The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax Part 22

The very name of Lady Latimer acted like a spell on Bessie. She had been rather silent and reserved until she heard it, and then all at once she roused up into a vivid interest. Mr. Cecil Burleigh studied her more attentively than he had done hitherto. Miss Burleigh said, "Lady Latimer is another of our ambitious women. Miss Fairfax fancies women can have no ambition on their own account, Cecil. I have been telling her of Mrs.

Chiverton."

"And what does Miss Fairfax say of Mrs. Chiverton's ambition?" asked Mr.

Cecil Burleigh.

"Nothing," rejoined Bessie. But her delicate lip and nostril expressed a great deal.

The man of the world preferred her reticence to the wisest speech. He mused for several minutes before he spoke again himself. Then he gave air to some of his reflections: "Lady Latimer has great qualities. Her marriage was the blunder of her youth. Her girlish imagination was dazzled by the name of a lord and the splendor of Umpleby. It remains to be considered that she was not one of the melting sort, and that she made her life n.o.ble."

Here Miss Burleigh took up the story: "That is true. But she would have made it more n.o.ble if she had been faithful to her first love--to your grandfather, Miss Fairfax."

Bessie colored. "Oh, were they fond of each other when they were young?"

she asked wondering.

"Your grandfather was devoted to her. He had just succeeded to Abbotsmead. All the world thought it would be a match, and great promotion for her too, when she met Lord Latimer. He was sixty and she was nineteen, and they lived together thirty-seven years, for he survived into quite extreme old age."

"And she had no children, and my grandfather married somebody else?"

said Bessie with a plaintive fall in her voice.

"She had no children, and your grandfather married somebody else. Lady Latimer was a most excellent wife to her old tyrant."

Bessie looked sorrowful: "Was he a tyrant? I wonder whether she ever pities herself for the love she threw away? She is quite alone--she would give anything that people should love her now, I have heard them say in the Forest."

"That is the revenge that slighted love so often takes. But she must have satisfaction in her life too. She was always more proud than tender, except perhaps to her friend, Dorothy Fairfax. You have heard of your great-aunt Dorothy?"

"Yes. I have succeeded to her rooms, to her books. My grandfather says I remind him of her."

"Dorothy Fairfax never forgave Lady Latimer. They had been familiar friends, and there was a double separation. Oh, it is quite a romance!

My aunt, Lady Angleby, could tell you all about it, for she was quite one with them at Abbotsmead and Hartwell in those days; indeed, the intimacy has never been interrupted. And you know Lady Latimer--you admire her?"

"I used to admire her enthusiastically. I should like to see her again."

After this there was silence until the drive ended at Hartwell. Bessie was meditating on the glimpse she had got into the pathetic past of her grandfather's life, and Mr. Cecil Burleigh and his sister were meditating upon her.

Hartwell was a modest brick house within a garden skirting the road. It had a retired air, as of a poor gentleman's house whose slender fortunes limit his tastes: Mr. Oliver Smith's fortunes were very slender, and he shared them with two maiden sisters. The shrubs were well grown and the gra.s.s was well kept, but there was no show of the gorgeous scentless flowers which make the gardens of the wealthy so gay and splendid in summer. Ivy clothed the walls, and old-fas.h.i.+oned flowers bloomed all the year round in the borders, but it was not a very cheerful garden in the afternoon.

Two elderly ladies were pacing the lawn arm-in-arm, with straw hats tilted over their noses, when the Abbotsmead carriage stopped at the gate. They stood an instant to see whose it was, and then hurried forward to welcome their visitors.

"This is very kind, Mr. Cecil, very kind, Miss Mary; but you always are kind in remembering old friends," said the elder, Miss Juliana, and then was silent, gazing at Bessie.

"This is Miss Fairfax," said Mr. Cecil Burleigh. "Lady Latimer has no doubt named her in her letters."

"Ah! yes, yes--what am I dreaming about? Charlotte," turning to her sister, "who is she like?"

"She is like poor Dorothy," was the answer in a tremulous, solemn voice.

"What will Oliver say?"

"How long is it since Lady Latimer saw you, my dear?" asked Miss Juliana.

"Three years. I have not been home to the Forest since I left it to go to school in France."

"Ah! Then that accounts for our sister not having mentioned to us your wonderful resemblance to your great-aunt, Dorothy Fairfax. Three years alter and refine a child's chubby face into a young woman's face."

Miss Juliana seemed to be thrown into irretrievable confusion by Bessie's apparition and her own memory. She was quite silent as she led the way to the house, walking between Mr. Cecil Burleigh and his sister.

Miss Charlotte walked behind with Bessie, and remarked that she was pleased to have a link of acquaintance with her already by means of Lady Latimer. Bessie asked whether Lady Latimer was likely soon to come into Wolds.h.i.+re.

"We have not heard that she has any present intention of visiting us.

Her visits are few and far between," was the formal reply.

"I wish she would. When I was a little girl she was my ideal of all that is grand, gracious, and lovely," said Bessie.

Bessie's little outbreak had done her good, had set her tongue at liberty. Her self-consciousness was growing less obtrusive. Mr. Cecil Burleigh explained to her the legal process of an election for a member of Parliament, and Miss Burleigh sat by in satisfied silence, observing the quick intelligence of her face and the flattered interest in her brother's. At the park gates, Mr. Fairfax, returning from a visit to one of his farmsteads where building was in progress, met the carriage and got in. His first question was what Mr. Oliver Smith had said about the coming election, and whether he would be in Norminster the following day.

The news about Buller troubled him no little, to judge by his countenance, but he did not say much beyond an exclamation that they would carry the contest through, let it cost what it might. "We have been looking forward to this contest ever since Bradley was returned five years ago; we will not be so faint-hearted as to yield without a battle. If we are defeated again, we may count Norminster lost to the Conservative interest."

"Oh, don't talk of defeat! We shall be far more likely to win if we refuse to contemplate the possibility of defeat," cried Bessie with girlish vivacity.

Mr. Cecil Burleigh laughed and said, "Miss Fairfax is right. She will wear my colors and I will adopt her logic, and, ostrich-like, refuse to see the perils that threaten me."

"No, no," remonstrated Bessie casting off her shy reserve under encouragement. "So far from hiding your face, you must make it familiar in every street in Norminster. You must seek if you would find, and ask if you would have. I would. I should hate to be beaten by my own neglect, worse than by my rival."

Mr. Fairfax was electrified at this brusque a.s.sertion of her sentiments by his granddaughter. Her audacity seemed at least equal to her shyness.

"Very good advice, Elizabeth; make him follow it," said he dryly.

"We will give him no rest when we have him at Brentwood," added Miss Burleigh. "But though he is so cool about it, I believe he is dreadfully in earnest. Are you not, Cecil?"

"I will not be beaten by my own neglect," was his rejoinder, with a glance at Bessie, blus.h.i.+ng beautifully.

They did not relapse into constraint any more that day. There was no addition to the company at dinner, and the evening being genially warm, they enjoyed it in the garden. Mr. Cecil Burleigh and Miss Fairfax even strolled as far as the ruins in the park, and on the way he enlightened her respecting some of his opinions, tastes, and prejudices. She heard him attentively, and found him very instructive. His clever conversation was a compliment to which, as a bright girl, she was not insensible. His sister had detailed to him her behavior on her introduction to Lady Angleby, and had deplored her lively sense of the ridiculous. Miss Burleigh had the art of taming that her brother credited her with, and Elizabeth was already at ease and happy with her--free to be herself, as she felt, and not always on guard and measuring her words; and the more of her character that she revealed, the better Miss Burleigh liked her.

Her gayety of temper was very attractive when it was kept within due bounds, and she had a most sweet docility of tractableness when approached with caution. At the close of the evening she retired to her white parlor with a rather exalted feeling of responsibility, having promised, at Mr. Cecil Burleigh's instigation, to study certain essays of Lord Bacon on government and seditions in states for the informing of her mind. She took the volume down from Dorothy Fairfax's bookshelf, and laid it on her table for a reminder. Miss Burleigh saw it there in the morning.

"Ah, dear Cecil! He will try to make you very wise and learned," said she, nodding her head and smiling significantly. "But never mind: he waltzes to perfection, and delights in a ball, no man more."

"Does he?" cried Bessie, amused and laughing. "That potent, grave, and reverend signor can condescend, then, to frivolities! Oh, when shall we have a ball that I may waltz with him?"

"Soon, if all go successfully at the election. Lady Angleby will give a ball if Cecil win and you ask her."

"_I_ ask her! But I should never dare."

"She will be only too glad of the opportunity, and you may dare anything with her when she is pleased. She has always been dear Cecil's fast friend, and his triumph will be hers. She will want to celebrate it joyously, and nothing is really so joyous as a good dance. We will have a good dance."

CHAPTER XXIII.

_BESSIE SHOWS CHARACTER._