Bessie's Fortune Part 24

When Daisy had plenty she divided with the household at Stoneleigh, and when she had little she kept it for herself, and Archie and Bessie shifted for themselves--or rather the latter did, and was sometimes almost as hungry as she had been when she ate the dry bread and shriveled grapes on the fifth floor back of some large hotel.

Bessie understood perfectly her mother's mode of life, and knew that though she was not degraded in the worst sense of the word, she was an adventuress and a gambler, whom good, pure women shunned, and over whom she mourned as a mother mourns for the child which has gone astray. And yet Bessie's life was a comparatively happy one, for she had her father, and she had Neil, her cousin, the handsome and spirited boy from Eton, and later the dashing student from Oxford, who came sometimes to Stoneleigh and made the place like heaven to the young girl blooming there unseen and unknown to the great world outside, and Bessie hoped to see him soon, for she was going with her father to London, where she had never been since she was a child, and of which she did not remember much. This journey had cost Bessie a great deal of anxiety and planning as to how they could afford it; but by saving a little here and there, and by extra self-denials on her part, sufficient money for the journey, and for a week in town, was raised at last, and the trip decided upon.

Bessie would have liked a new dress and hat for herself, and a new coat for her father, but these were out of the question, so she brushed and cleaned her father's three-year-old coat, and washed and ironed her two-year-old Holland linen, freshened up a blue ribbon for her last year's hat, mended her gloves, put plenty of clean collars, and cuffs, and handkerchiefs, in her bag, borrowed Dorothy's umbrella, and was ready to start on her journey without a thought that she might look a little old-fashioned and countrified in the gay city. They found some cheap lodgings in the vicinity of High street, Kensington, and then she sent her card to Neil, who came at once, and tried to be gay, and appear as usual, but she felt that he was ill at ease, and the old hair cloth sofa and chairs looked shabbier than ever to her, when she saw his critical eyes upon them, and felt how out of place he was in that humble room, with his fashionable dress and town-bred air of elegance and luxury.

"I say, Dot, why in the name of wonder did you stumble into such a hole as this? Could you find no better lodgings than these in all London?" he said to her at last.

"Yes, Neil," she replied, "we could find lodgings fit for the queen, but then we have not the queen's income, and these rooms are so cheap--only a pound a week, and the kitchen fire included, I know they are not pretty, but they are very clean and quiet, and Mrs. Buncher is so kind."

Bessie tried to speak naturally, but there was a tremor in her voice, and the tears came to her great blue eyes as she looked up at her cousin. Neil saw the tears, and stooping over her he kissed the quivering lips, and stroking the glossy hair, said to her:

"Never mind, Bess, your face makes everything lovely, and this dingy parlor with you in it is pleasanter to me than the finest drawing-room in Grosvenor Square. But you ought not to be here, you and your father.

You should be at Trevellian House, as our guests, and if I owned it you should; but there's a lot of old pokes staying there now, friends of Blanche--Lord and Lady Somebody, Mother is great on the t.i.tles, you know."

"Yes, I know," Bessie said, slowly; then, after a moment, she added: "I should like to see your mother and Miss Trevellian. I was too young at Penrhyn Park to remember much about them. Do you think they will call?"

Neil knew they would not, and he could scarcely repress a smile as he fancied the McPherson carriage, with his mother and Blanche, driving up before that shabby house, but he said:

"Perhaps so, though they are always so busy during the season; but I'll tell you how you can see them. Go to the park to-morrow afternoon about five o'clock. They are sure to be there in their gorgeous attire, and Blanche will have her poodle-dog."

"Shall you be there?" Bessie asked, and Neil replied:

"Yes, possibly," while to himself he thought that he should not, for how could he ride by with the gay throng and know that Bessie was sitting in a hired chair watching for him, and most likely making some demonstration which would draw attention to her?

"I may, and I may not," he continued: "but it will make no difference; you will see Blanche with her poodle and her red parasol, and you will see the princess, if you are there about half past five or six, but for Heaven's sake don't rush forward like an idiot, as so many do, especially Americans and people from the country: it stamps you at once as a greenhorn."

"No, I won't," Bessie said, humbly, for something in Neil's tone hurt her; then, as she saw him consulting his watch, she said: "Oh, Neil, can't I walk with you just a little way? Father never goes out after tea, and I do so long for some fresh air."

Neil looked at his watch again. It was almost six, and at seven there was a grand dinner at Trevellian house, at which he was expected to be present. But Bessie's blue eyes and eager face drove everything else from his mind, and he was soon walking with her in the lovely Kensington gardens, and her hand was on his arm, and his hand was on hers, and in watching her bright face and listening to her quaint remarks, he forgot how fast the minutes were going by, and the grand dinner at home waited for him a quarter of an hour, and then the guests sat down without him and Lady Jane's face wore a dark, stormy look, when the son of the house appeared smiling, handsome, and gracious, and apologizing for his tardiness by saying frankly that he was in the garden, and forgot the lapse of time.

"You must have been greatly interested. You could not have been alone,"

Blanche said to him in an undertone.

"No, I was not alone," he replied, with great frankness. "I was with the prettiest girl in London, or out of it, either."

"And pray who may she be?" Blanche asked.

"My cousin Bessie. She arrived yesterday," was Neil's reply.

"Oh!" and Blanche's face flushed with annoyance.

She remembered the beautiful child at Penrhyn Park, and had heard her name so often since, that the mere mention of it was obnoxious to her, and she was silent and sulky all through the long dinner, which lasted until nine o'clock. When it was over, and the guests were gone. Lady Jane turned fiercely upon her son and asked what had kept him so late.

"Cousin Bessie," he answered, "She is in the city with her father, at No. ---- Abingdon road, and I wish you would call upon them. They really ought to be staying here, our own blood relations as they are."

"Staying here? Not if I know myself. Is that detestable gambling woman with them?" Lady Jane replied, with ineffable scorn.

"No," Neil answered her. "She is never with them, and Bessie is no more like her than you are. She is the purest, and sweetest and best girl I ever knew, and I do not think it would hurt you or Blanche either to pay her some attention;" and having said so much, the young man left the room in time to escape Blanche's tears and his mother's anger and reproaches.

The next day Neil was in a penitent frame of mind, for, however much he might laugh at Blanche and her light eyebrows, and ridicule his mother's plans for him in that quarter, he was not at all indifferent to the ten thousand a year, and might perhaps wish to have it. Consequently he must not drive Blanche too far, for she had a temper and a will, and there was another cousin one degree further removed than himself, a good-natured, good-looking and highly-aristocratic Jack Trevellian, who was thirty years old, and a great favorite in the best society which London afforded, and who, if a great-uncle and two cousins were to die without heirs, would become Sir Jack, and who, it was thought, had an eye on the ten thousand a year. So Neil was very gracious, and sugared Blanche's strawberries for her at breakfast, and read to her after breakfast, and staid at home to lunch, and never mentioned Bessie, or hinted that he would much rather be sitting with her on the old hair-cloth sofa in Mrs. Buncher's parlor than in that elegantly furnished boudoir, and when the hour for driving came, and his mother complained of a headache, and asked him to go with Blanche, he consented readily, but suggested that she leave her poodle at home, as one puppy was enough for her, he said.

And so about five o'clock the McPherson carriage drove into the park near Apsley House, and in it sat Miss Blanche, gorgeous in light-blue silk and white lace hat, with large solitaires in her ears, her red parasol held airily over her head and her insipid face wreathed in smiles, as she talked to her companion, the handsome Neil, whose dark face was such a contrast to her own, and who reclined indolently at her side, answering her questions mechanically, but thinking always of Bessie, and wondering if she were there in the hired chair, and if she would see him, or, what was more to the purpose, if he should see her among the mult.i.tude which thronged the park that afternoon.

Bessie was there, and had been for more than an hour, sitting with her father near one of the entrances from Piccadilly, and wholly unconscious of the attention she was attracting with her beautiful, fresh young face, her animated gestures and eager remarks to her father as she watched the pa.s.sers-by, and wondered who was who, and wished Neil was there to tell her.

"I'd like to see a real d.u.c.h.ess, and not mistake a barmaid for one," she said; and then a pleasant-looking man, who was standing near, and had heard her remarks, came up to her, and lifting his hat politely said to Archie;

"If you will permit me, sir, I will tell the young lady who the people are. I know most of them."

"Oh, thank you; I shall be so glad if you will," Bessie replied. "You see, father and I are right from Wales, and it is all quite new to us."

"Then you were never here before?" the stranger asked, looking down upon her with an undisguised admiration, which yet had nothing impertinent in it.

"Yes, years ago, when I was a mere child, and did not care for things.

Now I want to see everybody--lords, and earls, and dukes, and deans, and prime ministers, and everybody. Do you know them?"

"Yes, most of them, by sight," the stranger said slowly, and taking his stand where he could see her as well as the pa.s.sers-by, he told her this was a lord, and this was Disraeli, and this a grand lady of fashion, and this a famous beauty, and this a d.u.c.h.ess, and that Prince Leopold.

It was a fortunate afternoon Bessie had chosen, for everybody was one in the early June sunshine, and she enjoyed it immensely, and said out what she thought; that t.i.tled ladies and grand dames were very ordinary looking people after all, and that the fat old dowager who rode in a coach and four, with powdered footman behind, and a face as red as a beet, was coa.r.s.e as any fish-woman and that old Dorothy would have looked better on the satin cushions than this representative of English aristocracy.

"I wonder what you would think of the queen," the stranger said; but before Bessie could reply, there was a sudden murmur among the crowd, and a buzz of expectancy, and then the princess appeared in view, riding slowly, and bowing graciously to the right and to the left.

Instantly there was a rush to the front, and Bessie half rose to go, too; but remembering what Neil had said about not making herself an idiot, as the Americans and country people did, she resumed her seat, and the country people and the Americans stood in her way and all she saw of the princess was her sloping shoulders and long, slender neck, with the lace scarf tied high about it. It was too bad, and Bessie could scarcely keep back her tears of disappointment, and was wishing she had disregarded Neil's orders and been an idiot, when a handsome open carriage came in sight, drawn by two splendid bays, and in it sat Blanche Trevellian, with her red parasol over her head, and beside her Neil McPherson, eagerly scanning the crowd in quest of the little girl, the very thought of whom made his heart beat as Blanche had never made it beat in all her life.

"There they come! That's he! that's Neil, my cousin," Bessie exclaimed, and forgetting all the proprieties in her excitement, she rose so quickly that her hat fell from her head and hung down her back, as she went forward three or four steps and waved her handkerchief.

Neil saw her, as did Blanche and many others, and a frown darkened his face at this unlooked-for demonstration. Still he was struck with the wonderful picture she made, with her strikingly beautiful face lit up with excitement, and her bright, wavy hair gleaming in the sunlight, us she stood with uncovered head waving to him, the fashionable Neil McPherson, whom so many knew. His first impulse, naturally, was to lift his hat in token of recognition, but something in his meaner nature prompted him to take no notice, until Blanche said, in her most supercilious tone:

"Who was that brazen-faced girl? Your cousin Bessie?"

"Yes, my cousin Bessie," Neil replied, and turned to make the bow he should have made before.

But Bessie had disappeared, and was sitting again by her father, adjusting her hat and hating herself for having been so foolish.

"Neil was angry, I know. I saw it in his face, and I was an idiot," she thought, just as the stranger, who had watched the proceeding with a highly amused expression around the corners of his mouth, said to her:

"You know Neil McPherson, then? You called him your cousin."

"Yes," Bessie answered, a little proud of the relationship, "Neil is my cousin, or rather the cousin of my father, who is Mr. Archibald McPherson, from Bangor, Wales."

She meant to show her companion how respectable she was, even if her dress, which she was sure he had inspected critically, was poor and out of date, and she was not prepared for his sudden start, as he repeated:

"Mr. Archibald McPherson, of Bangor! Then you are the daughter of that--" he checked himself, and added, "I have met your mother at Monte Carlo," and he drew back a step or two, as if he feared that something of the mother's character might have communicated itself to the daughter. And Bessie saw the movement, and the change of expression on his face, and her cheeks were scarlet with shame, but she lifted her clear blue eyes fearlessly to his, and said:

"Yes, mother is a monomaniac on the subject of play. It is a species of insanity, I think."

Her voice shook a little, and about her mouth there settled the grieved, sorry look which touched the stranger at once, and coming close to her again, he said:

"Your mother is a very beautiful woman. I think she has the loveliest face I ever saw, with one exception," and he looked straight at the young girl whom he had wounded, hoping this implied compliment might atone.