The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax Part 17

CHAPTER XVIII.

_THE NEXT MORNING._

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 gra.s.s. She rose to look out of the window.

"It is going to be a lovely day," she said, and coiled herself in a cus.h.i.+oned 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 c.o.c.ks near and more remote, the chirping of little birds under the eaves, began and increased. A laborer, then another, on their way to work, pa.s.sed 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 at the 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 b.u.t.ter. Will you have no sardines, bacon, eggs, honey? Nothing! A very abstemious young lady! You have 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 manoeuvring 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 no fear. 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 princ.i.p.al 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 the ma.s.s, 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 we might never want stockings to mend. She had a pa.s.sion 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 sh.e.l.l-pink painted faces and raiment of needlework in many colors; pallid sketches of scenery; crayon portraits of youths and maidens 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 sanct.i.ty. 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. Locke _On the Conduct of the Human Understanding_ and Paley's _Evidences of the Christian Religion_ Bessie took down and promptly restored; also the _Sermons_ of Dr. Barrow and the _Essays_ of Dr. Goldsmith. The _Letters_ of 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 Sh.e.l.ley, 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:

"Absence, hear thou my protestation Against thy strength, Distance and length; Do what thou canst for alteration: For hearts of truest mettle Absence doth join, and Time doth settle."

Twice over Bessie read this, then to herself repeated it aloud--all with thoughts of her friends in the Forest.

The next minute her fort.i.tude gave way, tears rushed to her eyes, Madame Fournier's precepts vanished out of remembrance, and she cried like a child wanting its mother. In which unhappy condition Mrs. Betts discovered her, sitting upon the floor, when the little page came flying to announce luncheon and visitors. It was two o'clock already.