The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax Part 16

"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."

CHAPTER XVII.

_BESSIE'S BRINGING HOME._

When Bessie Fairfax realized that the yacht was sailing away from Ryde not to return, and carrying her quite out of reach 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 Wolds.h.i.+re 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 sh.o.r.e 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 ash.o.r.e 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 antic.i.p.ated 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 be at 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 antic.i.p.ated. 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 Wolds.h.i.+re 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 pa.s.sing 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 b.u.t.ter were supplied 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 she _was_ as 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 pa.s.s 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 two rows 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 s.p.a.cious 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 spa.r.s.e color, in elegant, antiquated taste, like a boudoir in an old Norman chateau 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 on to 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 G.o.d!

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-emanc.i.p.ated 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-decked _epergne_, 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 l.u.s.tre the plate, precious for its antique beauty, the quaint cut gla.s.s, 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 coa.r.s.e white platters, the hunches of sour bread, the lenten soup, the flavorless _bouilli_, 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, p.r.i.c.ked 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 gla.s.s of white wine at dinner, which was roast veal and pancakes. And on our own birthdays we might have _galette_ with sugar, if we liked to give Margotin the money."

"I trust the whole school had _galette_ with 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 a.s.sistant retired, Elizabeth was invited to tell how the time had pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.s, 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 a.s.sured 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 anch.o.r.ed 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 by _we_? 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 princ.i.p.al 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 p.r.o.ne 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-piled logs. 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, s.h.i.+ning 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 a.s.surance 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. _They_ were her family--not these strangers. Bessie dropped him her embarra.s.sed 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 Wolds.h.i.+re 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 a _right_ to be there; 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."