The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax Part 37

Bessie felt, nevertheless, rather more formally at home than in her childhood, except with her old comrade Harry. Between them there was not a moment's shyness. They were as friendly, as intimate as formerly, though with a perceptible difference of manner. Bessie had the simple graces of happy maidenhood, and Harry had the courteous reserve of good society to which his university honors and pleasant humor had introduced him. He was a very acceptable companion wherever he went, because his enjoyment of life was so thorough as to be almost infectious. He must be a dull dog, indeed, who did not cheer up in the suns.h.i.+ne of Musgrave's presence: that was his popular character, and it agreed with Bessie's reminiscences of him; but Harry, like other young men of great hopes and small fortunes, had his hours of shadow that Christie knew of and others guessed at. At tea the talk fell on London amus.e.m.e.nts and bachelor-life in chambers.

"As for Christie, prudent old fogy that he is, what can he know of our miseries?" said Harry with a.s.sumed ruefulness "He has a mansion in Cheyne Walk and a balcony looking over the river, and a vigilant housekeeper who allows no latch-key and turns off the gas at eleven. She gives him perfect little dinners, and makes him too comfortable by half: we poor apprentices to law lodge and fare very rudely."

"He has the air of being well done to, which is more than could be said for you when first you arrived at home, Harry," remarked his mother with what struck Bessie as a long and wistful gaze.

"Too much smell of the midnight oil is poison to country lungs--mind what I tell you," said the doctor, emphasizing his words with a grave nod at the young man.

"He ought to be content with less of his theatres and his operas and supper-parties if he will read and write so furiously. A young fellow can't combine the lives of a man of study and a man of leisure without stealing too many hours from his natural rest. But I talk in vain--talk you, Mr. Carnegie," said Christie with earnestness.

"A man must work, and work hard, now-a-days, if he means to do or be anything," said Harry defiantly.

"It is the pace that kills," said the doctor. "The mischief is, that you ardent young fellows never know when to stop. And in public life, my lad, there is many a one comes to acknowledge that he has made more haste than good speed."

Harry sank back in his chair with laughing resignation; it was too bad, he said, to talk of him to his face so dismally. Bessie Fairfax was looking at him, her eyebrows raised, and fancying she saw a change; he was certainly not so brown as he used to be, nor so buoyant, nor so animated. But it would have perplexed her to define what the change she fancied was. Conscious of her observation, Harry dissembled a minute, then pushed back his chair, and invited her to come away to the old sitting-room, where the evening sun shone. No one offered to follow them; they were permitted to go alone.

The sitting-room looked a trifle more dilapidated, but was otherwise unaltered, and was Harry's own room still, by the books, pens, ink, and paper on the table. Being by themselves, silence ensued. Bessie sadly wondered whether anything was really going wrong with her beloved Harry, and he knew that she was wondering. Then she remembered what young Christie had said at Castlemount of his being occasionally short of money, and would have liked to ask. But when she had reflected a moment she did not dare. Their boy-and-girl days, their days of plain, outspoken confidence, were for ever past. That one year of absence spent by him in London, by her at Abbotsmead, had insensibly matured the worldly knowledge of both, and without a word spoken each recognized the other's position, but without diminution of their ancient kindness.

This recognition, and certain possible, even probable, results had been antic.i.p.ated before Bessie was suffered to come into the Forest. Lady Angleby had said to Mr. Fairfax: "Entrust her to Lady Latimer for a short while. Granting her humble friends all the virtues that humanity adorns itself with, they must want some of the social graces. Those people always dispense more or less with politeness in their familiar intercourse. Now, Cecil is exquisitely polite, and Miss Fairfax has a fine, delicate feeling. She cannot but make comparisons and draw conclusions. Solid worth apart, the charm of manner is with us. I shall expect decisive consequences from this visit."

What Bessie actually discerned was that all the old tenderness that had blessed her childhood, and that gives the true sensitive touch, was still abiding: father, mother, Harry--dearest of all who were most dear to her--had not lost one whit of it. And judged by the eye, where love looked out, Harry's great frame, well knit and suppled by athletic sports, had a dignity, and his irregular features a beauty, that pleased her better than dainty, high-bred elegance. He had to push his way over the obstacles of poverty and obscure birth, and she was a young lady of family and fortune, but she looked up to him with as meek a humility as ever she had done when they were friends and comrades together, before her vicissitudes began and her exalted kinsfolk reclaimed her. Wolds.h.i.+re had not acquainted her with his equal. All the world never would.

Their conversation was opened at last with a surprised smile at finding themselves where they were--in the bare sitting-room at Brook, with the western light s.h.i.+ning on them through the vine-trellised lattices after four years of growth and experience. How often had Bessie made a picture in her day-dreams of their next meeting here since she went away! In this hour, in this instant, love was new-born in both their hearts. They saw it, each in the other's eyes--heard it, each in the other's voice. Tears came with Bessie's sudden smile. She trembled and sighed and laughed, and said she did not know why she was so foolish.

Harry was foolish too as he made her some indistinct plea about being so glad. And a red spot burned on his own cheek as he dwelt on her loveliness. Once more they were silent, then both at once began to talk of people and things indifferent, coming gradually round to what concerned themselves.

Harry Musgrave spoke of his friend Christie and his profession relatively to his own: "Christie has distinguished himself already.

There are houses in London where the hostess has a pride in bringing forward young talent. Christie got the _entree_ of one of the best at the beginning of his career, and is quite a favorite. His gentleness is better than conventional polish, but he has taken that well too. He is a generous little fellow, and deserves the good luck that has befallen him. His honors are budding betimes. That is the joy of an artistic life--you work, but it is amongst flowers. Christie will be famous before he is thirty, and he is easy in his circ.u.mstances now: he will never be more, never rich; he is too open-handed for that. But I shall have years and years to toil and wait," Harry concluded with a melancholy, humorous fall in his voice, half mocking at himself and half pathetic, and the same was his countenance.

All the more earnestly did Bessie brighten: "You knew that, Harry, when you chose the law. But if you work amongst bookworms and cobwebs, don't you play in the suns.h.i.+ne?"

"Now and then, Bessie, but there will be less and less of that if I maintain my high endeavors."

"You will, Harry, you must! You will never be satisfied else. But there is no sentiment in the law--it is dreary, dreary."

"No sentiment in the law? It is a laborious calling, but many honorable men follow it; and are not the lawyers continually helping those to right who suffer wrong?"

"That is not the vulgar idea of them, is it? But I believe it is what you will always strive to do, Harry." Bessie spoke with pretty eagerness. She feared that she might have seemed to contemn Harry's vocation, and she hastened to make amends. Harry understood her perfectly, and had the impudence to laugh at her quite in his old boyish way. A little confused--also in the old way--she ran on: "I have seen the judges in their scarlet robes and huge white wigs on a hot July Sunday attending service in Norminster Cathedral. I tried to attire you so, but my imagination failed. I don't believe you will ever be a judge, Harry."

"That is a discouraging prediction, Bessie, if I am to be a lawyer. I do a little in this way," he said, handling a famous review that lay on the table. "May I send it to you when there is a paper of mine in it?"

"Oh yes; I should like it so much! I should be so interested!" said Bessie fervently. "We take the _Times_ at Abbotsmead, and _Blackwood_ and the old _Quarterly_, but not that. I have seen it at my uncle Laurence's house, and Lady Latimer has it. I saw it in the Fairfield drawing-room last night: is there anything of yours here, Harry?"

"Yes, this is mine--a rather dry nut for you. But occasionally I contribute a light-literature article."

"Oh, I must tell my lady. She and Mr. Logger were differing over that very paper, and ascribing it to half a dozen great, wise people in turn."

Harry laughed: "Pray, then, don't confess for me. The arguments will lose half their force if she learn what a tyro wrote it."

"No, no, she will be delighted to know--she adores talent. Besides, Mr.

Logger told her that the cleverest articles were written by sprightly young men fresh from college. Have you paid your respects to her yet?

She told me with a significant little _moue_ that you had condescended to call upon her at Easter."

"I propose to pay my respects in company with Christie to-morrow. She is a grand old lady; and what cubs we were, Bessie, to throw her kindness in her face before! How angry you were!"

"You were afraid that her patronage might be a trespa.s.s on your independence. It was a mistake in the right direction, if it was a mistake at all. Poor Mr. Logger is called a toady because he loves to visit at the comfortable houses of rich great widow ladies, but I am sure they love to have him. Lady Latimer does not approve you any the less for not being eager to accept her invitations. You know I was fond of her--I looked up to her more than anybody. I believe I do still."

There was a brief pause, and then Harry said, "I have heard nothing of Abbotsmead yet, Bessie?"

"There is not much to hear. I live there, but no longer in the character of heiress; that prospect is changed by the opportune discovery that my uncle Laurence had the wisdom, some five years ago, to take a wife to please himself, instead of a second fine lady to please my grandfather.

He made a secret of it, for which there was no necessity and not much excuse, but he did it for their happiness. They have three capital little boys, who, of course, have taken my shoes. I am not sorry. I don't care for Wolds.h.i.+re or Abbotsmead. The Forest has my heart."

"And mine. A man may set his hopes high, so I go on aspiring to the possession of this earthly paradise of Brook."

Bessie was smitten with a sudden recollection of what more Harry had aspired to that time she was admitted into his confidence respecting the old manor-house. She colored consciously, for she knew that he also recollected, then said with a smile, "Ah, Harry, but between such aspirations and their achievement there stretches so often a weary long day. You will tire with looking forward if you look so far. Are you not tiring now?"

"No, no. You must not take any notice of my mother's solemn prognostics.

She does not admire what she calls the smoky color I bring home from London. Some remote ancestor of my father died there of decline, and she has taken up a notion that I ought to throw the study of the law to the winds, come home, and turn farmer. Of what avail, I ask her, would my scholars.h.i.+p be then?"

"You would enjoy it, Harry. In combination with a country life it would make you the pleasantest life a man can live."

Harry shook his head: "What do you know about it, Bessie? It is dreadfully hard on an ambitious fellow to be forced to turn his back on all his fine visions of usefulness and distinction for the paltry fear that death may cut him short."

"Oh, if you regard it in that light! I should not call it a paltry fear.

There are more ways than one to distinction--this, for instance,"

dropping her hand on Harry's paper in the review. "Winged words fly far, and influence you never know what minds. I should be proud of the distinction of a public writer."

"Literature by itself is not enough to depend on unless one draws a great prize of popularity. I have not imagination enough to write a novel. Have you forgotten the disasters of your heroes the poets, Bessie? No--I cannot give up after a year of difficulty. I would rather rub out than rust out, if that be all."

"Oh, Harry, don't be provoking! Why rub out or rust out either?"

remonstrated Bessie. "Your mother would rather keep her living son, though ever so unlucky, than bury the most promising that ever killed himself with misdirected labor. Two young men came to Abbotsmead once to bid grandpapa good-bye; they were only nineteen and sixteen, and were the last survivors of a family of seven sons. They were going to New Zealand to save their lives, and are thriving there in a patriarchal fas.h.i.+on with large families and flocks and herds. You are not asked to go to New Zealand, but you had better do that than die untimely in foggy England, dear as it is. Is not life sweet to you?--it is very sweet to me."

Harry got up, and walked to an open lattice that commanded the purple splendor of the western sky. He stood there two or three minutes quite silent, then by a glance invited Bessie to come. "Life is so sweet," he said, "that I dare not risk marring it by what seems like cowardice; but I will be prudent, if only for the sake of the women who love me." There was the old mirthful light in Harry's eyes as he said the last words very softly.

"Don't make fun of us," said Bessie, looking up with a faint blush. "You know we love you; mind you keep your word. It is time I was going back to Fairfield, the evening is closing in."

The door opened and Mrs. Musgrave entered. "Well, children, are you ready?" she inquired cheerfully. "We are all thinking you have had quite time enough to tell your secrets, and the doctor has been wanting to leave for ever so long."

"Bessie has been administering a lecture, mother, and giving me some serious advice; she would send me to the antipodes," said her son.

Bessie made a gentle show of denial, and they came forward from the window.

"Never mind him, dear, that is his teasing way: I know how much to believe of his nonsense," said Mrs. Musgrave. "But," she added more gravely, turning to Harry, "if Bessie agrees with your mother that there is no sense in destroying your health by poring over dusty law in London when there are wholesome light ways of living to be turned to in sweet country air, Bessie is wise. I wish anybody could persuade him to tell what is his objection to the Church. Or he might go and be a tutor in some high family, as Lady Latimer suggested. He is well fitted for it."

"Did Lady Latimer suggest that, mother?" Harry asked with sharp annoyance in his voice and look.

"She did, Harry; and don't let that vex you as if it was a coming-down.

For she said that many such tutors, when they took orders, got good promotion, and more than one had been made a bishop."

This was too much for the gravity of the young people. "A bishop, Bessie! Can you array me in lawn sleeves and satin gown?" cried Harry with a peal of laughter. Then, with a sudden recovery and a sigh, he said, "Nay, mother, if I must play a part, it shall not be on that stage. I'll keep my self-respect, whatever else I forfeit."