The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax Part 12

Bessie awoke from her reverie, and confessed that she was idle this morning, very idle and uncomfortably restless: it was the heat, she thought, and she breathed a vast sigh. Madame invited her to _do_ something by way of relief to her _ennui_, and after a brief considering fit she said she would go into the cathedral, where it was the coolest, and take her sketching-block.

Oh, for the moist glades of the Forest, for the soft turf under foot and the thick verdure overhead! Bessie longed for them with all her heart as she pa.s.sed upon the sun-baked stones to the great door of the cathedral.

The dusk of its vaulted roof was not cool and sweet like the arching of green branches, but chill with damp odors of antiquity. She sat down in one of the arcades near the portal above the steps that descend into the nave. The immense edifice seemed quite empty. The perpetual lamp burned before the altar, and wandering echoes thrilled in the upper galleries.

Through a low-browed open door streamed across the aisle a flood of suns.h.i.+ne, and there was the sound of chisel and mallet from the same quarter, the stone-yard of the cathedral; but there was no visible wors.h.i.+pper--nothing to interrupt her mood of reverie.

For a long while, that is. Presently chimed in with the music of chisel and mallet the ring of eager young footsteps outside, young men's footsteps, voices and dear English speech. One was freely translating from his guide-book: "The cathedral, many times destroyed, was rebuilt after the fire of 1106, and not completed until the eighteenth century.

It is therefore of several styles. The length is one hundred and two metres and the height twenty-three metres from floor to vault."

Bessie's breath came and went very fast; so did the blood in her cheeks.

Surely that voice she knew. It was Harry Musgrave's voice, and this was why thoughts of the Forest had haunted her all the morning.

The owner of the voice entered, and it was Harry Musgrave--he and two others, all with the fresh air of British tourists not long started on their tour, knapsack on back and walking-stick in hand. They pulled off their gray wideawakes and stared about, lowering their manly tones as they talked; stood a few minutes considering the length, breadth, height, and beauty of general effect in the nave and the choir, and then descended the steps, and in the true national spirit of inquiry walked straight to the stream of suns.h.i.+ne that revealed a door opening into some place unseen. Bessie, sitting in retired shade, escaped their observation. She laughed to herself with an inexpressible gladness. It was certainly not by accident that Harry was here. She would have liked to slip along the aisle in his shadow, to have called him by his name, but the presence of his two unknown companions, and some diffidence in herself, restrained her until the opportunity was gone, and he disappeared, inveigled by the sacristan into making the regular tour of the building. She knew every word he would hear, every antiquity he would admire. She saw him in the choir turning over the splendid ma.n.u.script books of Holy Writ and of the Ma.s.s which were in use in the church when the kings of England were still dukes of Normandy; saw him carried off into the crypt where is shown the pyx of those long-ago times, a curious specimen of mediaeval work in bra.s.s; and after that she lost him.

Would they climb the dome, those enterprising young men? Bessie took it for granted that they would. But she must see dear Harry again; and oh for a word with him! Perhaps he would seek her out--he might have learnt from her mother where she was at Bayeux--or perhaps he would not _dare_?

Not that Harry's character had ever lacked daring where his wishes were concerned; still, recollecting the trouble that had come of his former unauthorized visit, he might deny himself for her sake. It was not probable, and Bessie would not have bidden him deny himself; she would willingly go through the same trouble again for the same treat. Why had she not taken courage to arrest his progress? How foolish, how heartless it would appear to-morrow if the chance were not renewed to her to-day!

She would not have done so silly a thing three years ago--her impulse to follow him, to call out his name, would have been irresistible--but now she felt shy of him. A plague on her shyness!

Bessie's little temper had the better of her for a minute or two. She was very angry with herself, would never forgive herself, she said, if by her own trivial fault she had thrown away this favor of kind Fortune.

What must she do, what could she do, to retrieve her blunder? Where seek for him? How find him? She quivered, grew hot and cold again with excitement. Should she go to the Green Square?--he was sure to visit that quarter. Then she remembered a high window in the canon's house that commanded the open s.p.a.ces round the cathedral; she would go and watch from that high window. It was a long while before she arrived at this determination; she waited to see if the strangers would return to the beautiful chapter-house, to admire its fine tesselated floor and carved stalls, and its chief treasure in the exquisite ivory crucifix of the unfortunately famous princess De Lamballe; but they did not return, and then she hastened home, lest she should be too late. Launcelot was plying his water-can for the sixth time that morning when she entered the court, and she stood in an angle of shadow to feel the air of the light shower.

"Here she is, and just the same as ever!" exclaimed somebody at the _salon_ window.

Bessie was startled into a cry of joy. It was Harry Musgrave himself.

Madame Fournier had been honored with his society for quite half an hour while his little friend was loitering and longing pensively in the cathedral. All that lost, precious time! Bessie never recollected how they met, or what they said to each other in the first moments, but Babette, who witnessed the meeting through the gla.s.s door at the end of the hall which opened on the terrace, had a firm belief ever afterward that the English ladies and gentlemen embrace with a kiss after absence--a sign whether of simplicity or freedom of manners, she could not decide; so she wisely kept her witness to herself, being a sage person and of discreet experiences.

They returned into the _salon_ together. It was full of the perfume of roses, of the wavering shadow of leaves on the floor and walls and ceiling. It looked bright and pretty, and madame, with suave benignity, explained: "I told Mr. Musgrave that it was better to wait here, and not play hide-and-seek; Bessie was sure to come soon."

"I saw you in the cathedral, Harry; you pa.s.sed close by me. It was so difficult not to cry out!"

"You saw me in the cathedral, and did not run up to me? Oh, Bessie!"

"There were two other gentlemen with you." Bessie, though conscious of her wickedness, saw no harm in extenuating it.

"If there had been twenty, what matter? Would I have let you pa.s.s me? If I had not found courage to seek you here--and it required some courage, and some perseverance, too--why, I should have missed you altogether."

Bessie laughed: here were they sparring as if they had parted no longer ago than yesterday! Then she blushed, and all at once they came to themselves, and began to be graver and more restrained.

"My friends are Fordyce and Craik; they have gone to study the Tapestry.

I said I would look in at it later with you, Bessie: I counted on you for my guide," announced Harry with native a.s.surance.

Bessie launched a supplicatory glance at madame, then hazarded a doubtful consent, which did not provoke a denial. After that they moved to the garden-end of the _salon_, and seated themselves in friendly proximity. Then Bessie asked to be told all about them at home. All about them was not a long story. The doctor's family had not arrived at the era of dispersion and changes; the three years that had been so long, full, and important to Bessie had pa.s.sed in his house like three monotonous days. The same at Brook.

"The fathers and mothers, yours and mine, are not an hour altered,"

Harry Musgrave said. "The boys are grown. Jack is a st.u.r.dy little ruffian, as you might expect; no boy in the Forest runs through so many clothes as Jack--that's the complaint. There is a talk of sending him to sea, and he is deep in Marryat's novels for preparation."

"Poor Jack, he was a sad Pickle, but _so_ affectionate! And Willie and the others?" queried Bessie rather mournfully.

Concerning Willie and the others there was a favorable account. Of all Bessie's old friends and acquaintances not one was lost, not one had gone away. But talk of them was only preliminary to more interesting talk of themselves, modestly deferred, but well lingered over once it was begun. Harry Musgrave could not tell Bessie too much--he could not explain with too exact a precision the system of college-life, its delights and drawbacks. He had been very successful; he had won many prizes, and antic.i.p.ated the distinction of a high degree--all at the cost of work. One term he had not gone up to Oxford. The doctor had ordered him to rest.

"Still, you are not quite killed with study," said Bessie gayly, rallying him. She thought the school-life of girls was as laborious as the college-life of young men, with much fewer alleviations.

"That was never my way. I can make a spurt if need be. But it is safer to keep a steady, even pace."

"And what are you going to do for a profession, Harry? Have you made up your mind yet?"

Harry had made up his mind to win a fellows.h.i.+p at Oxford, and then to enter himself at one of the Inns of Court and read for the bar. For physic and divinity he had no taste, but the law would suit him. Bessie was ineffably depressed by this information: what romance is there in the law for the imagination of eighteen? If Harry had said he was going to throw himself on the world as a poor author, she would have bestowed upon him a fund of interest and sympathy. To win a little of such encouragement Harry added that while waiting for briefs he might be forced to betake himself to the cultivation of light literature, of journalism, or even of parliamentary reporting: many men, now of mark, had done so. Then Bessie was better satisfied. "But oh what a prodigious wig you will want!" was her rueful conclusion.

"Have I such a Goliath head?" Harry inquired, rubbing his large hands through his crisp, abundant locks. They were as much all in a fuzz as ever, but his skin was not so gloriously tanned, and his hands were white instead of umber. Bessie noticed them: they were whiter and more delicate than her own.

Harry Musgrave had no conceit, but plenty of confidence, and he knew that his head was a very good head. It had room for plenty of brains, and Harry was of opinion that it is far more desirable to be born with a fortune in brains than with the proverbial silver spoon in one's mouth. He would have laughed to scorn the vulgar notion that to be born in the purple or in a wilderness of money-bags is more than an equivalent, and would have bid you see the little value G.o.d sets on riches by observing the people to whom He gives them. Birth, he would have granted, ensures a man a long step at starting, but unless he have brains his rival without ancestors will pa.s.s him in the race for distinction. This was young Musgrave's creed at three-and-twenty. He expounded it to Bessie, who heard him with a puzzled perception of something left out. Harry, like many another man at the beginning of life, reckoned without the unforeseen.

The sum of Bessie's experiences, adventures, opinions was not long. Her mind had not matured at school as it would have done in the practical education of home. She had acquired a graceful carriage and propriety of behavior, and she had learned a little more history, with a few dates and other things that are written in books; but of current literature and current events, great or small, she had learned nothing. For seclusion a French school is like a convent. She had a sense of humor and a sense of justice--qualities not too common in the s.e.x; and she had a few liberal notions, the seed of which had been sown during her rides with the doctor. They would probably outlive her memory for the shadowy regions of chronology. Then she had a clear and strong sentiment with regard to the oppressive manner in which her grandfather had exercised his right and power over her, which gave a tincture to her social views not the most amiable. She was confessedly happier with Madame Fournier at Bayeux than she had any antic.i.p.ation of being at Abbotsmead, but she had nevertheless a feeling of injury in being kept in a state of pupilage. She had wrought up her mind to expect a recall to England when she was eighteen, and no recall had come. Harry Musgrave's inquiry when she was to leave school brought a blush to her face. She was ashamed to answer that she did not know.

"Lady Latimer should interfere for you," suggested Harry, who had not received a lively impression of her lot.

Bessie's countenance cleared with a flash, and her thoughts were instantly diverted to Fairfield and its gracious mistress--that bright particular star of her childish imagination: "Oh, Harry, have you made friends with Lady Latimer?" asked she.

"I have not been to her house, because she has never asked me since that time I despised her commands, but we have a talk when we meet on the road. Her ladys.h.i.+p loves all manner of information, and is good enough to take an interest in my progress. I know she takes an interest in it, because she recollects what I tell her--not like our ascetic parson, who forgets whether I am at Balliol or Oriel, and whether I came out first cla.s.s or fourth in moderations."

"I wish I could meet Lady Latimer on the road or anywhere! Seeing you makes me long to go home, Harry," said Bessie with a sigh. Harry protested that she ought to go home, and promised that he would speak about it--he would go to Fairfield immediately on his return to the Forest, and beg Lady Latimer to intercede in her behalf. Bessie had a doubt whether this was a judicious plan, but she did not say so. The hope of deliverance, once admitted into her mind, overcame all perplexities.

A little while and the canon came in glowing hot. "_Pouf!_" and he wiped his rubicund, round visage with a handkerchief as brilliant. Coming straight from the glare out of doors, he was not aware of the stranger in the _salon_ till his eyes were used to the gloom. Then madame and Bessie effected Harry's introduction, and as Harry, with a rare wisdom, had practised colloquial French, he and the canon were soon acquainted.

Once only had the old man visited England, a visit for ever memorable on account of the guinea he had paid for his first dinner in London.

"Certainly, they took you for an archbishop or for a monsigneur," said Harry, when the old story of this cruel extortion was recited to him.

The canon was pleased. This explanation gave a color of flattery to his infamous wrong. And madame thought her brother had quite _l'air n.o.ble_.

Babette summoned them to _dejeuner_. Harry stayed gladly at a hint of invitation. Across the table the two young people had a full view of each other, and satisfied their eyes with gazing. Bessie looked lovely in her innocent delight, and Harry had now a maturer appreciation of her loveliness. He himself had more of the student aspect, and an air of la.s.situde, which he ascribed, as he had been instructed, to overstrain in reading for the recent examinations. This was why he had come abroad--the surest way of taking mental rest and refreshment.

Incidentally he mentioned that he had given up boating and athletic exercises, under Mr. Carnegie's direction. Bessie only smiled, and reflected that it was odd to hear of Harry Musgrave taking care of himself. One visitor from England on a day would have been enough, but by a curious coincidence, as they sat all at ease, through the open window from the court there sounded another English voice, demanding Madame Fournier and Miss Fairfax.

"Who can it be?" said Bessie, and she craned her fair neck to look, while a rosy red suffused her face from chin to brow.

The canon and madame laid down their knives and forks to listen, and involuntarily everybody's eyes turned upon Harry. He could not forbear a smile and a glance of intelligence at Bessie; for he had an instant suspicion that this new-comer was an emissary from Mr. Fairfax, and from her agitation so had she. Launcelot held a short, prompt parley at the gate, then Babette intervened, and next was audible the advance of a firm, even step into the hall, and the closing of the _salon_ door.

"Encore un beau monsieur pour mademoiselle," announced the housekeeper, and handed in a card inscribed with the name of "Mr. Cecil Burleigh,"

and a letter of introduction from Mr. Fairfax.

Bessie's heart went pit-a-pat while madame read the letter, and Harry feared that he would probably have to find his way to the Tapestry without a guide. Madame's countenance was inscrutable, but she said to Bessie, "Calme-toi, mon enfant," and finished her meal with extreme deliberation. Then with a perfect politeness, and an utter oblivion of the little arrangement for a walk to the library that Harry and Bessie had made, she gave him his _conge_ in the form of a hope that he would never fail to visit her when he found himself at Caen or Bayeux. Harry accepted it with a ready apprehension of the necessity for his dismissal, and without alluding to the Tapestry made his respectful acknowledgments to madame and the canon preparatory to bidding Bessie farewell.

Under the awning over the _perron_ they said their good-byes. Bessie, frank-hearted girl, was disappointed even to the glittering of tears.

"It has been very pleasant. I am so happy you came!" whispered she with a tremor.

"G.o.d bless you, dear little Bessie! Give me this for a keepsake," said Harry, and took a white, half-blown rose which she wore in the bosom of her pretty dress of lilac _percale_. She let him have it. Then they stood for a minute face to face and hand in hand, but the delicate perplexities of Babette, spying through her gla.s.s door, were not increased by a kiss at parting. And the young man seemed to rush away at last in sudden haste.

"Montes dans ta chambre quelques instants, Bessie," said the voice of madame. And then with a gentle, decorous dignity she entered the _salon_.

When madame entered the _salon_, Mr. Cecil Burleigh was standing at one of the windows that _gave_ upon the court. He witnessed the departure of Harry Musgrave, and did not fail to recognize an Englishman in the best made of English clothes. The reader will probably recognize _him_ as one of the guests at the Fairfield wedding, who had shown some attention to Bessie Fairfax on her grandfather's introduction of him as a neighbor of his in Wolds.h.i.+re. He was now at Bayeux by leave of Mr. Fairfax, to see the young lady and take the sense of her opinions as to whether she would prefer to remain another year at school, or to go back to England in ten days under his escort. The interval he was on his way to spend in Paris--on a private errand for the government, to a highly honorable member of which he was private secretary.