Bessie's Fortune Part 38

"Bessie," the sick man said, as she bent over him "has he come? I heard some one speaking to you."

"Neil has not come; it is not time. It is Mr. Jerrold who is here. He was with us last Christmas, you remember."

"Yes," Mr. McPherson replied, "the American; I remember. I liked him very much. I wish it were he rather than Neil."

Grey looked curiously at Bessie, who knew what her father meant and that his mind was wandering. After a few moments, during which Archie appeared to be sleeping, he started suddenly and seemed to listen intently. Then he said:

"The birds have stopped singing, but I hear other music; the songs of the redeemed, and my mother is there by the gate waiting for me, just as I shall wait one day for you, my child. Give me your hand, Bessie, I want to feel that you are with me to the last."

She put her hand in his, and Grey noticed with a pang how small and thin it was and brown, too, with toil. Some such thought must have been in Archie's mind, for, pressing the fingers to his lips, he continued:

"Poor little tired hands, which have done so much for me. May they have rest by and by. Oh, Bessie, darling, G.o.d bless you, the dearest, sweetest daughter a man ever had. Be kind to her, young man. I leave her in your charge; there is no one else to care for her. Good-by; G.o.d bless you both."

He did not speak after that, though he lingered for some hours, his breath growing fainter, and fainter until, just as the summer morning was stealing into the room, old Anthony, who, with his wife, had been watching by him, said, in a whisper:

"G.o.d help us; the master is dead!"

Bessie uttered no sound, but over her face there crept such a pallor and look of woe that Grey involuntarily pa.s.sed his arm around her and said:

"Let me take you into the air."

She did not resist him, but suffered him to lead her into the garden, which was sweet with the perfume of roses and cool with the fresh morning dew, and where the birds were singing in the old yew trees as blithely and merrily as if no young heart were breaking in their midst.

In a large rustic-chair, where Archie had often sat, Grey made Bessie sit down, and when he saw her shiver as if with cold, he left her a moment while he went to the house for a shawl and a gla.s.s of wine, and some eau-de-cologne, which he brought to her himself. Wrapping the shawl around her as deftly as a woman could have done, he made her taste the wine, and dipping her handkerchief in the cologne bathed her forehead with it and pushed back a few locks of her wavy hair, which had fallen over her face. And all the time he did not speak until Bessie said to him:

"Thank you, Mr. Jerrold. You are so kind. I am glad you are here. What should I do without you, and what shall I do anyway? What must I do?"

"Leave it all to me," he answered her. "Don't give the matter a thought, but try and rest; and when you feel that you can, I will take you back to the house."

"No, no," she said quickly. "Let me stay here in the sunshine with the birds who used to sing to him. It seems as if he were here with me."

So he brought her a pillow for her head, and a ha.s.sock for her feet, and wrapped her shawl more closely around her, and made her taste the wine again. Then he went back to the house and consulted Anthony and Dorothy with regard to what was to be done. The funeral was fixed for the fourth day, and Grey telegraphed to London, with instructions, that if the family were not in town the message should be forwarded to them immediately. Then he cabled to Daisy, ship Celtic, New York, and lest by any chance she should miss the news at the wharf he asked that a dispatch be sent to her at Allington, Ma.s.s., care of Mrs.

Rossiter-Browne, who, he knew, would in all probability go at once to her country home.

"Mrs. McPherson can return or remain where she is. I have done my duty to her," he thought, as he busied himself with the many details it was necessary to see to. "If Neil were only here," was his constant thought, as the day wore on, and he found himself in the rather awkward position of master of ceremonies in a strange house, deferred to and advised with not only by Anthony and Dorothy, but by all the people who came to a.s.sist.

But Neil did not come, and the night came and went, and it was morning again, and Bessie, who had pa.s.sed the most of the preceding day in the garden, and had only returned to the house late in the afternoon, seemed a little brighter and fresher, with a look of expectancy in her face whenever a train dashed by. She was watching for Neil, and when at about four o'clock a carriage came through the park gates, she rose and went swiftly to the door, meeting not Neil, but Jack Trevellian, whose face and manner told plainly how great was his sympathy with the desolate young girl. He was in London, he said, and chanced to be calling at the Trevellian house where he learned that all the family, Neil included, were at Vichy, where Lady Jane had gone for the waters and bathing. Just as he was leaving, Grey's telegram was received, and the housekeeper, Mrs. Jervis, told him that another telegram had come two days before for Mr. Neil, from Stoneleigh.

"I did not open it," she said, "as did not suppose it of any consequence. He often has despatches, and as I expect him home within a week or ten days I put it on the table in the hall. You will find it there," she continued, as she saw Jack unceremoniously tear open the envelope just received, and heard his cry of surprise.

Then, quick as thought, he read the first telegram from Bessie, telling of her father's illness and asking Neil to come at once.

"Poor little Bessie, alone with her dead father," he said, and his heart throbbed with a great pity for the girl who, he supposed, was alone, for Grey had not signed his own but Bessie's name to the message he had sent.

In an instant Jack's resolution was taken, and he acted upon it at once.

The telegram was forwarded to Vichy, together with the fact that he was going immediately to Stoneleigh, where he would await any orders they chose to send. Then he took the first train for Wales, and reached Bangor about three o'clock the next day. All this he explained after expressing his surprise at finding Grey there, and saying to him, good-humoredly:

"You always manage to get ahead of me. If I ever get to heaven I do believe I shall find you there before me."

"I hope so," Grey answered, laughingly, and then added: "We ought to have heard from Vichy before this time, if they received your message yesterday."

"That's so," Jack replied, adding after a moment: "It may be waiting for me at the 'George.' They would naturally direct it there."

And on sending to inquire if there was anything for him at the hotel, there was brought to him an envelope directed to "Sir Jack Trevellian,"

received that morning, the bar-maid said. Breaking the seal, Jack read aloud:

"VICHY, July ----, 18--.

"To Sir Jack Trevellian, George Hotel, Bangor, Wales:

"It is impossible for me to come. Will write Bessie soon. Please see that everything is done decently, and send bill to me.

"JOHN McPHERSON."

Nothing could have been colder or more matter of fact, and Bessie's cheeks were scarlet as she listened, while Grey involuntarily gave a low whistle, and turning on his heel, walked away, and Jack tore the paper in shreds, which he threw into the empty grate. Then he looked at Bessie, whose face was now very white and quivering with pain and disappointment. Jack's first impulse was to denounce Mr. McPherson for his selfishness and neglect, but his kinder nature prevailed, and he said, apologetically:

"It is a long way from Vichy here, and the weather is very hot. But never mind. Grey and I will do all we can, and both Mr. McPherson and Lady Jane will surely come to you later."

"It is not that. I don't know what it is, only it is dreadful to be without one of your own kindred at such a time as this. Surely Neil might come or write," Bessie said, with such pathos in her voice that Jack looked sharply at her, thinking to himself:

"Is it possible she cares for him more than as a cousin? Doesn't she know Neil is the last one to inconvenience himself, if he can help it?

Funerals are not to his taste."

But he did not give expression to his thoughts; he said, instead:

"Perhaps Neil is not there. I hardly think he is, as he does not like Vichy. You will hear from him soon no doubt. I am sorry for your sake that none of your relatives are here. But don't distress yourself. Grey and I will do everything."

"I know you will," she said; "but, Mr. Trevellian," and she laid her hand upon his arm, "you will not send that bill to Neil's father? I have over forty pounds. I can pay it myself. You will not send it?"

"Never!" Jack answered, emphatically, and then he went out to consult with Grey, who was sitting in the porch staring hard at an iron post which Jack began to kick vigorously, as he said: "Well, Jerrold, we are in for it, you and I; and we will see it through in shape. The old curmudgeon! He might come as well as not if he chose. There is plenty of time to get here, and he knows her mother is gone, for I added that to the dispatch I sent, so as to insure his coming. And where is Neil, the milksop? He, at least, might come. I have no patience with the whole tribe. But we will do what we can for the poor little forsaken girl."

"Yes," Grey answered him. "We will do what we can."

CHAPTER XIX.

WHAT GREY AND JACK DID.

They did everything that it was possible for two men to do under the circ.u.mstances. They filled the old house with flowers, until it seemed like one great garden of bloom, and the coffin they ordered would hardly have shamed a duke, while the undertaker had orders to send Bessie only a very small part of the real cost of the funeral. The rest they were to pay between them, though Jack at first insisted upon paying the whole.

But in this Grey overruled him, and they agreed to share the expense equally. Nothing could be kinder or more deferential than their demeanor toward Bessie, who, wholly overcome with grief and fatigue, lay perfectly quiet in her room, and let them do what they liked, she was so weary and worn, and it was so good to be cared for; but on the day of the funeral she roused herself, and insisted upon going to the grave and seeing her father buried; so, with Grey and Jack on either side she walked through the yew-shaded garden to the small inclosure which was the family burying-place, and was so full of the McPhersons that after Archie's grave, there was only room for one more between him and the wall, and both Grey and Jack noticed this as they stood there and wondered if it would be Bessie or Daisy who some day would be brought there and laid in her last bed.

"Not Bessie," Grey thought, and there arose before him a beautiful spot far over the sea, where the headstones gleamed white in the sunlight, and the gra.s.s was like velvet to the touch, and flowers were blooming in gay parterres and the birds were singing all day long over Mount Auburn's dead.

And "not Bessie," Jack thought, as he, too, remembered a quiet spot away to the north of England, where the tall monuments bore the name of Trevellian, and where his race were buried.

The services over at the grave, they went back to the house, and in the evening Grey said good-by, for on the morrow he was due at Liverpool to meet his Aunt Lucy, who was coming abroad to spend a year with him in travel.