The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax Part 20

While Bessie examined the contents of the sketch-books, her grandfather stood behind her looking over her shoulder, and now and then saying a few words in explanation, though most of the scenes were named and dated. They were water-color drawings--bits of landscape, picturesque buildings, grotesque and quaint figures, odd incidents of foreign life, all touched with tender humor, and evidently by a strong and skilful hand; and flowers, singly or in groups, full of a delicate fancy. In the last volume of the series there were no more flowers; the scenes were of snow-peaks and green hills, of wonderful lake-water, and boats with awnings like the hood of a tilted cart; and the sky was that of Italy.

"Oh, these are lovely, but why are there no more flowers?" said Bessie thoughtlessly.

"Dorothy had given up going out then," said her grandfather in a low, strained voice.

Bessie caught her breath as she turned the next page, and came on a roughly washed-in mound of earth under an old wall where a white cross was set. A sudden mist clouded her sight, and then a tear fell on the paper.

"That is where she was buried--at Bellagio on Lake Como," said Mr.

Fairfax, and moved away.

Bessie continued to gaze at the closing page for several minutes without seeing it; then she turned back the leaves preceding, and read them again, as it were, in the sad light of the end. It was half a feint to hide or overcome her emotion, for her imagination had figured to her that last mournful journey. Her grandfather saw how she was affected--saw the trembling of her hand as she paused upon the sketches and the furtive winking away of her tears. Dear Bessie! smiles and tears were so easy to her yet. If she had dared to yield to a natural impulse, she would have shut the melancholy record and have run to comfort him--would have clasped her hands round his arm and laid her cheek against his shoulder, and have said, "Oh, poor grandpapa!" with most genuine pity and sympathy. But he stood upon the hearth with his back to the fire, erect, stiff as a ramrod, with gloom in his eyes and lips compressed, and anything in the way of a caress would probably have amazed more than it would have flattered him. Bessie therefore refrained herself, and for ever so long there was silence in the room, except for the ticking of the clock on the chimney-piece and the occasional dropping of the ashes from the bars. At last she left looking at the sketches and mechanically reverted to the photographs upon which Mr.

Fairfax came out of his reverie and spoke again. She was weary, but the evening was now almost over.

"I do not like those sun-pictures. They are not permanent, and a water-color drawing is more pleasing to begin with. You can draw a little, Elizabeth? Have you any sketches about Caen or Bayeux?"

Bessie modestly said that she had, and went to bring them; school-girl fashion, she wished to exhibit her work, and to hear that the money spent on her neglected education had not been all spent in vain. Her grandfather was graciously inclined to commend her productions. He told her that she had a nice touch, and that it was quite worth her while to cultivate her talent. "It will add a great interest to your travels when you have the chance of travelling," he said; "for, like life itself, travelling has many blank s.p.a.ces that a taste for sketching agreeably fills up. Ten o'clock already? Yes--good-night."

The following morning Mr. Fairfax and Bessie walked to church together.

Along the road everybody acknowledged the squire with bow or curtsey, and the little children stood respectfully at gaze as he pa.s.sed. He returned the civility of all by lifting a forefinger to his hat, though he spoke to none, and Bessie was led to understand that he had the confidence of his people, and that he probably deserved it. For a sign that there was no bitterness in his own feelings, each token of regard was noted by her with satisfaction.

At the lodge Colonel and Mrs. Stokes joined them, and Mrs. Stokes's bright eyes frankly appreciated the elegant simplicity of Bessie's attire, her chip bonnet and daisies, her dress of French spun silk, white and violet striped, and perfectly fitting Paris gloves. She nodded meaningly to Bessie, and Bessie smiled back her full comprehension that the survey was satisfactory and pleasing.

Some old customs still prevailed at Kirkham. The humble congregation was settled in church before the squire entered his red-curtained pew, and sat quiet after sermon until the squire went out. Bessie's thoughts roved often during the service. Mr. Forbes read apace, and the clerk sang out the responses like an echo with no time to lose. There had been a death in the village during the past week, and the event was now commemorated by a dirge in which the children's shrill treble was supported by the majority of the congregation. The sermon also took up the moral of life and death. It was short and pithy; perhaps it was familiar, and none the less useful for that. Mr. Forbes was not concerned to lead his people into new ways; he believed the old were better. Work and pray, fear G.o.d and keep His commandments, love your neighbor, and meddle not with those who are given to change,--these were his cardinal points, from which he brought to bear on their consciences much powerful doctrine and purifying precept. He was a man of high courage and robust faith, who practised what he preached, and bore that cheerful countenance which is a sign of a heart in prosperity.

After service Colonel and Mrs. Stokes walked home with Mr. Fairfax and Bessie, lunched at Abbotsmead, and lounged about the garden afterward.

This was an inst.i.tution. Sunday is long in country houses, and good neighbors help one another to get rid of it. The Stokes's boys came in the afternoon, to Bessie's great joy; they made a noisy playground of the garden, and behaved just like Jack and Tom and Willie Carnegie, kicking up their heels and laughing at nothing.

"There are no more gooseberries," cried their mother, catching the younger of the two, a bluff copy of herself, and offering him to Bessie to kiss. Bessie kissed him heartily. "You are fond of children, I can see," said her new friend.

"I like a houseful! Oh, when have I had a nice kiss at a boy's hard, round cheeks? Not for years! years! I have five little brothers and two sisters at home."

Mrs. Stokes regarded Bessie with a touched surprise, but she asked no questions; she knew her story in a general inaccurate way. The boy gazed in her face with a pretty lovingness, rubbed his nose suddenly against hers, wrestled himself out of her embrace, and ran away. "When you feel as if you want a good kiss, come to my house," said his mother, her blue eyes shining tenderly. "It must be dreadful to miss little children when you have lived with them. I could not bear it. Abbotsmead always looks to me like a great dull splendid prison."

"My grandfather makes it as pleasant to me as he can; I don't repine,"

said Bessie quickly. "He has given me a beautiful little filly to ride, but she is not quite trained yet; and I shall beg him to let me have a companionable dog; I love a dog."

The church-bells began to ring for afternoon service. Mrs. Stokes shook her head at Bessie's query: n.o.body ever went, she said, but servants and poor people. Evening service there was none, and Mr. Forbes dined with the squire; that also was an inst.i.tution. The gentlemen talked of parochial matters, and Bessie, wisely inferring that they could talk more freely in her absence, left them to themselves and retreated to her private parlor, to read a little and dream a great deal of her friends in the Forest.

At dusk there was a loud jangling indoors and out, and Mrs. Betts summoned her young lady down stairs. She met her grandfather and Mr.

Forbes issuing from the dining-room, and they pa.s.sed together into the hall, where the servants of the house stood on parade to receive their pastor and master. They were a.s.sembled for prayers. Once a week, after supper, this compliment was paid to the Almighty--a remnant of ancient custom which the squire refused to alter or amend. When Bessie had a.s.sisted at this ceremony she had gone through the whole duty of the day, and her reflection on her experience since she came to Abbotsmead was that life as a pageant must be dull--duller than life as a toil.

CHAPTER XXI.

_A DISCOVERY._

While Bessie Fairfax was p.r.o.nouncing the web of her fortunes dull, Fate was spinning some mingled threads to throw into the pattern and give it intricacy and liveliness. The next day Mrs. Stokes chaperoned her to Norminster in quest of that blue bonnet. Mrs. Betts went also, and had a world of shopping to help in on behalf of her young mistress. They drove from the station first to the chief tailor's in High street, the ladies' habitmaker, then to the fashionable hosier, the fashionable haberdasher. By three o'clock Bessie felt herself flagging. What did she want with so many fine clothes? she inquired of Mrs. Stokes with an air of appeal. She was learning that to get up only one character in life as a pageant involves weariness, labor, pains, and money.

"You are going to stay at Brentwood," rejoined her chaperone conclusively.

"And is it so dull at Brentwood that dressing is a resource?" Bessie demurred.

"Wait and see. You will have pleasant occupation enough, I should think.

Most girls would call this an immense treat. But if you are really tired we will go to Miss Jocund now. Mrs. Betts can choose ribbons and gloves."

Miss Jocund was a large-featured woman of a grave and wise countenance.

She read the newspaper in intervals of business, and was reading it now with her gla.s.ses on. Lowering the paper, she recognized a favorite customer in Mrs. Stokes, and laid the news by, but with reluctance. Duty forbade, however, that this lady should be remitted to an a.s.sistant.

"I am sorry to disturb you, Miss Jocund, but it is important--it is about a bonnet," cried Mrs. Stokes gayly. "I have brought you Miss Fairfax of Abbotsmead. I am sure you will make her something quite lovely."

Miss Jocund took off her gla.s.ses, and gave Bessie a deliberate, discerning look-over. "Very happy, ma'am, indeed. Blue, of course?" she said. Bessie acquiesced. "Any taste, any style?" the milliner further queried.

"Yes. Give me always simplicity and no imitations," was the unhesitating, concise reply.

"Miss Fairfax and I understand one another. Anything more to-day, ladies?" Bessie and Mrs. Stokes considered for a moment, and then said they would not detain Miss Jocund any longer from her newspaper. "Ah, ladies! who can exist altogether on _chiffons_?" rejoined the milliner, half apologetically. "I do love my _Times_--I call it my 'gentleman.' I cannot live without my gentleman. Yes, ladies, he does smell of tobacco.

That is because he spends a day and night in the bar-parlor of the Shakespeare Tavern before he visits me. So do evil communications corrupt good manners. The door, Miss Lawson. Good-afternoon, ladies."

"You must not judge of Miss Jocund as a milliner and nothing more," her chaperone instructed Bessie when they had left the shop. "She is a lady herself. Her father was Dr. Jocund, the best physician in Norminster when you could find him sober. He died, and left his daughter with only debts for a fortune; she turned milliner, and has paid every sixpence of them."

Where were they to go next? Bessie recollected that her uncle Laurence lived in the vicinity of the minster, and that she had an errand to him from her grandfather. She had undertaken it cheerfully, feeling that it would be a pleasure to see her kind uncle Laurence again. There was a warmth of geniality about him that was absent from her uncle Frederick and her grandfather, and she had decided that if she was to have any friend amongst her kinsfolk, her uncle Laurence would be that friend.

She was sure that her father, whom she barely knew, had been most like him.

It was not far to Minster Court, and they directed their steps that way.

The streets of Norminster still preserve much of their picturesque antiquity, but they are dull, undeniably dull, except on the occasion of a.s.sizes, races, fairs, and the annual a.s.sembling of the yeomanry and militia. Elections are no more the saturnalia they used to be in the good old times. Bessie was reminded of Bayeux and its sultry drowsiness as they pa.s.sed into the green purlieus of the minster and under a low-browed archway into a s.p.a.cious paved court, where the sun slept on the red-brick backs of the old houses. Mr. Laurence Fairfax's door was in the most remote corner, up a semi-circular flight of steps, guarded on either side by an iron railing.

As the two ladies approached the steps a young countrywoman came down them, saying in a mingled strain of persuasion and threat, "Come, Master Justus: if you don't come along this minute, I'll tell your granma." And a naughty invisible voice made an answer with lisping defiance, "Well, go, Sally, go. Be quick! go before your shoes wear out."

Mrs. Stokes, rounding her pretty eyes and pretty mouth, cried softly, "Oh, what a very rude little boy!" And the very rude little boy appeared in sight, hustled coaxingly behind by the stout respectable housekeeper of Mr. Laurence Fairfax. When he saw the strange ladies he stood stock-still and gazed at them as bold as Hector, and they gazed at him again in mute amazement--a cherub of four years old or thereabouts, with big blue eyes and yellow curls. When he had satisfied himself with gazing, he descended the steps and set off suddenly at a run for the archway. The housekeeper had a flushed, uneasy smile on her face as she recognized Mrs. Stokes--a smile of amused consternation, which the little lady's shocked grimace provoked. Bessie herself laughed in looking at her again, and the housekeeper rallied her composure enough to say, "Oh, the self-will and naughtiness there is in boys, ma'am! But you know it, having boys of your own!"

"Too well, Mrs. Burrage, too well! Is Mr. Laurence Fairfax at home?"

"I am sorry to say that he is not, ma'am. May I make bold to ask if the young lady is Miss Fairfax from Abbotsmead, that was expected?"

Bessie confessed to her ident.i.ty, and while Mrs. Stokes wrote the name of Miss Fairfax on one of her own visiting-cards (for Bessie was still unprovided), Burrage begged, as an old servant of the house, to offer her best wishes and to inquire after the health of the squire. They were interrupted by that rude little boy, who came running back into the court with Sally in pursuit. He was shouting too at the top of his voice, and making its solemn echoes ring again. Burrage with sudden gravity watched what would ensue. Capture ensued, and a second evasion into the street. Burrage shook her head, as who would say that Sally's riotous charge was far beyond her control--which indubitably he was--and Bessie forgot her errand entirely. Whose was that little boy, the picture of herself? Mrs. Stokes recovered her countenance. They turned to go, and were halfway across the court when the housekeeper called after them in haste: "Ladies, ladies! my master has come in by the garden way, if you will be pleased to return?" and they returned, neither of them by word or look affording to the other any intimation of her profound reflections.

Mr. Laurence Fairfax received his visitors with a frank welcome, and bade Burrage bring them a cup of tea. Mrs. Stokes soon engaged him in easy chat, but Bessie sat by in perplexed rumination, trying to reconcile the existence of that little flaxen-haired boy with her preconceived notions of her bachelor uncle. The view of him had let in a light upon her future that pleased while it confused her. The reason it pleased her she would discern as her thoughts cleared. At this moment she was dazzled by a series of surprises. First, by the sight of that cherub, and then by the order that reigned through this quaint and narrow house where her learned kinsman lived. They had come up a winding stair into a large, light hall, lined with books and peopled by marble sages on pedestals, from which opened two doors--the one into a small red parlor where the philosopher ate, the other into a long room looking to the garden and the minster, furnished with the choicest collections of his travelled youth. The "omnibus" of Canon Fournier used to be all dusty disorder. Bessie's silence and her vagrant eyes misled her uncle into the supposition that his old stones, old canvases, and ponderous quartoes interested her curiosity, and noticing that they settled at length, with an intelligent scrutiny, on some object beyond him, he asked what it was, and moved to see.

Nothing rich, nothing rare or ancient--only the tail and woolly hind-quarters of a toy lamb extruded from the imperfectly closed door of a cupboard below a bookcase. Instantly he jumped up and went to shut the cupboard; but first he must open it to thrust in the lamb, and out it tumbled bodily, and after it a wagon with red wheels and black-spotted horses harnessed thereto. As he awkwardly restored them, Mrs. Stokes never moved a muscle, but Bessie smiled irrepressibly and in her uncle's face as he returned to his seat with a fine confusion blushing thereon.

At that moment Burrage came in with the tea. No doubt Mrs. Stokes was equally astonished to see a nursery-cupboard in a philosopher's study, but she could turn her discourse to circ.u.mstances with more skill than her unworldly companion, and she resumed the thread of their interrupted chat with perfect composure. Mr. Laurence Fairfax could not, however, take her cue, and he rose with readiness at the first movement of the ladies to go. He began to say to Bessie that she must make his house her home when she wanted to come to Norminster, and that he should always be glad of her company. Bessie thanked him, and as she looked up in his benevolent face there was a pure friendliness in her eyes that he responded to by a warm pressure of her hand. And as he closed the door upon them he dismissed his sympathetic niece with a most kind and kinsman-like nod.

Mrs. Stokes began to laugh when they were clear of the house: "A pretty discovery! Mr. Laurence Fairfax has a little playfellow: suppose he should turn out to be a married man?" cried she under her breath. "So that is the depth of his philosophy! My Arthur will be mightily amused."

"What a darling little naughty boy that was!" whispered Bessie, also laughing. "How I should like to have him at Abbotsmead! What fun it would be!"