"But you might go with us to the flower-show," said Julia. She thought it would please Mr. Cecil Burleigh if a little attention were shown to Miss Fairfax.
Bessie did not know what to answer: she looked at her strange clothing, and said suddenly, No, she thanked them, but she could not go. They quite understood.
Just at that moment came bearing down upon them Miss Buff, fat, loud, jolly as ever. "ItisBessie Fairfax! I was sure it was," cried she; and Bessie rushed straight into her open arms with responsive joy.
When she came to herself the Gardiners were gone. "Never mind, you are sure to meet them again; they are always about Ryde somewhere," Miss Buff said. "How delightful it is to see you, Bessie! And quite yourself! Not a bit altered—only taller!" And then they found a sheltered seat, and Bessie, still quivering with her happy surprise, began to ask questions.
"We have come from Beechhurst this morning, my niece Louy and myself," was Miss Buff's answer to the first. "We started at six, to be in time for the eight o'clock boat: the flower-show and the regatta ball have brought us. I hope you are going to both? No? What a pity! I never miss a ball for Louy if I can help it."
Bessie briefly explained herself and her circumstances, and asked when her friend had last seen any of Mr. Carnegie's family.
"I saw Mrs. Carnegie yesterday to inquire if I could do anything for her at Hampton. She looked very well."
"And did she say nothing of me?" cried Bessie in consternation.
"Not a word. She mentioned some time ago how sorrythey all were not to have you at home for a little while before you are carried away to Woldshire."
"Then Mr. Wiley has never given them my message! Oh, how unkind!" Bessie was fit to cry for vexation and self-reproach, for why had she not written? Why had she trusted anybody when there was a post?
"You might as well pour water into a sieve, and expect it to stay there, as expect Mr. Wiley to remember anything that does not concern himself," said Miss Buff. "But it is not too late yet, perhaps? When do you leave Ryde?"
"It is all uncertain: it is just as the wind blows and as my uncle fancies," replied Bessie despondently.
"Then write—write at once, and telegraph. Do both. There is Smith's bookstall. They will let you have a sheet of paper, and I always carry stamps." Miss Buff was prompt in action. Six lines were written for the post and one line for the telegraph, and both were despatched in ten minutes or less. "Now all is done that can be done to remedy yesterday and ensure to-morrow: some of them are certain to appear in the morning. Make your mind easy. Come back to our seat and tell me all about yourself."
Bessie's cheerfulness revived under the brisk influence of her friend, and she was ready to give an epitome of her annals, or a forecast of her hopes, or (which she much preferred) to hear the chronicles of Beechhurst. Miss Buff was the best authority for the village politics that she could have fallen in with. She knew everything that went on in the parish—not quite accurately perhaps, but accurately enough for purposes of popular information and gossip.
"Well, my dear, Miss Thusy O'Flynn is gone, for one good thing," she began with avervethat promised thoroughness. "And we are to have a new organ in the church, for another: it has been long enough talked about. Old Phipps set his face dead against it until we got the money in hand; we have got it, but not until we are all at daggers drawn. He told Lady Latimer that we ought to keep our liberal imaginations in check by a system of cash payments."
"Our friend has a disagreeable trick of being right," said Bessie laughing.
"He has his uses, but I cannot bear him. I don't knowwho is to blame—whether it is Miss Wort or Lady Latimer—but there is no peace at Beechhurst now for begging. They have plenty of money, and little enough to do with it. I callgivingthe greatest of luxuries, but, bless you! giving is not all charity. Miss Wort spends a fortune in eleemosynary physic to half poison poor folks; Lady Latimer indulges herself in a variety of freaks: her last was a mechanical leg for old Bumpus, who had been happy on a wooden peg for forty years; we were all asked to subscribe, and he doesn't thank us for it. As soon as one thing is done with, up starts another that we are entreated to be interested in—things we don't care about one bit. Old Phipps protests that it is vanity and busy-bodyism. I hope I shall never grow so hard-hearted as to see a poor soul want and not help her, but I hate to be canvassed for alms on behalf of other people's benevolent objects—don't you?"
"It has never happened to me. I remember that my father used to appeal to Lady Latimer and Miss Wort when his poor patients had not fit diet. Lady Latimer was his chief Lady Bountiful."
"That may be true, but it is possible to have too much of a good thing. I love fair play. The schools, now—they were very good schools before ever she came into the Forest; yes, as far back as your father's time, Bessie Fairfax—and yet, to hear the way in which she is belauded by a certain set, one might suppose that she had been the making of them. But it is the same all the world over—a hundred hands do the work, and one name gets all the praise!" Miss Buff was growing warm over her reminiscences, but catching the spark of mischief in Bessie's eyes, she laughed, and added with great candor: "Yes, I confess there is a spice of rivalry between us, but I am very fond of her all the same."
"Oh yes. She loves to rule, but then she has the talent," pleaded Bessie.
"No, my dear, there you are mistaken. She is too fussy; she irritates people. But for the old admiral she would often get into difficulties. Beechhurst has taken to ladies' meetings and committees, and all sorts of fudge that she is the moving spirit of. I often wish we were back in the quiet, times when dear old Hutton was rector, and would not lether be always interfering. I suppose it comes of this new doctrine of the equality of the sexes; but I say they never will be equal till women consent to be frights. It gives a man an immense pull over us to clap on his hat without mounting up stairs to the looking-glass: while we are getting ready to go and do a thing, he has gone and done it. You hear Lady Latimer's name at every turn, but the old admiral is the backbone of Beechhurst, as he always was, and old Phipps is his right hand."
"And Mr. Musgrave and my father?" queried Bessie.
"They do their part, but it is so unobtrusively that one forgets them; but they would be missed if they were not there. Mr. Musgrave has a great deal of influence amongst his own class—the farmers and those people. Of course, you have heard how wonderfully his son is getting on at college? Oh, my dear, what a stir there was about his running over to Normandy after you!"
"Dear Harry! I saw him again quite lately. He came to see me at Bayeux," said Bessie with a happy sigh.
"Did he? we never heard of that. He is at home now: perhaps he will come over with them to-morrow, eh?"
"I wish he would," was Bessie's frank rejoinder.
"And who else is there that you used to like? Fanny Mitten has married a clerk in the Hampton Bank, and Miss Ely is married; but she was married in London. I was in great hopes once that old Phipps would take Miss Thusy O'Flynn, and a sweet pair they would have been; but he thought better of it, and she went away as she came. Her aunt was a good old soul, and what did it matter if she was vulgar? We were very sorry to lose her contralto in the choir." Miss Buff's gossip was almost run out. Bessie remembered little Christie to inquire for him. "Little Christie—who is he? I never heard of him. Oh, the wheelwright's son who went away to be an artist! I don't know. The old man made me a garden-barrow once, and charged me enormously; and when I told him it was too dear, he said it would last me my life. Such impertinence! The common people grow very independent."
Bessie had heard the anecdote of the garden-barrow before. It spoke volumes for the peace and simplicity of Miss Buff'slife that she still recollected and cited this ancient grievance. A few more words of the doctor and his household, a few doubts and fears on Bessie's part that her telegram might be delayed, and a few cheery predictions on Miss Buff's, and they said good-bye, with the expression of a cordial hope that they might meet soon again, and meet in the Forest. Bessie Fairfax was amused and exhilarated by this familiar tattle about her beloved Beechhurst. It had dissipated the shadows of her three years' absence, and made home present to her once more. Nothing seems trivial that concerns places and people dear to young affections, and all the keener became her desire to be amongst them. She consulted Smith's boy as to the probable time of the arrival of her telegram at the doctor's house; she studied the table of the steamboats. She regretted bitterly that she had not written the first day at Ryde; then pleaded her own excuse because letters were a rarity for her to write, and had hitherto required a formal permission.
Mrs. Betts lingered with her long and patiently upon the pier, but the Gardiners did not come down again, and by and by Mrs. Betts, feeling the approach of dinner-time, began to look out towards the yacht. After a minute's steady observation she said, half to herself, but seriously, "I do believe they are making ready to sail. There is a boat alongside with bread and things."
"To sail! To leave Ryde! Oh, don't you think my uncle would wait a day if I begged him?" cried Bessie in acute dismay.
"No, miss—not if he has given orders and the wind keeps fair. If I was in your place, miss, I should not ask him. And as for the telegram, I should not name it. It would put Mr. Frederick out, and do no good."
Bessie did not name it. Mrs. Betts's speculation proved correct. The yacht sailed away in the afternoon. About the time when Mrs. Carnegie was hurriedly dressing to drive with her husband to Hampton over-night, to ensure not missing the mail-boat to Ryde in the morning, that gay and pleasant town was fast receding from Bessie's view. At dawn the island was out of sight, and when Mr. Carnegie, landing on the pier, sought a boat to carry him and his wife to the Foam, a boatman looked up at him and said, "The Foam, sir? You'll have much ado to overtake her. She's halfway to Hastings by this time. She sailed yesterday soon after five o'clock."
Mr. and Mrs. Carnegie turned away in silence. They had nothing to do but sorrowfully to repair home again. They were more grieved at heart by this disappointment than by any that had preceded it; and all the more did they try to cheer one another.
"Don't fret, Jane: it hurts me to see you fret," said the doctor. "It was a nice thought in Bessie, but the chance was a poor one."
"We have lost her, Thomas; I fear we have lost her," said his wife. "It is unnatural to pass by our very door, so to speak, and not let us see her. But I don't blame her."
"No, no, Bessie is not to blame: Harry Musgrave can tell us better than that. It is Mr. Fairfax—his orders. He forbade her coming, or it might have been managed easily. It is a mistake. He will never win her heart so; and as for ruling her except through her affections, he will have a task. I'm sorry, for the child will not be happy."
When Mr. and Mrs. Carnegie arrived at home they found Bessie's letter that had come by post—an abrupt, warm little letter that comforted them for themselves, but troubled them for her exceedingly. "God bless her, dear child!" said her mother. "I am afraid she will cry sadly, Thomas, and nobody to say a loving word to her or give her a kiss."
"It is a pity; she will have her share of vexations. But she is young and can bear them, with all her life before her. We will answer that pretty letter, that she may have something to encourage her when she gets amongst her grand relations. I suppose it may be a week or ten days first. We have done what we could, Jane, so cheer up, and let it rest."
When Bessie Fairfax realized that the yacht was sailing away from Ryde not to return, and carrying her quite out ofreach of pursuit, her spirits sank to zero. It was a perfect evening, and the light on the water was lovely, but to her it was a most melancholy view—when she could see it for the mist that obscured her vision. All her heart desired was being left farther and farther behind, and attraction there was none in Woldshire to which she was going. She looked at her uncle Frederick, silent, absent, sad; she remembered her grandfather, cold, sarcastic, severe; and every ensuing day she experienced fits of dejection or fits of terror and repulsion, to which even the most healthy young creatures are liable when they find themselves cut adrift from what is dear and familiar. Happily, these fits were intermittent, and at their worst easily diverted by what interested her on the voyage; and she did not encourage the murky humor: she always tried to shake it off and feel brave, and especially she made the effort as the yacht drew towards its haven. It was her nature to struggle against gloom and pain for a clear outlook at her horizon, and Madame Fournier had not failed to supply her with moral precepts for sustenance when cast on the shore of a strange and indifferent society.
The Foam touched at Hastings, at Dover, at semi-Dutch Harwich, and then no more until it put into Scarcliffe Bay. Here Bessie's sea-adventures ended. She went ashore and walked with her uncle on the bridge, gazing about with frank, unsophisticated eyes. The scenery and the weather were beautiful. Mr. Frederick Fairfax had many friends now at Scarcliffe, the favorite sea-resort of the county people. Greetings met him on every hand, and Bessie was taken note of. "My niece Elizabeth." Her history was known, kindness had been bespoken for her, her prospects were anticipated by a prescient few.
At length one acquaintance gave her uncle news: "The squire and your brother are both in the town. I fell in with them at the bank less than an hour ago."
"That is good luck: then we will go into the town and find them." And he moved off with alacrity, as if in sight of the end of an irksome duty. Bessie inquired if her uncle was going forward to Abbotsmead, to which he replied that he was not; he was going across to Norway to make the most of the fine weather while it lasted. He might beat horns in the winter, but his movements were always uncertain.
Mr. Fairfax came upon them suddenly out of the library. "Eh! here you are! We heard that the Foam was in," said he, and shook hands with his eldest son as if he had been parted with only yesterday. Then he spoke a few words to Bessie, rather abruptly, but with a critical observance of her: she had outgrown his recollection, and was more of a woman than he had anticipated. He walked on without any attempt at conversation until they met a third, a tall man with a fair beard, whom her grandfather named as "Your uncle Laurence, Elizabeth." And she had seen all her Woldshire kinsmen. For a miracle, she was able to put as cool a face upon her reception as the others did. A warm welcome would have brought her to tears and smiles, but its quiet formality subdued emotion and set her features like a handsome mask. She was too composed. Pride tinged with resentment simulates dignified composure very well for a little while, but only for a little while when there is a heart behind.
They went walking hither and thither about the steep, windy streets. Bessie fell behind. Now and then there was an encounter with other gentlemen, brief, energetic speech, inquiry and answer, sally and rejoinder, all with one common subject of interest—the Norminster election. Scarcliffe is a fine town, and there was much gay company abroad that afternoon, but Bessie was too miserable to be amused. Her uncle Laurence was the one of the party who was so fortunate as to discover this. He turned round on a sudden recollection of his stranger niece, and surprised a most desolate look on her rosy face. Bessie confessed her feelings by the grateful humility of her reply to his considerate proposal that they should turn in at a confectioner's they were passing and have a cup of tea.
"My father is as full of this election as if he were going to contest the city of Norminster himself," said he. "I hope you have a blue bonnet? You will have to play your part. Beautiful ladies are of great service in these affairs."
Bessie had not a blue bonnet; her bonnet was white chip and pink may—the enemy's colors. She must put it by till the end of the war. Tea and thick bread and butter weresupplied to the hungry couple, and about four o'clock Mr. Fairfax called for them and hurried them off to the train. Mr. Laurence went on to Norminster, dropping the squire and Elizabeth at Mitford Junction. Thence they had a drive of four miles through a country of long-backed, rounded hills, ripening cornfields, and meadows green with the rich aftermath, and full of cattle. The sky above was high and clear, the air had a crispness that was exhilarating. The sun set in scarlet splendor, and the reflection of its glory was shed over the low levels of lawn, garden, and copse, which, lying on either side of a shallow, devious river, kept still the name of Abbotsmead that had belonged to them before the great monastery at Kirkham was dissolved.
Mr. Fairfax was in good-humor now, and recovered from his momentary loss of self-possession at the sight of his granddaughter so thoroughly grown up. Also, election business at Norminster was going as he would have it, and bowling smoothly along in the quiet, early evening he had time to think of Elizabeth, sitting bolt upright in the carriage beside him. She had a pretty, pensive air, for which he saw no cause—only the excitement of novelty staved off depression—and in his sarcastic vein, with doubtful compliment, he said, "I did not expect to see you grown so tall, Elizabeth. You look as healthy as a milkmaid."
She was very quick and sensitive of feeling. She understood him perfectly, and replied that shewasas healthy as a milkmaid. Then she reverted to her wistful contemplation of the landscape, and tried to think of that and not of herself, which was too pathetic.
This country was not so lovely as the Forest. It had only the beauty of high culture. Human habitations were too wide-scattered, and the trees—there were no very great trees, nor any blue glimpses of the sea. Nevertheless, when the carriage turned into the domain at a pretty rustic lodge, the overarching gloom of an avenue of limes won Bessie's admiration, and a few fir trees standing in single grace near the ruins of the abbey, which they had to pass on their way to the house, she found almost worthy to be compared with the centenarians of the Forest. The western sun was still upon the house itself. The dusk-tiled mansard roof, pierced by tworows of twinkling dormers, and crowned by solid chimney-stacks, bulked vast and shapely against the primrose sky, and the stone-shafted lower windows caught many a fiery reflection in their blackness. Through a porch broad and deep, and furnished with oaken seats, Bessie preceded her grandfather into a lofty and spacious hall, where the foot rang on the bare, polished boards, and ten generations of Fairfaxes, successive dwellers in the grand old house, looked down from the walls. It was not lighted except by the sunset, which filled it with a warm and solemn glow.
Numerous servants appeared, amongst them a plump functionary in blue satinette and a towering cap, who curtseyed to Elizabeth and spoke some words of real welcome: "I'm right glad to see you back, Miss Fairfax; these arms were the first that held you." Bessie's impulse was to fall on the neck of this kindly personage with kisses and tears, but her grandfather's cool tone intervening maintained her reserve:
"Your young mistress will be pleased to go to her room, Macky. Your reminiscences will keep till to-morrow."
Macky, instantly obedient, begged Miss Fairfax to "come this way," and conducted her through a double-leaved door that stood open to the inner hall, carpeted with crimson pile, like the wide shallow stairs that went up to the gallery surrounding the greater hall. On this gallery opened many doors of chambers long silent and deserted.
"The master ordered you the white suite," announced Macky, ushering Elizabeth into the room so called. "It has pretty prospects, and the rooms are not such wildernesses as the other state-apartments. The eldest unmarried lady of the family always occupied the white suite."
A narrow ante-room, a sitting-room, a bed-room, and off it a sleeping-closet for her maid,—this was the private lodging accorded to the new daughter of the house. Bessie gazed about, taking in a general impression of faded, delicate richness, of white and gold and sparse color, in elegant, antiquated taste, like a boudoir in an old Norman château that she had visited.
"Mrs. Betts was so thoughtful as to come on by an earlier train to get unpacked and warn us to be prepared," Macky observed in a respectful explanatory tone; and then she went onto offer her good wishes to the young lady she had nursed, in the manner of an old and trusted dependant of the family. "It is fine weather and a fine time of year, and we hope and pray all of us, Miss Fairfax, as this will be a blessed bringing-home for you and our dear master. Most of us was here servants when Mr. Geoffry, your father, went south. A cheerful, pleasant gentleman he was, and your mamma as pleasant a lady. And here is Mrs. Betts to wait on you."
Bessie thanked the old woman, and would have bidden her remain and talk on about her forgotten parents, but Macky with another curtsey retired, and Mrs. Betts, calm and peremptory, proceeded to array her young lady in her prize-day muslin dress, and sent her hastily down stairs under the guidance of a little page who loitered in the gallery. At the foot of the stairs a lean, gray-headed man in black received her, and ushered her into a beautiful octagon-shaped room, all garnished with books and brilliant with light, where her grandfather was waiting to conduct her to dinner. So much ceremony made Bessie feel as if she was acting a part in a play. Since Macky's kind greeting her spirits had risen, and her countenance had cleared marvellously.
Mr. Fairfax was standing opposite the door when she appeared. "Good God! it is Dolly!" he exclaimed, visibly startled. Dolly was his sister Dorothy, long since dead. Not only in face and figure, but in a certain lightness of movement and a buoyant swift way of stepping towards him, Elizabeth recalled her. Perhaps there was something in the simplicity of her dress too: there on the wall was a pretty miniature of her great-aunt in blue and white and golden flowing hair to witness the resemblance. Mr. Fairfax pointed it out to his granddaughter, and then they went to dinner.
It was a very formal ceremonial, and rather tedious to the newly-emancipated school-girl. Jonquil served his master when he was alone, but this evening he was reinforced by a footman in blue and silver, by way of honor to the young lady. Elizabeth faced her grandfather across a round table. A bowl-shaped chandelier holding twelve wax-lights hung from the groined ceiling above the rose-deckedépergne, making a bright oasis in the centre of a room gloomy rather from the darkness of its fittings than from the insufficiency of illumination. Under the soft lustre the plate, precious for its antique beauty, the quaint cut glass, and old blue china enriched with gold were displayed to perfection. Bessie had a taste, her eye was gratified, there was repose in all this splendor. But still she felt that odd sensation of acting in a comedy which would be over as soon as the lights were out. Suddenly she recollected the bare board in the Rue St. Jean, the coarse white platters, the hunches of sour bread, the lenten soup, the flavorlessbouilli, and sighed—sighed audibly, and when her grandfather asked her why that mournful sound, she told him. Her courage never forsook her long.
"It has done you no harm to sup your share of Spartan broth; hard living is good for us young," was the squire's comment. "You never complained—your dry little letters always confessed to excellent health. When I was at school we fed roughly. The joints were cut into lumps which had all their names, and we were in honor bound not to pick and choose, but to strike with the fork and take what came up."
"Of course," said Bessie, pricked in her pride and conscience lest she should seem to be weakly complaining now—"of course we had treats sometimes. On madame's birthday we had a glass of white wine at dinner, which was roast veal and pancakes. And on our own birthdays we might havegalettewith sugar, if we liked to give Margotin the money."
"I trust the whole school hadgalettewith sugar on your birthday, Elizabeth?" said her grandfather, quietly amused. He was relieved to find her younger, more child-like in her ideas, than her first appearance gave him hopes of. His manner relaxed, his tone became indulgent. When she smiled with a blush, she was his sweet sister Dolly; when her countenance fell grave again, she was the shy, touchy, uncertain little girl who had gone to Fairfield on their first acquaintance so sorely against her inclination. After Jonquil and his assistant retired, Elizabeth was invited to tell how the time had passed on board the Foam.
"Pleasantly, on the whole," she said. "The weather was so fine that we were on deck from morning till night, and often far on into the night when the moon shone. It was delightful cruising off the Isle of Wight; only I had an immense disappointment there."
"What was that?" Mr. Fairfax asked, though he had a shrewd guess.
"I did not remember how easy it is to send a letter—not being used to write without leave—and I trusted Mr. Wiley, whom I met on Ryde pier going straight back to Beechhurst, with a message to them at home, which he forgot to deliver. And though I did write after, it was too late, for we left Ryde the same day. So I lost the opportunity of seeing my father and mother. It was a pity, because we were so near; and I was all the more sorry because it was my own fault."
Mr. Fairfax was silent for a few minutes after this bold confession. He had interdicted any communication with the Forest, as Mr. Carnegie prevised. He did not, however, consider it necessary to provoke Bessie's ire by telling her that he was responsible for her immense disappointment. He let that pass, and when he spoke again it was to draw her out on the more important subject of what progress Mr. Cecil Burleigh had made in her interest. It was truly vexatious, but as Bessie told her simple tale she was conscious that her color rose and deepened slowly to a burning blush. Why? She vehemently assured herself that she did not care a straw for Mr. Cecil Burleigh, that she disliked him rather than otherwise, yet at the mere sound of his name she blushed. Perhaps it was because she dreaded lest anybody should suspect the mistake her vanity had made before. Her grandfather gave her one acute glance, and was satisfied that this business also went well.
"Mr. Cecil Burleigh left the yacht at Ryde. It was the first day of the regatta when we anchored there, and we landed and saw the town," was all Bessie said in words, but her self-betrayal was eloquent.
"We—what do you mean bywe? Did your uncle Frederick land?" asked the squire, not caring in the least to know.
"No—only Mr. Cecil Burleigh and myself. We went to the house of some friends of his where we had lunch; and afterward Mrs. Gardiner and one of the young ladies took me to the Arcade. My uncle never landed at all from the day we left Caen till we arrived at Scarcliffe. Mrs. Betts went into Harwich with me. That is a very quaint old town,but nothing in England looks so battered and decayed as the French cities do."
Mr. Fairfax knew all about Miss Julia Gardiner, and Elizabeth's information that Mr. Cecil Burleigh had called on the family in Ryde caused him to reflect. It was very imprudent to take Elizabeth with him—very imprudent indeed; of course, the squire could not know how little he was to blame. To take her mind off the incident that seriously annoyed himself, he asked what troubles Caen had seen, and Bessie, thankful to discourse of something not confusing, answered him like a book:
"Oh, many. It is very impoverished and dilapidated. The revocation of the Edict of Nantes ruined its trade. Its principal merchants were Huguenots: there are still amongst the best families some of the Reformed religion. Then in the great Revolution it suffered again; the churches were desecrated, and turned to all manner of common uses; some are being restored, but I myself have seen straw hoisted in at a church window, beautiful with flamboyant tracery in the arch, the shafts below being partly broken away."
Mr. Fairfax remarked that France was too prone to violent remedies; then reverting to the subjects uppermost in his thoughts, he said, "Elections and politics cannot have much interest for you yet, Elizabeth, but probably you have heard that Mr. Cecil Burleigh is going to stand for Norminster?"
"Yes; he spoke of it to my uncle Frederick. He is a very liberal Conservative, from what I heard him say. There was a famous contest for Hampton when I was not more than twelve years old: we went to see the members chaired. My father was orange—the Carnegies are almost radicals; they supported Mr. Hiloe—and we wore orange rosettes."
"A most unbecoming color! You must take up with blue now; blue is the only wear for a Fairfax. Most men might wear motley for a sign of their convictions. Let us return to the octagon parlor; it is cheerful with a fire after dinner. At Abbotsmead there are not many evenings when a fire is not acceptable at dusk."
The fire was very acceptable; it was very composing and pleasant. Bright flashes of flame kindled and reddened the fragrant dry pine chips and played about the lightly-piledlogs. Mr. Fairfax took his own commodious chair on one side of the hearth, facing the uncurtained windows; a low seat confronted him for Bessie. Both were inclined to be silent, for both were full of thought. The rich color and gilding of the volumes that filled the dwarf bookcases caught the glow, as did innumerable pretty objects besides—water-color drawings on the walls, mirrors that reflected the landscape outside, statuettes in shrines of crimson fluted silk—but the prettiest object by far in this dainty lady's chamber was still Bessie Fairfax, in her white raiment and rippled, shining hair.
This was her grandfather's reflection, and again that impulse to love her that he had felt at Beechhurst long ago began to sway his feelings. It was on the cards that he might become to her a most indulgent, fond old man; but then Elizabeth must be submissive, and do his will in great things if he allowed her to rule in small. Bessie had dropt her mask and showed her bright face, at peace for the moment; but it was shadowed again by the resurrection of all her wrongs when her grandfather said on bidding her good-night, "Perhaps, Elizabeth, the assurance that will tend most to promote your comfort at Abbotsmead, to begin with, is that you have a perfect right to be here."
Her astonishment was too genuine to be hidden. Did her grandfather imagine that she was flattered by her domicile in his grand house? It was exile to her quite as much as the old school at Caen. Nothing had ever occurred to shake her original conviction that she was cruelly used in being separated from her friends in the Forest.Theywere her family—not these strangers. Bessie dropped him her embarrassed school-girl's curtsey, and said, "Good-night, sir"—not even a Thank you! Mr. Fairfax thought her manner abrupt, but he did not know the depth and tenacity of her resentment, or he would have recognized the blunder he had committed in bringing her into Woldshire with unsatisfied longings after old, familiar scenes.
Bessie was of a thoroughly healthy nature and warmly affectionate. She felt very lonely and unfriended; she wished that her grandfather had said he was glad to have her at Abbotsmead, instead of telling her that she had arightto bethere; but she was also very tired, and sleep soon prevailed over both sweet and bitter fancies. Premature resolutions she made none; she had been warned against them by Madame Fournier as mischievous impediments to making the best of life, which is so much less often "what we could wish than what we must even put up with."
Perplexities and distressed feelings notwithstanding, Bessie Fairfax awoke at an early hour perfectly rested and refreshed. In the east the sun was rising in glory. A soft, bluish haze hung about the woods, a thick dew whitened the grass. She rose to look out of the window.
"It is going to be a lovely day," she said, and coiled herself in a cushioned chair to watch the dawn advancing.
All the world was hushed and silent yet. Slowly the light spread over the gardens, over the meadows and cornfields, chasing away the shadows and revealing the hues of shrub and flower. A reach of the river stole into view, and the red roof of an old mill on its banks. Then there was a musical, monotonous, reiterated call not far off which roused the cattle, and brought them wending leisurely towards the milking-shed. The crowing of cocks near and more remote, the chirping of little birds under the eaves, began and increased. A laborer, then another, on their way to work, passed within sight along a field-path leading to the mill; a troop of reapers came by the same road. Then there was the pleasant sound of sharpening a scythe, and Bessie saw a gardener on the lawn stoop to his task.
She returned to her pillow, and slept again until she was awakened by somebody coming to her bedside. It was Mrs. Betts, bearing in her hands one of those elegant china services for a solitary cup of tea which have popularized that indulgence amongst ladies.
"What is it?" Bessie asked, gazing with a puzzled air atthe tiny turquoise-blue vessels. "Tea? I am going to get up to breakfast."
"Certainly, miss, I hope so. But it is a custom with many young ladies to have a cup of tea before dressing."
"I will touch my bell if I want anything. No—no tea, thank you," responded Bessie; and the waiting-woman felt herself dismissed. Bessie chose to make and unmake her toilette alone. It was easy to see that her education had not been that of a young lady of quality, for she was quite independent of her maid; but Mrs. Betts was a woman of experience and made allowance for her, convinced that, give her time, she would be helpless and exacting enough.
Mr. Fairfax and his granddaughter met in the inner hall with a polite "Good-morning." Elizabeth looked shyly proud, but sweet as a dewy rose. The door of communication with the great hall was thrown wide open. It was all in cool shade, redolent of fresh air and the perfume of flowers. Jonquil waited to usher them to breakfast, which was laid in the room where they had dined last night.
Mr. Fairfax was never a talker, but he made an effort on behalf of Bessie, with whom it was apparently good manners not to speak until she was spoken to. "What will you do, Elizabeth, by way of making acquaintance with your home? Will you have Macky with her legends of family history and go over the house, or will you take a turn outside with me and visit the stables?"
Bessie knew which it was her duty to prefer, and fortunately her duty tallied with her inclination; her countenance beamed, and she said, "I will go out with you, if you please."
"You ride, I know. There is a nice little filly breaking in for you: you must name her, as she is to be yours."
"May I call her Janey?"
"Janey! Was that the name of Mr. Carnegie's little mare?"
"No; she was Miss Hoyden. Janey was the name of my first friend at school. She went away soon, and I have never heard of her since. But I shall: I often think of her."
"You have a constant memory, Elizabeth—not the best memory for your happiness. What are you eating? Only bread and butter. Will you have no sardines, bacon, eggs, honey? Nothing! A very abstemious young lady! Youhave done with school, and may wean yourself from school-fare."
Breakfast over, Mrs. Betts brought her young lady's leghorn hat and a pair of new Limerick gauntlet-gloves—nice enough for Sunday in Bessie's modest opinion, but as they were presented for common wear she put them on and said nothing. Mr. Fairfax conducted his granddaughter to his private room, which had a lobby and porch into the garden, and twenty paces along the wall a door into the stable-yard. The groom who had the nice little filly in charge to train was just bringing her out of her stable.
"There is your Janey, Elizabeth," said her grandfather.
"Oh, what a darling!" cried Bessie in a voice that pleased him, as the pretty creature began to dance and prance and sidle and show off her restive caprices, making the groom's mounting her for some minutes impracticable.
"It is only her play, miss—she ain't no vice at all," the man said, pleading her excuses. "She'll be as dossil as dossil can be when I've give her a gallop. But this is her of a morning—so fresh there's no holding her."
Another groom had come to aid, and at length the first was seated firm in the saddle, with a flowing skirt to mimic the lady that Janey was to carry. And with a good deal of manœuvring they got safe out of the yard.
"You would like to follow and see? Come, then," said the squire, and led Bessie by a short cut across the gardens to the park. Janey was flying like the wind over the level turf, but she was well under guidance, and when her rider brought her round to the spot where Mr. Fairfax and the young lady stood to watch, she quite bore out his encomium on her docility. She allowed Bessie to stroke her neck, and even took from her hand an apple which the groom produced from a private store of encouragement and reward in his pocket.
"It will be well to give her a good breathing before Miss Fairfax mounts her, Ranby," said his master, walking round her approvingly. Then to Bessie he said, "Do you know enough of horses not to count rashness courage, Elizabeth?"
"I am ready to take your word or Ranby's for what is venturesome," was Bessie's moderate reply. "My father taught me to ride as soon as I could sit, so that I have nofear. But I am out of practice, for I have never ridden since I went to Caen."
"You must have a new habit: you shall have a heavy one for the winter, and ride to the meet with me occasionally. I suppose you have never done that?"
"Mr. Musgrave once took me to see the hounds throw off. I rode Harry's pony that day. I was staying at Brook for a week."
Mr. Fairfax knew who "Mr. Musgrave" was and who "Harry" was, but Bessie did not recollect that he knew. However, as he asked no explanation of them, she volunteered none, and they returned to the gardens.
The cultivated grounds of Abbotsmead extended round three sides of the house. On the west, where the principal entrance was, an outer semicircle of lime trees, formed by the extension of the avenue, enclosed a belt of evergreens, and in the middle of the drive rose a mound over which spread a magnificent cedar. The great hall was the central portion of the building, lighted by two lofty, square-headed windows on either side of the door; the advanced wings that flanked it had corresponding bays of exquisite proportions, which were the end-windows of the great drawing-room and the old banqueting-room. The former was continued along the south, with one bay very wide and deep, and on either side of it a smaller bay, all preserving their dim glazing after the old Venetian pattern. Beyond the drawing-room was the modern adaptation of the wing which contained the octagon parlor and dining-room: from the outside the harmony of construction was not disturbed. The library adjoined the banqueting-room on the north, and overlooked a fine expanse where the naturalization of American trees and shrubs had been the hobby of the Fairfaxes for more than one generation. The flower-garden was formed in terraces on the south, and was a mixture of Italian and old English taste. The walls were a mingled tapestry of roses, jessamine, sweet clematis, and all climbing plants hardy enough to bear the rigors of the northern winter. Trimmed in though ever so closely in the fall of the year, in the summer it bushed and blossomed out into a wantonly luxuriant, delicious variety of color and fragrance. If here and there a bit of gray stone showed through themass, it seemed only to enhance the loveliness of the leaf and flower-work.
Bessie Fairfax stood to admire its glowing intricacy, and with a remarkable effort of candor exclaimed, "I think this is as pretty as anything in the Forest—as pretty as Fairfield or the manor-house at Brook;" which amused her grandfather, for the south front of the old mansion-house of Abbotsmead was one of the most grandly picturesque specimens of domestic architecture to be found in the kingdom.
In such perambulations time slips away fast. The squire looked at his watch. It was eleven o'clock; at half-past he was due at a magistrate's meeting two miles off; he must leave Bessie to amuse herself until luncheon at two. Bessie was contented to be left. She replied that she would now go indoors and write to her mother. Her grandfather paused an instant on her answer, then nodded acquiescence and went away in haste. Was he disappointed that she said nothing spontaneous? Bessie did not give that a thought, but she said in her letter, "I do believe that my grandfather wishes me to be happy here"—a possibility which had not struck her until she took a pen in her hand, and set about reflecting what news she had to communicate to her dear friends at Beechhurst. This brilliant era of her vicissitudes was undoubtedly begun with a little aversion.
In the absence of her young lady, Mrs. Betts had unpacked and carefully disposed of Bessie's limited possessions.
"Your wardrobe will not give me much trouble, miss," said the waiting-woman, with sly, good-humored allusion to the extent of it.
"No," answered Bessie, misunderstanding her in perfect simplicity. "You will find all in order. At school we mended our clothes and darned our stockings punctually every week."
"Did you really do this beautiful darning, miss? It is the finest darning I ever met with—not to say it was lace." Mrs. Betts spoke more seriously, as she held up to view a pair of filmy Lille thread stockings which had sustained considerable dilapidation and repair.
"Yes. They were not worth the trouble. Mademoiselle Adelaide made us wear Lille thread on dancing-days that wemight never want stockings to mend. She had a passion for darning. She taught us to graft also: you will find one pair of black silk grafted toe and heel. I have thought them much too precious ever to wear since. I keep them for a curiosity."
On the tables in Bessie's sitting-room were set out her humble appliances for work, for writing—an enamelled white box with cut-steel ornaments, much scratched; a capacious oval basket with a quilted red silk cover, much faded; a limp Russia-leather blotting-book wrapped in silver paper (Harry Musgrave had presented it to Bessie on her going into exile, and she had cherished it too dearly to expose it to the risk of blots at school). "I think," said she, "I shall begin to use it now."
She released it from its envelope, smelt it, and laid it down comfortably in front of the Sevres china inkstand. All the permanent furniture of the writing-table was of Sevres china. Bessie thought it grotesque, and had no notion of the value of it.
"The big basket may be put aside?" suggested Mrs. Betts, and her young lady did not gainsay her. But when the shabby little white enamelled box was threatened, she commanded that that should be left—she had had it so long she could not bear to part with it. It had been the joint-gift of Mr. and Mrs. Carnegie on her twelfth birthday.
Released, at length, from Mrs. Betts's respectful, observant presence, Bessie began to look about her and consider her new habitation. A sense of exaltation and a sense of bondage possessed her. These pretty, quaint rooms were hers, then? It was not a day-dream—it was real. She was at Abbotsmead—at Kirkham. Her true home-nest under the eaves at Beechhurst was hundreds of miles away: farther still was the melancholy garden in the Rue St. Jean.
Opposite the parlor window was the fireplace, the lofty mantelshelf being surmounted by a circular mirror, so inclined as to reflect the landscape outside. Upon the panelled walls hung numerous specimens of the elegant industry of Bessie's predecessors—groups of flowers embroidered on tarnished white satin; shepherds and shepherdesses with shell-pink painted faces and raiment of needlework in many colors; pallid sketches of scenery; crayon portraits of youths andmaidens of past generations, none younger than fifty years ago. There was a bookcase of white wood ruled with gold lines, like the spindly chairs and tables, and here Bessie could study, if she pleased, the literary tastes of ancient ladies, matrons and virgins, long since departed this life in the odor of gentility and sanctity. The volumes were in bindings rich and solid, and the purchase or presentation of each had probably been an event. Bessie took down here and there one. Those ladies who spent their graceful leisure at embroidery-frames were students of rather stiff books. LockeOn the Conduct of the Human Understandingand Paley'sEvidences of the Christian ReligionBessie took down and promptly restored; also theSermonsof Dr. Barrow and theEssaysof Dr. Goldsmith. TheLettersof Mrs. Katherine Talbot and Mrs. Elizabeth Carter engaged her only a few minutes, and the novels of Miss Edgeworth not much longer. The most modern volumes in the collection were inscribed with the name of "Dorothy Fairfax," who reigned in the days of Byron and Wordsworth, Keats and Shelley, and had through them (from the contents of three white vellum-covered volumes of extracts in her autograph) learnt to love the elder poets whose works in quarto populated the library. To Bessie these volumes became a treasure out of which she filled her mind with songs and ballads, lays and lyrics. The third volume had a few blank pages at the end, and these were the last lines in it: