Bessie's Fortune Part 26

"I don't quite believe Bessie's eyes did rest on Blanche's parasol. I thought they were on you, and envied you as a lucky dog. Seriously, though," he continued, as he saw the thunderous gleam in Neil's eyes, and the look of triumph in Blanche's, "it did not occur to me that there was anything bold or unmaidenly in what the young lady did, and I never saw a more beautiful tableau than she made, standing there in the sunshine, with her bright, wavy hair, and her lovely, eager face. She is very beautiful, and I am so glad I have seen her. They are stopping at--" He hesitated, and looked at Neil, who, grateful for his defense of Bessie, unhesitatingly replied:

"No. ---- Abingdon road, near High street"

"Thank you," Jack said, making a mental memorandum of the place, with a view to call, even if Bessie had said he better not.

After this little skirmish the dinner proceeded in peace, so far as Bessie was concerned, for Jack Trevellian was a kind of oracle, whose verdict could raise one to the pinnacle of public opinion, or cast him down to the depths, and if he said Bessie was not bold, nor brazen-faced, then she was not, though Lady Jane and Blanche disliked her just the same.

Neil, on the contrary, forgave her fully for the annoyance he had felt, and immediately after breakfast the next morning he started for Mrs.

Buncher's. Bessie was trying on the hat when he entered. She had received the box only a few moments before, and had readily guessed that Neil was the donor, and had in part divined his motive.

"He was ashamed of my old gown and hat; and they are rather the worse for the wear, and looked very shabby among the fine dresses in the park.

But they are the best I have, unless I make over those mother sent me--and that I cannot do," she thought, as she remembered, with a pang, the trunkful of half-worn garments of various kinds, which her mother had sent her from time to time, and which she could never bring herself to wear, because of the a.s.sociation. They had been worn in the moral mire of Monte Carlo and other places equally disreputable, and Bessie could no more have put them on than she could have adopted her mother's habits. In her linen dress, which she bought with money paid her for roses by the ladies who frequented the "George," she felt pure and respectable. But this gift from Neil, her cousin, she surely might keep, for her father said so, and, young-girl-like, she was admiring herself, or rather the hat, before the gla.s.s, when Neil himself came in.

"Hallo, Dot," he said, coming quickly to her side. "At it, I see, like the rest of your kind; but don't it become you, though! Why, you are sweet and fresh this morning as a rose from the old Stoneleigh garden,"

and the tall young man stooped and kissed the blushing girl two or three times before she could withdraw herself from him. "Why, Bess," he continued, "what a lump of dignity you are this morning! You did not used to wriggle so when I kissed you. What has happened?"

"Nothing has happened," Bessie replied, though she knew very well there had, for what Jack Trevellian had told her that rumor said of Neil and Blanche had opened a new channel of thought, and made her older far than she was before; too old for Neil to be kissing her as if she were a child.

And then, if what Jack said was true, he had no right to kiss her, even if she were his cousin. But was it true? She wished she knew, and after she had thanked Neil for the dress, and asked if he were very angry with her the day before for trying to attract his attention, and he had a.s.sured her that he was not, she burst out:

"Oh, Neil, is it true you are to marry Miss Blanche? Mr. Jack Trevellian stood by us yesterday and told me who the people were, and he said--"

"Jack be hanged!" Neil interrupted her. "What business has he to talk such nonsense to you? Marry Blanche? Never! What do I want of those light eyebrows and that pointed chin--I, who know you?"

Here he stopped, struck by something in Bessie's face which seemed to brighten and beautify it until it shone like the face of some pure saint to whom the gate of Paradise has just been opened. Then it occurred to Neil suddenly that Bessie was not a child. She was a girl of fifteen and more, with an experience which made her older than her years; and, selfish as he was, and much as he would like to have her look at him always as she was looking now, he felt that he must not encourage it. He had told her he should never marry Blanche, but in his heart he thought it possible, for, as there was no money in his own family, and he could not exist without it, he must marry money and forget the sweet face and soft blue eyes which moved him with a strange power and made him long to fold Bessie in his arms, and, young as she was, claim her as something more than a cousin. But, always politic and cautious, he restrained himself, and said to her instead:

"I do not believe I shall ever marry anybody, certainly not for many years, and you and I will be the best of friends always, brother and sister, which is better than cousins. Do you consent?"

"Yes," Bessie answered, falteringly, not quite understanding him, or knowing whether she should like the brother and sister arrangement as well as the cousin.

Then they talked together of what Bessie had seen in the park, and she told him all Jack Trevellian had said, and how kind he was, and how much she liked him, until Neil felt horribly jealous of his cousin, and wished he had staid in Ireland while Bessie was in London.

"Oh, it must be so fine to drive in a handsome carriage with the crowd.

I wish I could try it. Does it cost so very much?" she asked, and Neil detested himself because he did not at once offer to take her and her father for the coveted drive.

"Could he do it?" he asked himself many times, deciding finally that he could not face his fashionable friends, and, more than all, his mother and Blanche, with these country cousins--Archie, in his threadbare coat, and Bessie, in her linen gown, with the big puffs at the top of the sleeves.

Had she been less beautiful he might venture it, but everybody would look at that face and turn to look again, and wonder who she was, and question him about her.

No, he couldn't do it, and so he went away at last, deciding to take the underground road to St. James Park, and meeting, as he was entering the station, Jack Trevellian coming out.

"Hallo, Hallo!" was said by each to the other, while both looked a little conscious, and Neil burst out, impulsively, "I say, Jack, what brings you over here?"

"The same which brought you, I dare say," Jack replied. "I am going to call upon your cousin."

"The deuce you are! I thought so," Neil answered, in a tone of voice indicative of anything but pleasure.

"Have you any objections?" Jack asked, and Neil replied:

"No--yes. Jack. You are as good--yes, better than most of the fellows in our set, but--" He hesitated, and Jack rejoined:

"But what? Go on."

"By Jove, I will speak out!" Neil continued, going close to his cousin.

"You are a man of the world, accustomed to all sorts of girls--girls who laugh and flirt and let you make soft speeches to them and never think of you again because they know you mean nothing. But Bessie is not that kind; she is innocent and pure as a baby, and believes all you say, and--and--by George, Jack, if you harm a hair of her head I'll beat you into a pomace! You understand?"

"Yes, I rather think I do," Jack answered, with a smile; "and, Neil, you are more of a man than I supposed; upon my soul you are; but never fear, I will not flirt with Bessie, I will not make love to her, unless--I fall in love myself, in which case I cannot promise; but don't distress yourself. The Welsh rose is as safe with me as with you. Good-morning!"

and so saying, he walked off in the direction of Abingdon road, while Neil rather unwillingly bought his ticket and went through the narrow way and down the stairs to wait for the incoming train.

CHAPTER VIII.

JACK AND BESSIE.

Mrs. Buncher had made an effort to brighten up her dingy parlor since her new lodgers took possession of it. She had washed the windows and put up clean muslin curtains, and a white towel on the small table, which was further ornamented by a bowl of lovely roses, which filled the room with perfume and seemed to harmonize so perfectly with the fair young girl sitting near the table and darning what would soon have been a hole in the elbow of her father's coat. She had discovered it that morning, and as soon as Neil left her sat down to her task, with her pretty white ap.r.o.n partially covering her linen dress and greatly improving her appearance. Bessie always wore ap.r.o.ns in the morning at home, though Neil had more than once objected to it, as he said such things belonged to housemaids and not to ladies.

"And I am the housemaid; I wash the dishes and lay the cloth and sweep and dust, and an ap.r.o.n keeps my dress clean," Bessie had answered him, laughingly, and when she came to London she brought her best ap.r.o.n with her, and after Neil was gone put it on and commenced her task of darning.

"Oh, if you could have a new coat; this is so worn and threadbare," she said to her father, who was sitting near her in his dressing-gown. "I wish Neil had sent you a coat instead of that dress to me. I do wish we were rich! I would buy a lot of things, but first of all I would have a drive in the park. Wasn't it grand! I wish Neil would take us, though perhaps he has not the money of his own to pay for the carriage."

"Bessie," her father said, rousing up from the half dozing condition in which he was most of the time when in the house, "you are hugging a delusion with regard to Neil. He is very kind in a way, when it costs him nothing, but he would never sacrifice his comfort or his feelings for you or me. We are his poor relations, from the country; we are not like his world, or that powdered piece of vanity who was with him yesterday. It would cost him nothing to take us for a drive, for the carriage is his mother's, but you couldn't hire him to go round that park with us; he has that false pride, more common in women than in men, which would keep him from it. He likes you very much--at Stoneleigh, where there are none of his set to look on; but here in London it is different. He might take us to many places, if he would; but he dares not, lest he should be seen. He can send you a blue silk dress, which I half wish you had returned; and he can come here and make your pulse beat faster with his soft words and manner, which mean so little; but other attentions we must not expect from him. I tell you this, my child, because you are getting to be a woman. You were fifteen last March. You are very beautiful, and Neil McPherson knows it, and if you had a fortune he might seek to be more than your cousin; but as it is, don't attach much importance to what he says and does, or be disappointed at what he does not do."

Bessie did not reply for the great lump which had risen in her throat as her father put into words what in part she had suspected, but tried to fight down. She did not like to believe that Neil had a fault, and still she felt that her father might be right, and that Neil _was_ ashamed of them. Something in his manner since they came to London, would indicate as much, and her heart was very sore with a sense of something lost, and there were tears on her long eyelashes as she bent over the darn, too much absorbed in her own thoughts to hear the step on the stairs or know that any one was coming until there was a tap at the open door, and looking up she saw Jack Trevellian standing before her. Mrs. Buncher, who was her own waitress, had bidden him "go right up," and as the door was ajar he stood for an instant on the upper landing and heard Archie say:

"You were fifteen last March. You are very beautiful, and Neil McPherson knows it, and if you had a fortune he might seek to be more than your cousin, but as it is don't attach much importance to what he says and does or be disappointed at what he does not do."

"The old cove has. .h.i.t it," Jack thought; "he understands Neil to a dot.

If Bessie had a fortune he would go down before her in dead earnest; and, perhaps, I would too, for, 'pon my soul, she has the sweetest face I ever saw. What a lovely woman she will make."

And then, there arose before him a vision of a stately old house in the north country, the home of the Trevellians, and in the family vault the present owner, a white haired man of seventy-five was lying, and by his side his puny eldest son, and also stalwart Harry, who looked as if a broad-ax could not kill him, and he, Jack Trevellian now the bachelor with only 500 pounds a year, and most extravagant tastes, was there as Sir Jack, and with him this little Welsh maiden, who was bending over the threadbare coat, and trying to force back the tears her father's words had caused her.

"I am a knave and a murderer," Jack thought. "Uncle Paul, and d.i.c.k, and Hal would have to die, and little Flossie, whom I like so much, be left alone, before all this could be;" then, with a premonitory cough, he knocked lightly at the open door.

"Oh, Mr. Trevellian!" Bessie exclaimed, springing to her feet and blushing scarlet. "How you frightened me! Pray walk in. I did not expect you. I--I--am mending father's coat."

"Yes, I see," he answered, offering her his hand after he had greeted her father with his most graceful, courtly manner. "I see you are. I wonder now if you are doing it well. I used to have some experience in such matters when I was roughing it in Australia. I am a beautiful darner; let me try my hand, please;" and taking the coat from her before she had time to recover from her astonishment, he seated himself upon a chair and began industriously to ply the needle, while Bessie looked on amazed.

"You see I am quite a tailor," he said, pushing his thick brown hair back from his white forehead, and flashing upon her one of those rare smiles with which he always obtained the mastery and made friends even of his enemies.

How charming he was, and he never seemed to see the humble room, the faded carpet, the dingy oil-cloth, or the coa.r.s.e hair-cloth furniture which had offended Neil and made him call the place a hole. Of course, Jack did see them all; he could not help that, but he acted as if he had all his life been accustomed to just such surroundings, and was so familiar and affable that both Bessie and her father were more charmed with him than on the previous day.

"By the way," he said at last, when the coat was mended and approved, "I met Neil at the station; he had been here, I suppose?"

"Yes," Bessie replied, a painful flush suffusing her cheeks as she recalled what her father had said of Neil.

"I am half afraid he has forestalled me, then," Jack continued. "I came to ask you and your father to drive with me in the park this afternoon; that is, if Neil is not ahead of me."