The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax Part 13

Mr. Fairfax's letter to madame announced in simple terms the object of Mr. Cecil Burleigh's mission to Bayeux, and as the gentleman recited it by word of mouth she grew freezingly formal. To lose Bessie would be a loss that she had been treating as deferred. Certainly, also, the ways of the English are odd! To send the young lady on a two days' journey with this strange gentleman, who was no relative, was impossible. So well brought up as Bessie had been since she came to Caen, she would surely refuse the alternative, and decide to remain at school. Madame replied to the announcement that Miss Fairfax would appear in a few minutes, and would of course speak for herself. But Bessie was in no haste to meet the envoy from Kirkham after parting with her beloved Harry, and when a quarter of an hour had elapsed, and there was still no sign of her coming, Babette was despatched to the top of the house to bring her down to the interview.

Mr. Cecil Burleigh had taken a chair opposite the door, and he watched for its reopening with a visible and vivid interest. It opened, and Bessie walked in with that stately erectness of gait which was characteristic of the women of her race. "As upright as a Fairfax," was said of them in more senses than one. She was blushing, and her large dark blue eyes had the softness of recent tears. She curtseyed, school-girl fashion, to her grandfather's envoy, and her graceful proud humility set him instantly at a distance. His programme was to be lordly, affable, tenderly patronizing, but his dark cheek flushed, and self-possessed as he was, both by nature and habit, he was suddenly at a loss how to address this stiff princess about whom he had expected to find some rags of Cophetua still hanging. But the rags were all gone, and the little gypsy of the Forest was become a lady.

Madame intervened with needful explanations. Bessie comprehended the gist of the emba.s.sage very readily. She must take heart for an immediate encounter with her grandfather and all her other difficulties, or she must resign herself to a fourth year of exile and of school. Her mind was at once made up. Since the morning--how long ago it seemed!--an ardent wish to return to England had begun to glow in her imagination.

She wanted her real life to begin. These dull, monotonous school-days were only a prelude which had gone on long enough. Therefore she said, with brief consideration, that her choice would be to return home.

"To Kirkham understand, _ma cherie_, not to Beechhurst," said madame softly, warningly.

"To Kirkham, so be it! Sooner or later I must go there," answered Bessie with brave resignation.

Mr. Cecil Burleigh was apparently gratified by the young lady's consent, abrupt though it was. But madame's countenance fell. She was deeply disappointed at this issue. Apart from her pecuniary interest in Bessie, which was not inconsiderable, Bessie had become a source of religious concern to influential persons. And there was a favorite nephew of madame's, domiciled in Paris, about whom visionary schemes had been indulged, which now all in a moment vanished. This young nephew was to have come with his mother to etretat only a week hence, and there the canon and Madame Fournier were to have joined them, with the beautiful English girl committed to their charge. It was now good-bye to all such plots and plans.

Bessie perceived from her face that madame was distressed, but she did not know all the reasons why. Madame had been very good to her, and Bessie felt sorry; but to leave school for home was such a natural, inevitable episode in the course of life in the Rue St. Jean that, beyond a momentary regret, she had no compunction. Mr. Cecil Burleigh proceeded to lay open his arrangements. He was on his road to Paris, where he might be detained from ten to fifteen days, but madame should receive a letter from him when the precise time of his return was fixed.

After he had spoken to this effect he rose to take leave, and Bessie, blushing as she heard her own voice, originated her first remark, her first question:

"My grandfather hardly knows me. Does he expect my arrival at Kirkham with pleasure, or would he rather put it off for another year?" Madame thought she was already wavering in her determination.

"I am sure that when I have written to him he will expect your arrival with the _greatest_ pleasure," replied Mr. Cecil Burleigh with kind emphasis, retaining Bessie's hand for a moment longer than was necessary, and relinquishing it with a cordial shake.

Bessie's blushes did not abate at the compliment implied in his answer and in his manner: he had been favorably impressed, and would send to Abbotsmead a favorable report of her. When he was gone she all in a moment recollected when and where she had seen him before, and wondered that he had not reminded her of it; but perhaps he had forgotten too?

She soon let go that reminiscence, and with a light heart, in antic.i.p.ation of the future which had appeared in the distance so unpropitious, she talked of it to madame with a thousand random speculations, until madame was tired of the subject. And then she talked of it to Babette, who having no private disappointments in connection therewith, proved patiently and sympathetically responsive.

"Of course," said Bessie, "we shall go down the river to Havre, and then we shall cross to Hampton. I shall send them word at home, and some of them are sure to come and meet me there."

The letter was written and despatched, and in due course of post arrived an answer from Mr. Carnegie. He would come to Hampton certainly, and his wife would come with him, and perhaps one of the boys: they would come or go anywhere for a sight of their dear Bessie. But, fond, affectionate souls! they were all doomed to disappointment. Mr. Cecil Burleigh wrote earlier than was expected that he had intelligence from Kirkham to the effect that Mr. Frederick Fairfax would be at Havre with his yacht on or about a certain day, that he would come to Caen and himself take charge of his niece, and carry her home by sea--to Scarcliffe understood, for Kirkham was full twenty miles from the coast.

"Oh, how sorry I am! how sorry they will be in the Forest!" cried Bessie. "Is there no help for it?"

Madame was afraid there was no help for it--nothing for it but submission and obedience. And Bessie wrote to revoke all the cheerful promises and prospects that she had held out to her friends at Beechhurst.

CHAPTER XIII.

_BESSIE LEARNS A FAMILY SECRET._

Canon Fournier went to etretat by himself, for madame was bound to escort her pupil to Caen, to prepare her for her departure to England, and with her own hands to remit her into those of her friends. Caen is suffocatingly hot in August--dusty, empty, dull. Mr. Frederick Fairfax's beautiful yacht, the Foam, was in port at Havre, but it was understood that a week would elapse before it could be ready to go to sea again. It had met with some misadventure and wanted repairs. Mr.

Frederick Fairfax came on to Caen, and presented himself in the Rue St.

Jean, where he saw Bessie in the garden. Two chairs were brought out for them, and they sat and talked to the tinkle of the old fountain. It was not much either had to say to the other. The gentleman was absent and preoccupied, like a person accustomed to solitude and long silence; even while he talked he gave Bessie the impression of being half lost in reverie. He bore some slight resemblance to his father, and his fair hair and beard were whitening already, though he appeared otherwise in the prime of life.

The day after her uncle's visit there came to Bessie a sage, matronly woman to offer her any help or information she might need in prospect of sea-adventures. Mrs. Betts was to attend upon her on board the yacht; she had decisive ways and spoke like a woman in authority. When Bessie hesitated she told her what to do. She had been in charge of Mr.

Frederick Fairfax's unfortunate wife during a few weeks' cruise along the coast. The poor lady was an inmate of the asylum of the Bon Sauveur at Caen. The Foam had been many times into the port on her account during Bessie's residence in the Rue St. Jean, but, naturally enough, Mr. Frederick Fairfax had kept his visits from the knowledge of his school-girl niece. Now, however, concealment might be abandoned, for if the facts were not communicated to her here, she would be sure to hear them at Kirkham. And Mrs. Betts told her the pitiful story. Bessie was inexpressibly awed and shocked at the revelation. She had not heard a whisper of the tragedy before.

One evening in the cool Bessie walked with Miss Foster up the wide thoroughfare, at the country end of which are the old convent walls and gardens which enclose the modern buildings of the Bon Sauveur. They were not a dozen paces from the gates when the wicket was opened by a sister, and Mr. Frederick Fairfax came out. Bessie's face flushed and her eyes filled with tears of compa.s.sion.

"You know where I have been, then, Elizabeth?" said he--"to visit my poor wife. She seems happier in her little room full of birds and flowers than on the yacht with me, yet the good nuns a.s.sure me she is the better for her sea-trip. The nuns are most kind."

Bessie acquiesced, and Miss Foster remarked that it was at the Bon Sauveur gentle usage of the insane had first superseded the cruel old system of restraints and terror. Mr. Frederick Fairfax shivered, stood a minute gazing dejectedly into s.p.a.ce, and then walked on.

"He loves her," said Bessie, deeply touched. "I suppose death is a light affliction in comparison with such a separation."

The wicket was still open, the sister was still looking out. There was a glimpse of lofty houses, open windows, grapevines rich in purple cl.u.s.ters on the walls, and boxes of mignonette and gayer flowers upon the window-sills. Miss Foster asked Bessie if she would like to see what of the asylum was shown; and though Bessie's taste did not incline to painful studies, before she had the decision to refuse she found herself inside the gates and the sister was reciting her monotonous formula.

These tall houses in a crescent on the court were occupied by lady-boarders not suffering from mental alienation or any loss of faculty, but from decayed fortunes. The deaf and dumb, the blind, the crippled, epileptic, and insane had separate dwellings built apart in the formal luxuriant gardens. "We have patients of all nations," said the sister. "Strangers see none of these; there have been distressing recognitions." Bessie was not desirous of seeing any. She breathed more freely when she was outside the gates. It was a nightmare to imagine the agonies ma.s.sed within those walls, though all is done that skill and charity can do for their alleviation.

"You will not forget us: if ever you come back to Caen, you will not forget us?" The speaker was little Mrs. Foster.

Bessie had learned to love Mrs. Foster's crowded, minute _salon_, her mixed garden of flowers and herbs; and she had learned to love the old lady too, by reason of the kindnesses she had done her and her over-worked daughter. Mr. Fairfax had made his granddaughter an allowance of pocket-money so liberal that she was never at a loss for a substantial testimony of her grat.i.tude to any one who earned it. And now her farewell visits to all who had been kind to her were paid, and she was surprised how much she was leaving that she regretted. The word had come for her to be ready at a moment's call. The yacht was in the river, her luggage was gone on board, and Mrs. Betts had completed her final arrangements for the comfort of the young lady. Only Mr. Cecil Burleigh was to wait for--that was the last news for Bessie: Mr. Cecil Burleigh was to join the yacht, and to be carried to England with her.

There were three days to wait. The time seemed long in that large vacant house, that sunburnt secluded garden, that glaring silent court. Bessie spent hours in the church. It was cool there, and close by if her summons came. The good _cure_ saw her often, and took no notice. She was not devout. She was too facile, too philosophical of temper to have violent preferences or aversions in religion. A less sober mind than hers would have yielded to the gentle pressure of universal example, but Bessie was not of those who are given to change. She would have made an excellent Roman Catholic if she had been born and bred in that communion, but she had disappointed everybody's pious hopes and efforts for her conversion to it. She once said to the _cure_ that holiness of life was the chief thing, and she could not make out that it was the monopoly of any creed or any sect, or any age of the world. He gave her his blessing, and, not to acknowledge a complete defeat, he told Madame Fournier that if the dear young lady met with poignant griefs and mortifications, for which there were abundant opportunities in her circ.u.mstances, he had expectations that she might then seek refuge and consolation in the tender arms of the Church. Madame did not agree with him. She had studied Bessie's character more closely, and believed that whatever her trials, her strength would always suffice for her day, and that whatever she changed she would not change her profession of faith or deny her liberal and practical Protestant principles.

There was hurry at the end, as in most departures, but it was soon over, and then followed a delicious calm. The yacht was towed down the river in the beautiful cool of the evening. A pretty awning shaded the deck, and there Bessie dined daintily with her uncle and Mr. Cecil Burleigh, and for the first time in her life was served with polite a.s.siduity. She looked very handsome and more coquettish than she had any idea of in her white dress and red _capuchon_, but she felt shy at being made so much of. She did not readily adapt herself to worship. Mr. Cecil Burleigh had arrived from Paris only that afternoon, and had many amusing things to tell of his pleasures and adventures there. He spoke of Paris as one who loved the gay city, and seemed in excellent spirits.

If his mission had a political object, he must certainly have carried it through with triumphant success; but his talk was of b.a.l.l.s, _fetes_, plays and shows.

After they had dined Bessie was left to her memories and musings, while the gentlemen went pacing up and down the deck in earnest conversation.

It was a perfect evening. The sky was full of color, scarlet, rosy, violet, primrose--changing, fading, flushing, perpetually. And before all was gray the moon had risen and was shining in silver floods upon the sea. In the mystery of moonshine Bessie lost sight of the phantom poplars that fringe the Orne. The excitement of novelty and uncertainty routed dull thoughts, and her fancy pruned its wings for a flight into the future. In the twilight came Mrs. Betts, and cut short the flight of fancy with prosy suggestions of early retirement to rest. It was easy to retire, but not so easy to sleep. Bessie's mind was astir. It became retrospective. She went over the terrors of her first coming to Caen, the dinner at Thunby's, and the weird talk of Janey Fricker in the _dortoir_, till melancholy overwhelmed her.

Where was Janey? Was she still sailing with her father? No news of her had ever come to the Rue St. Jean since the day she left it. It sometimes crossed Bessie's mind that Janey was no longer in the land of the living. At last, with the lulling, soft motion of a breezeless night on the water, came oblivion and sleep too sound for dreams.

CHAPTER XIV.

_ON BOARD THE FOAM._

Life is continuous, so we say, but here and there events happen that mark off its parts so sharply as almost to sever them. Awaking the next morning in the tiny gilded cabin of the Foam was the signal of such an event to Bessie Fairfax. She had put away childish things, and left them behind her at Caen yesterday. To-day before her, across the Channel, was a new world to be proved, and a cloudy revelation of the joys and sorrows, the hopes and fears that nourish the imagination of blooming adolescence. For a minute she did not realize where she was, and lay still, with wide-open eyes and ears perplexed, listening to the wash of the sea. There was a splendid sunshine, a sky blue as sapphire, and a lovely green ripple of waves against the gla.s.s.

The voice of Mrs. Betts brought her to herself: "I thought it best to let you sleep your sleep out, miss. The sea-air does it. The gentlemen have breakfasted two hours ago."

Bessie was sorry and ashamed. It was with a penitent face she appeared on deck. But she immediately discovered that this was not school: she had entire liberty to please and amuse herself. Perhaps if her imagination had been less engaged she might have found the voyage tedious. Mrs. Betts told her there was no knowing when they should see Scarcliffe--it depended on wind and weather and whims. The yacht was to put in at Ryde to land Mr. Cecil Burleigh; and as the regattas were going on, they might cruise off the Isle of Wight for a week, maybe, for the master was never in a hurry. In Bessie's bower there was an agreeable selection of novels, but she had many successive hours of silence to dream in when she was tired of heroes and heroines. Mr.

Frederick Fairfax was the most taciturn of men, and Mr. Cecil Burleigh was constantly busy with pens, ink, and paper. In the long course of the day he did take shreds of leisure, but they were mostly devoted to cigars and meditation. Bessie observed that he was older and graver since that gay wedding at Fairfield--which of course he had a right to be, for it was three years ago--but he was still and always a very handsome and distinguished personage.

In the _salon_ of Canon Fournier at Bayeux, Bessie Fairfax had disconcerted this fine gentleman, but now the tables were turned, and on board the yacht he often disconcerted her--not of _malice prepense_, but for want of due consideration. No doubt she was a little unformed, ignorant girl, but her intuitive perceptions were quick, and she knew when she was depreciated and misunderstood. On a certain afternoon he read her some beautiful poetry under the awning, and was interested to know whether she had any taste for poetry. Bessie confessed that at school she had read only Racine, and felt shy of saying what she used to read at home, and he dropped the conversation. He drew the conclusion that she did not care for literature. At their first meeting it had seemed as if they might become cordial friends, but she soon grew diffident of this much-employed stranger, who always had the ill-luck to discover to her some deficiency in her education. The effect was that by the time the yacht anch.o.r.ed off Ryde, she had lost her ease in his society, and had become as shy as he was capricious, for she thought him a most capricious and uncertain person in temper and demeanor.

Yet it was not caprice that influenced his behavior. He was quite unconscious of the variableness that taxed her how to meet it. He approved of Bessie: he admired her--face, figure, air, voice, manner. He judged that she would probably mature into a quiet and loving woman of no very p.r.o.nounced character, and there was a direct purpose in his mind to cultivate her affection and to make her his wife. He thought her a nice girl, sweet and sensible, but she did not enchant him. Perhaps he was under other magic--under other magic, but not spell-bound beyond his strength to break the charm.

Mr. Cecil Burleigh was a man of genius and of soaring ambition--well-born, well-nurtured, but as the younger son of a younger son absolutely without patrimony. At his school and his university he had won his way through a course of honors, and he would disappoint all who knew him if he did not revive the traditions of his name and go onto achieve place, power, and fame. To enter Parliament was necessary for success in the career he desired to run, and the first step towards Parliament for a poor young man was a prudent marriage into a family of long standing, wide connection, and large influence in their county--so competent authorities a.s.sured him--and all these qualifications had the Fairfaxes of Kirkham, with a young heiress sufficiently eligible, besides, to dispose of. The heads on each side had spoken again, and in almost royal fashion had laid the lines for an alliance between their houses. When Mr. Cecil Burleigh took Caen in his road to Paris, it was with the distinct understanding that if Elizabeth Fairfax pleased him and he succeeded in pleasing her, a marriage between them would crown the hopes of both their families.

The gentleman had not taken long to decide that the lady would do. And now they were on the Foam together he had opportunities enough of wooing. He availed himself of a courtly grace of manner, with sometimes an air of worship, which would have been tenderness had he felt like a lover. Bessie was puzzled, and grew more and more ill at ease with him.

Absorbed in work, in thought, or in idle reverie and smoke, he appeared natural and happy; he turned his attention to her, and was gay, gracious, flattering, but all with an effort. She wished he would not give himself the trouble. She hated to be made to blush and stammer in her talk; it confused her to have him look superbly in her eyes; it made her angry to have him press her hand as if he would rea.s.sure her against a doubt.

Fortunately, the time was not long, for they began to bore one another immensely. It was an exquisite morning when they anch.o.r.ed opposite Ryde, and the first day of the annual regatta. At breakfast Mr. Cecil Burleigh quietly announced that he would now leave the yacht, and make his way home in a few days by the ordinary conveyances. Mr. Frederick Fairfax, who was a consenting party to the family arrangement, suggested that Bessie might like to go on sh.o.r.e to see the town and the charming prospect from the pier and the strand. Mr. Cecil Burleigh did not second the suggestion promptly enough to avoid the suspicion that he would prefer to go alone; and Bessie, who had a most sensitive reluctance to be where she was not wanted, made haste to say that she did not care to land--she was quite satisfied to see the town from the water. Thereupon the gentleman pressed the matter with so much insistance that, though she would much rather have foregone the pleasure than enjoy it under his escort, she found no polite words decisive enough for a refusal.