Bessie's Fortune Part 48

Neil had a great contempt for people like Mrs. Goodnough, and when Bessie said to him, in a low tone, "It is my _compagnon du voyage_. She is rough-looking, but kind and good. I wish you would speak to her," he answered, quickly:

"That woman! You going out with her! Why, she looks like a fish-woman!

She is only fit to be a steerage pa.s.senger!"

"She is a steerage pa.s.senger, and I am steerage, too," Bessie said, very quietly, while Neil dropped her hand as if it had burned him.

"Bessie, what do you mean?" he exclaimed, glancing down upon her and stopping suddenly.

"Let us go inside. Do not make a scene here, please," Bessie answered him, in a low, firm voice, while her cheek grew a shade paler and something shone in her eyes which Neil had never seen there before.

"A private parlor, please; a small one will answer," he said to the clerk at the bureau; and in a few moments he was sitting with Bessie at his side, asking her to tell him what she meant by saying she was steerage, too.

"It means," she began, unfalteringly, "that I have no money for a first cla.s.s ticket, which costs more than three times as much as steerage.

Many respectable people go out that way, and it is very comfortable. The Germanic is a new boat, and all the apartments are clean and nice, I am not ashamed of it. I am ashamed of nothing, except the debt I owe your mother, and that I had to borrow five pounds of Anthony, who insisted upon giving it to me but I would not take it. Why do you look at me so strangely, Neil? Do you think I have committed the unpardonable sin?"

"Bessie," Neil began, huskily, and in a voice choked with pa.s.sion, "this is the drop too much. I knew you had some low instincts, but never dreamed you could stoop to this degradation, which affects me as much as it does you. But it is not too late to change, and you must do it."

"No, Neil, I cannot. I have barely enough to get there as it is," she replied, and he continued:

"Mother sent you five pounds with her compliments. Will that do? Here it is," and he offered her the note, which she put aside quickly, as she said:

"I cannot take that from your mother. Give it back to her, and, if you think she meant it well, thank her for me, and tell her I shall pay the whole some day when I earn it."

She emphasized the last words, and, more angry than before, Neil exclaimed:

"Earn it! Why will you persist in such nonsense, as if you were a common char-woman? You know as well as I that you are going to Aunt Betsey with the hope to get some of her money, as you unquestionably will."

"Neil, I am not," Bessie answered, firmly. "I am going to America, because there I can work and be respected, too, while here, according to your code, I cannot."

"Then, for Heaven's sake, go decently, and not herd with a lot of cattle, for emigrants are little better; and do not make yourself a spectacle for the other pa.s.sengers to gaze upon and wonder about, as they will be sure to do. If you have no pride for yourself, you have no right to disgrace me. How do you think it will sound, some day, that Neil McPherson's wife went out as steerage? Have you no feeling about it?"

"Not in that way--no," Bessie replied. "It seems to me I have been in the steerage all my life, and this can be no worse. Lady Bothwaite went thus to Australia to see how it fared with the pa.s.sengers."

"Yes, and got herself well laughed at as a lunatic," Neil rejoined.

Then, after a pause, he continued, excitedly: "But to come to the point--you must either give up this crazy plan or me. I can have no share in this disgrace, which the world would never forget, and which mother would never forgive. My wife must not come from the steerage."

He spoke with great decision, for he was very angry, and for a moment there was perfect silence between them, while Bessie regarded him fixedly, with an expression on her face which made him uneasy, for he did not quite mean all he had said to her, and there was a strong clinging of his heart to this fragile little girl, who said at last, very softly and low:

"You mean it, Neil?--mean what you say?"

"Yes," he answered her. "You must choose steerage or me!"

"Then, Neil," she continued, taking off her engagement-ring and putting it into his hand, "I am afraid it must be steerage. There is your ring; it is all ended between us. And it is better that it is so. I have thought for some time that we could not be happy together with our dissimilar tastes. I should always be doing something you did not like, and which I could not think was wrong. Besides this, we need not deceive ourselves longer with the hope that your mother will ever give her consent to our marriage, for she will not, and as we cannot marry without it, I think it better that we should part; not in anger, Neil,"

and she laid her hand caressingly upon his arm. "We have loved each other too well for that. We will be friends always, as we are cousins, but never man and wife. We are free, both of us;" and as she spoke there kept coming over her a most delicious sense of relief, as if some burden were being rolled from her, and the expression of her face was not that of a young girl who has just broken with the man she loved.

And Neil felt the change in her, and rebelled against it, saying that he would not give her up though she went steerage a hundred times, and in his excitement he offered to marry her that day, if she were willing, and take her at once to his mother, who would not shut the door against them, when she knew the deed was done.

But Bessie was resolute, and Neil was obliged to abide with her decision, but his face was very gloomy, and there was a sense of pain and loss in his heart when at last he entered the carriage which was to take Bessie to the wharf.

Mrs. Goodnough was to attend to the luggage and see that it was on board, consequently Neil was spared all trouble, as Bessie meant he should be. The rain was still falling, and there were many cabs and hansoms crowding the dock when Neil and Bessie reached it.

"Where will you go? With the steerage gang? If so, for Heaven's sake keep your veil over your face. I should not like to have any friend of mine, who might chance to be here, see you," Neil said, impatiently, and Bessie replied:

"I shall stay by Mrs. Goodnough till the tug takes us out. There she is now, in the distance, I can make my way to her very well alone, and as it is raining hard, we had better say good-by here in the carriage. You cannot help me any, and--" she hesitated an instant, and then added: "You might be recognized."

Neil hated himself cordially, and called himself a sneak and a coward, but he followed Bessie's advice, and drawing up the window of the carriage, clasped her to his bosom as he said farewell, telling her it was not forever, that she was his still, and he should come for her some day, and claim her promise to him.

Bessie did not contradict him. She knew he was suffering greatly, and she pitied him, while all the time there was in her heart a little song of gladness that she was free. Taking his face between her hand, she kissed it tenderly, and said:

"Good-by, Neil, and may G.o.d bless you and make you a good and n.o.ble man.

I know you will never forget me. Too much has pa.s.sed between us for that; but you will learn to be very happy without me. Good-by."

She touched his lips again; then, opening the door herself, she sprang to the ground before he could stop her.

"Don't get out; good-by," she said, waving him back as he was about to alight, and opening her umbrella and pulling the hood of her waterproof over her head, she started in the direction of Mrs. Goodnough, leaving Neil with such a tumult of thought crowding his brain as nearly drove him wild.

If he had not fancied that he saw one of his London acquaintances in the distance, he might have followed Bessie, but he could not be seen, for fear that the reason for his being there should come out, and it become known that a McPherson was allowed to go to America as a steerage pa.s.senger; so he sat a moment and watched the little figure with the waterproof hood over its head making its way to where a rough-looking woman was standing, with an immense cotton umbrella over her sun-bonnet and evidently waiting for some one. And so Bessie vanished from Neil's sight, and he saw her no more.

"Back to the hotel," he said to the cabman, who obeyed willingly, while Neil, always on the alert, closed the windows lest he should he seen and recognized.

But the air was close and hot, and when he thought himself out of danger he drew the window down and looked out just in time to meet the eyes of Grey Jerrold who was driving in an opposite direction. There was an exclamation from Grey, a call for both cabmen to stop, and before Neil could collect his senses the two carriages were drawn up side by side and he was shaking hands with Grey through the window.

"So glad I happened to meet you," Grey said. "I wanted to say good-by, for I am off for America."

"America!" Neil repeated, and his lower jaw dropped suddenly, as if he had been seized with paralysis.

"Yes," Grey rejoined. "I sail in the Germanic with my Aunt Lucy. She came down to Liverpool yesterday with some friends. I shall find her at the wharf. I have just arrived in the train from Chester. I was only in London for a day, but I called at your house to see you, and learned that you were out of town, so I left a little note for you. Neil"--and Grey spoke very low, as we do when we speak of the dead--"I have been in Prussia, Austria, and Russia since I left Italy, but I know I ought to have written and told you how sorry I was for--for what happened in Rome. If it had not been for my aunt, I believe I should have gone back and helped you. I--"

Here Grey stopped, for since his interview with Jack Trevellian he had never mentioned Bessie's name to any one, and he could not do so now even to Neil, who, having no idea of the mistake under which Grey was laboring, and supposing he, of course, was referring to Daisy, replied with an indifference which made Grey's flesh creep:

"Yes, thanks; they told me how kind you were, and I ought to have written you, but I had so much to see to. I trust I may never go through the like again. Those landlords are perfect swindlers, the whole of them, and ought to be indicted."

He spoke excitedly, and Grey gazed at him in blank astonishment. Was he perfectly heartless that he could speak thus of an event, the mere remembrance of which made Grey's heart throb with anguish? Had he really no abiding love for Bessie, that he could speak thus of the trouble and expense her death had caused him? Grey could not tell, but he was never as near hating Neil McPherson, as he was that moment, and he felt a greater desire to thrash him than he had done at Melrose when the star-spangled banner was insulted.

He could not pursue the subject further, and he changed the conversation by speaking of Jack Trevellian, from whom he had not heard since he left him in Vienna, weeks before.

"I have written to him," he said, "but have received no answer. I have also written to Miss Meredith, with a like result, and conclude I have no friends this side the water, so I am going home."

"You can count on me for a friend always," Neil said, with a sudden gush of warmth, as he extended his hand, adding hurriedly: "And now I must say good-by, as I have an engagement. _Au revoir_ and _bon voyage_."

"Good-by," Grey answered, a little coldly, and the carriages moved on, greatly to the relief of Neil, who had been in a tremor of fear lest Bessie should be inquired for and he be obliged to tell where she was.

During his interview with Grey his conscience and his pride had been waging a fierce battle the latter bidding him say nothing of Bessie, who possibly might not be seen during the voyage, as she had promised to keep strictly out of the sight of the saloon pa.s.sengers, and, unless necessary, not to tell any one except her aunt that she had crossed as steerage. Thus the disgrace might never be known. But his conscience bade him tell Grey the truth, and ask him to find Bessie on shipboard, and do what he could to lighten the dreariness of her situation. Why he did not do this Neil could not tell, and when the opportunity was pa.s.sed he cursed himself for a miserable coward, and actually put his head from the window to bid the cabman turn back and overtake the carriage they had met.

"Ten chances to one if I find him now. I'll write and confess the whole thing," he finally decided, and so went back to the hotel, where he pa.s.sed a miserable three hours, until it was time to dress for the dinner at the house where his mother was visiting.

It was quite a large dinner-party, consisting mostly of matrons and elderly men, so that Neil's presence was hailed with delight, and he was the center of attraction for at least four young ladies, among whom Blanche was conspicuous. But Neil had no heart for anything, and seemed so silent and absent-minded that his mother whispered to him in an aside: