was the very unusual one of a story from Egyptian history. No pains were spared to render it truthfully; Dr. Budge was consulted, the Book of the Dead studied; Miss Beale herself gave a lecture on the history of Egypt, a subject she had never worked up before. The story of the great queen whose life was given up to her country, ordered wholly for their good, with no private interests; whose marriage was an act of sacrifice; who ruled her people with large-minded beneficence, and under whom they prospered; who finally, as age came upon her, resigned for their sake, seemed strangely appropriate for the close of Miss Beale’s long work for Cheltenham. The very remoteness of the story, its gravity, the absence from it of such didacticism as abounded in Miss Beale’s interpretation of Britomart and Griselda, made it all the more forcible. It was in no way premeditated. Miss Beale herself said she did not much care for it, as it contained so little spiritual teaching. But as the curtain fell upon Hatshepset’s resignation and death, the crowded audiences of past and present pupils palpably realised that for them the inevitable change awaiting the College had been, if unconsciously, foreshadowed.
[356]
The Guild arrangements, which generally included an address from Miss Beale on Saturday morning and a closing one on Monday from some speaker invited for the purpose, were altered in 1906 to suit the convenience of the Bishop of Stepney. The earlier address was given by the Bishop after the College prayers, which Miss Beale herself read as usual. His subject was the work of St. Hilda’s East and the needs of East London. He held his hearers enthralled as he spoke to them of those other girls and women whom they were meant to help. But even more striking than the strong words of the young Bishop was the sight of the frail and aged form of her, so long their teacher and inspirer, to whom most of those present were consciously and deeply indebted for much that was best in their lives. Miss Beale, with the familiar smile which marked her enthusiastic approval, stood the whole time close to the Bishop, straining to hear every word, her eye alert to trace the effect of what he was saying on his audience. Many who saw her thus saw her for the last time, as they had to leave Cheltenham when the morning Guild meetings were over. Miss Beale herself left before the end, unequal to the long strain they involved.
On Sunday the usual admission of new members took place. On Monday Miss Beale addressed the Guild for the last time. It was not unnatural that she should speak on this occasion as one who looked back on the changes and progress of fifty years. Miss Beale conveyed to her hearers the suggestion that it was not with unmixed satisfaction that she surveyed matters from this standpoint. In the midst of advantages, such as the last generation could not know, their eyes opened to the needs of others, needs they could supply, many women remained not serious, not devoted. She appealed for[357] more earnestness in all, that there might be none wearing the Guild badge who should not be able to use the motto of St. Hilda’s, Oxford: Non frustra vixi.
So passed this great gathering of friends. It was only afterwards that it came to be known that below her joyous affectionate welcome, her ready sympathy and quick memory for her children and their concerns, lay a deep reason for personal anxiety, that she was beginning to suspect herself to be the victim of a serious malady. Only once was there a sign of uneasiness, when she seemed much distressed not to have seen again an old pupil and Guild member, Dr. Aldrich-Blake, who had been obliged to leave Cheltenham without saying good-bye to her.
The summer holidays were again spent at Oeynhausen. She wrote in the course of them that she was deriving benefit from the treatment, but certainly it was far less effective than before. Nor did she give herself a chance of throwing off the cares of work. In the ordinary sense of the word, indeed, Miss Beale could never rest, and though physically less strong her brain seemed inexhaustibly active. She corrected the Magazine proofs, engaged new teachers, and wrote many letters to the College secretary, going as usual into all kinds of details about arrangements for new pupils. Nor did she even rest from study. She wrote to Cheltenham for a table of German genders; while from Mr. Worsley she asked the Scripture examination papers, which he had as usual undertaken. Her letter shows this continued activity of mind:—
‘September 12, 1906.
‘Thanks for your note. I think I should like to have all the papers; we can better show the girls where they have failed to enter into the full meaning. I looked at mine, and thought they had kept to very outside things.
[358]
‘Have you seen Montague Owen’s record of the Sewell family? It is privately printed, but I can lend you my copy. They certainly were a wonderful and original people. Now Elizabeth is gone at the age of ninety-one. You were, I think, at Radley.
‘We re-open next week with one hundred and fifty new pupils to fill our vacancies.’
She was glad to get back to Cheltenham, but those who knew her best saw that it was only by a stern effort of will that she nerved herself to begin her work in the ordinary way. They began to hope that she might not much longer be called upon to make what was visibly a tremendous effort. Nothing was left undone.
School began on September 22. Miss Beale, as usual on the first day of term, gave a short address after prayers to the assembled teachers and children. She spoke, as often before, of the parable of the Talents, but mainly of the joy of the Lord—the joy and reward of being fellow-workers with God. Strangely fitting did her words afterwards seem for the last time she addressed the College as a body.
In the month which followed only a few saw signs of the weakness and illness which had really begun. She had undertaken the usual courses of lectures, and missed none. The College numbers were very large, the life as full and vigorous as ever. There was even a new department started for the first time that term, in the arrangement—the revolution of Time’s wheel having been made—of courses of lessons in cookery.
On October 16 the annual Council meeting was held in London. In order to spare herself fatigue, Miss Beale did not as usual accompany Miss Alice Andrews to the Oxford meeting on the previous evening, but went up alone from Cheltenham the next morning. It[359] meant a long day and an early start, earlier than ever before, as the time of departure had been altered. This Miss Beale only learned the same morning, but with her habit of being ready long beforehand she was able to catch the train. This, by the new arrangement, did not wait for the Oxford train by which Miss Andrews went up. Consequently, when Miss Andrews arrived at the Paddington Hotel, Miss Beale had already gone to see her doctor, Miss Aldrich-Blake. Probably she preferred to make this visit alone.
To Miss Aldrich-Blake she owned that she was tired, that she felt her much impaired hearing and sight to be a hindrance to work; but she made light of the malady which was her real and undefined dread. Miss Aldrich-Blake, however, advised an immediate operation, in spite of the annual general meeting fixed for November 16,[99] on account of which Miss Beale wished to put it off for the present. On leaving the doctor’s house Miss Beale went on alone to keep one or two appointments. At the Council meeting in the afternoon she showed no fatigue, but read her report with animation. Miss Andrews then joined her for St. Hilda&rsqu............