The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax Part 27

"No, I should choose to have a garden and work in the sun," said Bessie, catching some of his spirit.

"And I should choose to tend some sort of live-stock. In the way of minor industries I am convinced that a great deal may be put in their way only by taking thought. I shall lay parcels of land together for spade cultivation--the men will have a market at their own doors; then poultry farms--"

"Not forgetting the c.o.c.k-pit for Sunday amus.e.m.e.nt," interrupted Lady Angleby sarcastically. "You are too Utopian, Sir Edward. Your colony will be a dismal failure and disappointment if you conduct it on such a sentimental plan."

Sir Edward colored. He had a love of approbation, and her ladys.h.i.+p was an authority. He sought to propitiate her better opinion, and resumed: "There shall be no inexorable rule. A man may work his six days in the pit if it be his good-will, but he shall have the chance of a decent existence above ground if he refuse to live in darkness and peril more than three or four. Schools and inst.i.tutes are very good things in their place, and I shall not neglect to provide them, but I do not expect that more than a slender minority of my colliers will ever trouble the reading-room much. Let them feed pigs and grow roses."

"They will soon not know what they want. The common people grow more exacting every day--even our servants. You will have some fine stories of trouble and vexation to tell us before long."

Sir Edward looked discouraged, and Bessie Fairfax, with her impulsive kind heart, exclaimed, "No, no! In all labor there is profit, and if you work at doing your best for those who depend on your land, you will not be disappointed. Men are not all ungrateful."

Sir Edward certainly was not. He thanked Miss Fairfax energetically, and just then the carriage stopped at the "George." Mr. Fairfax and Mr.

Cecil Burleigh came out in the most cheerful good-humor, and Mr. Cecil Burleigh began to tell Bessie that she did not know how much she had done for him by securing Buller's vote; it had drawn others after it.

Bessie was delighted, and was not withheld by any foolish shyness from proclaiming that her mind was set on his winning his election.

"You ought to take these two young people into your counsels, Cecil; they have some wonderful devices for the promotion of contentment amongst coal-miners," said Lady Angleby. Mr. Fairfax glanced in his granddaughter's innocent, rosy face, and shook hands with Sir Edward as he got out of the carriage. Mr. Cecil Burleigh said that wisdom was not the monopoly of age, and then he inquired where they were going.

They were going to call at the manor on Lady Eden, and to wind up with a visit to Mr. Laurence Fairfax in the Minster Court. Mr. Fairfax said he would meet them there, and the same said Mr. Cecil Burleigh. Sir Edward Lucas stood halting on the inn-steps, wistfully hoping for a bidding to come too. Lady Angleby was even kinder than his hopes; she asked if he had any engagement for the evening, and when he answered in the negative she invited him to come and dine at Brentwood again. He accepted with joy unfeigned.

When the ladies reached Minster Court only Mr. Cecil Burleigh had arrived there. Lady Angleby was impatient to hear some private details of the canva.s.s, and took her nephew aside to talk of it. Mr. Laurence Fairfax began to ask Bessie how long she was to stay at Brentwood.

"Until Monday," Bessie said; and her eyes roved unconsciously to the cupboard under the bookcase where the toys lived, but it was fast shut and locked, and gave no sign of its hid treasures. Her uncle's eyes followed hers, and with a significant smile he said, if she pleased, he would request her grandfather to leave her with him for a few days, adding that he would find her some young companions. Bessie professed that she would like it very much, and when Mr. Fairfax came in the request was preferred and cordially granted. The squire was in high good-humor with his granddaughter and all the world just now.

Bessie went away from Minster Court with jubilant antic.i.p.ations of what might happen during the proposed visit to her uncle's house. One thing she felt sure of: she would become better acquainted with that darling cherub of a boy, and the vision she made of it shed quite a glow on the prospect. She told Miss Burleigh when she returned to Brentwood that she was not going out of reach on Monday; she was going to stay a few days with her uncle Laurence in Minster Court.

"Cecil will be so glad!" said his devoted sister.

"There are no more Bullers to conquer, are there?" Bessie asked, turning her face aside.

"I hope not. Oh no! Cecil begins to be tolerably sure of his election, and he will have you to thank for it. Mr. John Short blesses you every hour of the day."

Bessie laughed lightly. "I did good unconsciously, and blush to find it fame," said she.

A fear that her brother's success with Miss Fairfax might be doubtful, though his election was sure, flashed at that instant into Miss Burleigh's mind. Bessie's manner was not less charming, but it was much more intrepid, and at intervals there was a strain of fun in it--of mischief and mockery. Was it the subacid flavor of girlish caprice, which might very well subsist in combination with her sweetness, or was it sheer insensibility? Time would show, but Miss Burleigh retained a lurking sense of uneasiness akin to that she had experienced when she detected in Miss Fairfax, at their first meeting, an inclination to laugh at her aunt--an uneasiness difficult to conceal and dangerous to confess. Not for the world would she, at this stage of the affair, have revealed her anxiety to her brother, who held the even tenor of his way, whatever he felt--never obtrusive and never negligent. He treated Bessie like the girl of sense she was, with courtesy, but without compliments or any idle banter; and Bessie certainly began to enjoy his society. He improved on acquaintance, and made the hours pa.s.s much more pleasantly at Brentwood when he was there than they pa.s.sed in his absence. This was promising. The evening's dinner-party would have been undeniably heavy without the leaven of his wit, for Mr. Logger, that well-known political writer, had arrived from London in the course of the afternoon, and Lady Angleby and he discoursed with so much solemn allusion and innuendo on the affairs of the nation that it was like listening surrept.i.tiously at a cabinet council. Sir Edward Lucas was quite silent and oppressed.

Coming into the morning-room after breakfast on the following day armed with a roll of papers, Mr. Logger announced, "I met our excellent friend Lady Latimer at Summerhay last week; she is immensely interested in the education movement."

Mr. Fairfax and Mr. Cecil Burleigh instantly discovered that it was time they were gone into the town, and with one compunctious glance at Bessie, of which she did not yet know the meaning, they vanished. The roll in Mr. Logger's hand was an article in ma.n.u.script on that education movement in which he had stated that his friend Lady Latimer was so immensely interested; and he had the cruelty to propose to read it to the ladies here. He did read it, his hostess listening with gratified approval and keeping a controlling eye on Miss Fairfax, who, when she saw what impended, would have escaped had she been able. Miss Burleigh bore it as she bore everything--with smiling resignation--but she enjoyed the vivacity of Bessie's declaration afterward that the lecture was unpardonable.

"What a shockingly vain old gentleman! Could we not have waited to read his article in print?" said she.

"Probably it will never be in print. He toadies my aunt, who likes to be credited with a literary taste, but Cecil says people laugh at him; he is not of any weight, either literary or political, though he has great pretensions. We shall have him for a week at least, and I have no doubt he has brought ma.n.u.script to last the whole time."

Bessie was so uncomfortably candid as to cry out that she was glad, then, her visit would soon be over; and then she tried to extenuate her plain-speaking, not very skilfully.

Miss Burleigh accepted her plea with a gentleness that reproached her: "We hoped that you would be happy at Brentwood with Cecil here; his company is generally supposed to make any place delightful. He is exceedingly dear to us all; no one knows how good he is until they have lived with him a long while."

"Oh, I am sure he is good; I like him much better now than I did at first; but if he runs away to Norminster and leaves us a helpless prey to Mr. Logger, that is not delightful," rejoined Bessie winsomely.

Miss Burleigh kissed and forgave her, acknowledged that it was the reverse of delightful, and conveyed an intimation to her brother by which he profited. Mr. Logger favored the ladies with another reading on Sunday afternoon--an essay on sermons, and twice as long as one. Mr.

Jones should have been there: this essay was much heavier artillery than Miss Hague's little paper-winged arrows. In the middle of it, just at the moment when endurance became agony and release bliss, Mr. Cecil Burleigh entered and invited Miss Fairfax to walk into the town to minster prayers, and Bessie went so gladly that his sister was quite consoled in being left to hear Mr. Logger to an end.

The two were about to ascend the minster steps when they espied Mr.

Fairfax in the distance, and turned to meet him. He had been lunching with his son. At the first glance Bessie knew that her grandfather had suffered an overwhelming surprise since he went out in the morning. Mr.

Cecil Burleigh also perceived that something was amiss, and not to distress his friend by inopportune remark, he said where he and Miss Fairfax were going.

"Go--go, by all means," said the squire. "Perhaps you may overtake me as you return: I shall walk slowly, and I want a word with Short as I pa.s.s his house." With this he went on, and the young people entered the minster, thinking but not speaking of what they could not but observe--his manifest bewilderment and pre-occupation.

On the road home they did not, however, overtake Mr. Fairfax. He reached Brentwood before them, and was closeted with Lady Angleby for some considerable time previous to dinner. Her ladys.h.i.+p was not agreeable without effort that evening, and there was indeed a perceptible cloud over everybody but Mr. Logger. Whatever the secret, it had been communicated to Mr. Cecil Burleigh and his sister, and it affected them all more or less uncomfortably. Bessie guessed what had happened--that her grandfather had seen his son Laurence's little playfellow, and that there had been an important revelation.

Bessie was right. Mr. Laurence Fairfax had Master Justus on his lap when his father unexpectedly walked into his garden. There was a lady in blue amongst the flowers who vanished; and the incompetent Sally, with something in her arms, who also hastily retired, but not unseen, either her or her burden. Master Justus held his ground with baby audacity, and the old squire recognized a strong young shoot of the Fairfax stock. One or two sharp exclamations and astounded queries elicited from Mr.

Laurence Fairfax that he had been five years married to the lady in blue--a niece of Dr. Jocund--and that the bold little boy was his own, and another in the nurse's arms. Mr. Fairfax did not refuse to sit at meat with his son, though the chubby boy sat opposite, but he declined all conversation on the subject beyond the bald fact, and expressed no desire to be made acquainted with his newly-discovered daughter-in-law.

Indeed, at a hint of it he jerked out a peremptory negative, and left the house without any more reference to the matter. Mr. Laurence Fairfax feared that it would be long before his father would darken his doors again, but it was a sensible relief to have got his secret told, and not to have had any angry, unpardonable words about it. The squire said little, but those who knew him knew perfectly that he might be silent and all the more indignant. And undoubtedly he was indignant. Of his three sons, Laurence had been always the one preferred; and this was his usage of him, his confidence in him!

CHAPTER XXVIII.

_IN MINSTER COURT_.

Mr. Fairfax did not withdraw his consent to Elizabeth's staying in Norminster with her uncle Laurence, and on Monday afternoon she and Mrs.

Betts were transferred from Brentwood to Minster Court. On the first evening Mr. John Short dined there, but no one else. He made Miss Fairfax happy by talking of the Forest, which he had revisited more than once since the famous first occasion. After dinner the two gentlemen remained together a long while, and Bessie amused herself alone in the study. She cast many a look towards the toy-cupboard, and was strongly tempted to peep, but did not; and in the morning her virtue had its reward. It was a little after eleven o'clock when Burrage threw open the door of the study where she was sitting with her uncle and announced "The dear children, sir," in a matter-of-fact tone, as if they were daily visitors.

Bessie's back was to the door. She blushed and turned round with brightened eyes, and there, behold! was that sweet little boy in a blue poplin tunic, and a second little boy, a year smaller, in a white embroidered frock and scarlet sas.h.!.+ The voice of the incompetent Sally was heard in final exhortation, "Now, mind you be good, Master Justus!"

and Master Justus ran straight to the philosopher and saluted him imperatively as "Dada!" which honorable t.i.tle the other little boy echoed in an imperfect lisp, with an eager desire to be taken up and kissed. The desire was abundantly gratified, and then Mr. Laurence Fairfax said, "This is Laury," and offered him to Bessie for a repet.i.tion of the ceremonial.

Bessie could not have told why, but her eyes filled as she took him into her lap and took off his pretty hat to see his s.h.i.+ning curly locks.

Master Justus was already at the cupboard dragging out the toys, and her uncle stood and looked down at her with a pleased, benevolent face. "Of course they are my cousins?" said Bessie simply, and quite as simply he said "Yes."

This was all the interrogatory. But games ensued in which Bessie was brought to her knees and a seat on the carpet, and had the beautiful propriety of her hair as sadly disarranged as in her gypsy childhood amongst the rough Carnegie boys. Mrs. Betts put it tidy again before luncheon, after the children were gone. Mrs. Betts had fathomed the whole mystery, and would have been sympathetic about it had not her young lady manifested an invincible gayety. Bessie hardly knew herself for joy. She wanted very much to hear the romantic story that must belong to those bonny children, but she felt that she must wait her uncle's time to tell it. Happily for her peace, the story was not long delayed: she learnt it that evening.

This was the scene in Mr. Laurence Fairfax's study. He was seated at ease in his great leathern chair, and perched on his knee, with one arm round his neck and a ripe pomegranate cheek pressed against his ear, was that winsome little lady in blue who was to be known henceforward as the philosopher's wife: if she had not been so exquisitely pretty it would have seemed a liberty to take with so much learning. Opposite to them, and grim as a monumental effigy, sat Miss Jocund, and Bessie Fairfax, with an amazed and amused countenance, listened and looked on. The philosopher and his wife were laughing: they loved one another, they had two dear little boys; what could the world give them or take away in comparison with such joys? Their secret, long suspected in various quarters, had transpired publicly since yesterday, and Lady Angleby had that morning appealed haughtily to Miss Jocund in her own shop to know how it had all happened.

Miss Jocund now reported what she had answered: "I reckon, your ladys.h.i.+p, that Dan Cupid is no more open in his tactics than ever he was. All I have to tell is, that one evening, some six years ago, my niece Rosy, who was a timid little thing, went for a walk by the river with a school-fellow, and a hulking, rude boy gave them a fright. Mr.

Laurence Fairfax, by good luck, was in the way and brought them home, and said to me that Rosy was much too pretty to be allowed to wander out unprotected. When they met after he had a kind nod and a word for her, and I've no doubt she had a shy blush for him. A philosopher is but a man, and liable to fall in love, and that is what he did: he fell in love with Rosy and married her. It suited all parties to keep it a secret at first; but a secret is like a birth--when its time is full forth it must come. Two little boys with Fairfax writ large on their faces are bad to hide. Therefore it suits all parties now to declare the marriage. And that is the whole story, an' it please your ladys.h.i.+p."

"I warrant it did not please her ladys.h.i.+p at all," said Mr. Laurence Fairfax, laughing at the recital.

"No. She turned and went away in a rage; then came back to expound her views with respect to Rosy's origin. I begged to inform her that from time immemorial king's jesters had been of the Jocund family--an office to the full as dignified as the office of public barber. And a barber her ladys.h.i.+p's great-grandfather was, and shaved His Majesty's lieges for a penny. Mr. Cecil Burleigh waited for her outside, and to him immediately she of course repeated the tale. How does it come to be a concern of his, I should be glad to know?" n.o.body volunteered to gratify her curiosity, but Mr. Laurence Fairfax could have done so, no doubt.

Mr. Cecil Burleigh had not visited Minster Court that day: was this the reason? Bessie was not absolutely indifferent to the omission, but she had other diversions. That night she went up stairs with the young mother (so young that Elizabeth could not fas.h.i.+on to call her by her t.i.tle of kindred) to view the boys in their cots, and saw her so loving and tender over them that she could not but reflect how dear a companion she must be to her philosopher after his lost Xantippe. She was such a sweet and gentle lady that, though he had chosen to marry her privately, he could have no reluctance in producing her as his wife. He had kept her to himself unspoilt, had much improved her in their retired life, and as he had no intention of bringing her into rivalry with finer ladies, the charm of her adoring simplicity was not likely to be impaired. He had set his mind on his niece Elizabeth for her friend from the first moment of their meeting, and except Elizabeth he did not desire that she should find, at present, any intimate friend of her own s.e.x. And Elizabeth was perfectly ready to be her friend, and to care nothing for the change in her own prospects.

"You know that my boys will make all the difference to you?" her uncle said to her the next day, being a few minutes alone with her.

"Oh yes, I understand, and I shall be the happier in the end. Abbotsmead will be quite another place when they come over," was her reply.

"There is my father to conciliate before they can come to Abbotsmead. He is deeply aggrieved, and not without cause. You may help to smooth the way to comfortable relations again, or at least to prevent a widening breach. I count on that, because he has permitted you to come here, though he knows that Rosy and the boys are with me. I should not have had any right to complain had he denied us your visit."