The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax Part 3

The next morning Mr. Carnegie was not in imperative haste to start on his daily circuit. The boys had to give him an account of yesterday's fun. He heard them comfortably, and rejoiced the heart of Bessie by telling her to be ready to ride with him at ten o'clock--her mother could spare her. Bessie was not to wait for when the hour came. These rides with her father were ever her chief delight. She wore a round beaver hat with a rosette in front, and a habit of dark blue serge.

(There had been some talk of a new one for her, but now her mother reflected that it would not be wanted.)

It was a delicate morning, the air was light and clear, the sky gray and silvery. Bessie rode Miss Hoyden, the doctor's little mare, and trotted along at a brisk pace by his stout cob Brownie. She had a sense of the keenest enjoyment in active exercise. Mr. Carnegie looked aside at her often, his dear little Bessie, thinking, but not speaking, of the separation that impended. Bessie's pleasure in the present was enough to throw that into the background. She did not a.n.a.lyze her sensations, but her cheeks glowed, her eyes shone, and she knew that she was happy. They were on their way to Littlemire, where Mr. Moxon lived--a poor clergyman with whom young Musgrave was reading. Almost as soon as they were clear of the village they struck into a green ride through the beeches, and cut off a great angle of the high-road, coming out again on a furzy opening dotted with old oaks, where the black pigs of the cottagers would by and by feast and grow fat on their common rights. It was a lovely, damp, perilous spot, haunted by the ghost of fever and ague. The soft, vivid turf was oozy there, and the long-rooted stones were clothed with wet, rusted moss. The few cottages of the hamlet wore deep hoods of thatch, and stood amongst prosperous orchards; one of them, a little larger than the rest, being the habitation of Mr. Moxon, the vicar of Littlemire, whose church, dame-school, and income were all of the same modest proportions as his dwelling. He had an invalid wife and no attraction for resident pupils, but he was thankful when he could get one living not too far off. Young Musgrave walked from Brook twice a week--a long four miles--to read with him.

The lad was in the vicar's parlor when Mr. Carnegie and Bessie Fairfax stopped at the gate. He came out with flushed brow and ruffled hair to keep Bessie company and hold the doctor's horse while he went up stairs with Mr. Moxon to visit his wife. That room where she lay in pain often, in weakness always, was a mean, poorly-furnished room, with a window in the thatch, and just a glimpse of heaven beyond, but that glimpse was all reflected in the blessedness of her peaceful face. Mr. Moxon's threadbare coat hung loosely on his large lean frame, like the coat of a poor, negligent gentleman, such as he was. He had the reputation of being a capital scholar, but he had not made the way in the world that had been expected of him. He was vicar of Littlemire when the Reverend Geoffry Fairfax came into the Forest, and he was vicar of Littlemire still, with no prospect of promotion. Perhaps he did not seek it. His wife loved this buried nook, and he loved it for her sake. Mr. Carnegie took it often in his rides, because they called him their friend and he could help them. They had not many besides: Lady Latimer and Mr. Phipps did not forget them, but they were quite out of the way of the visiting part of the community.

"You have done with Hampton, then, Harry?" Bessie said, waiting with her comrade at the gate.

"Yes, so far as school goes, except that I shall always have a kindness for the old place and the old doctor. It was a grand thing, my winning that scholarship, Bessie."

"And now you will have your heart's desire--you will go to Oxford."

"Yes; Moxon is an Oxford man, and the old doctor says out-and-out the best cla.s.sic of his acquaintance. You have not seen my prize-books yet.

When are you coming to Brook, Bessie?"

"The first time I have a chance. What are the books, Harry?"

"All standard books--poetry," Harry said.

The young people's voices, chiming harmoniously, sounded in Mrs. Moxon's room. The poor suffering lady, who was extended on an inclined couch below the window, looked down at them, and saw Harry standing at Miss Hoyden's head, with docile Brownie's bridle on his left arm, and Bessie, with the fine end of her slender whip, teasing the dark fuzz of his hair. They made a pretty picture at the gate, laughing and chattering their confidences aloud.

"What did Harry Musgrave say to your news, Bessie?" her father asked as they rode away from the vicar's house.

"I forgot to tell him!" cried she, pulling up and half turning round.

"I had so much to hear." But Mr. Carnegie said it was not worth while to bring Harry out again from his books. How fevered the lad looked! Why did not Moxon patronize open windows?

The road they were pursuing was a gradual long ascent, which brought them in sight of the sea and of a vast expanse of rolling heath and woodland. When they reached the top of the hill they breathed their horses a few minutes and admired the view, then struck into a bridle-track across the heath, and regained the high-road about a mile from Beechhurst. Scudding along in front of them was the familiar figure of Miss Wort in her work-a-day costume--a drab cloak and poke bonnet, her back up, and limp petticoats dragging in the dust. She turned swiftly in at the neat garden-gate that had a green s.p.a.ce before it, where numerous boles of trees, lopt of their branches, lay about in picturesque confusion. A wheelwright's shed and yard adjoined the cottage, and Mr. Carnegie, halting without dismounting, whistled loud and shrill to call attention. A wiry, gray-headed man appeared from the shed, and came forward with a rueful, humorous twinkle in his shrewd blue eyes.

"Done again, Mr. Carnegie!" said he. "The old woman's done you again. It is no good denying her physic, for physic she will have. She went to Hampton Infirmary last Sat.u.r.day with a ticket from Miss Wort, and brought home two bottles o' new mixture. So you see, sir, between 'em, you're frustrated once more."

"I am not surprised. Drugging is as bad a habit as drinking, and as hard to leave off. Miss Wort has just gone in to your wife, so I will not intrude. What is your son doing at present, Christie?"

"He's about somewhere idling with his drawing-book and bits o' colors.

He takes himself off whenever it is a finer day than common. Most likely he's gone to Great-Ash Ford. He's met with a mate there after his own mind--an artist chap. Was you wanting him, Mr. Carnegie?"

"There is a job of painting to do at my stable, but it can wait. Only tell him, and he will suit his convenience."

At this moment Miss Wort reappeared in a sort of furtive hurry. She gave a timid, sidelong glance at the doctor, and then addressed Bessie.

Mr. Carnegie had his eye upon her: she was the thorn in his professional flesh. She meddled with his patients--a pious woman for whom other people's souls and internal complaints supplied the excitement absent from her own condition and favorite literature. She had some superfluous income and much unoccupied time, which she devoted to promiscuous visiting and the relief (or otherwise) of her poorer and busier neighbors. Mr. Carnegie had refused to accept the plea of her good heart in excuse of her bad practice, and had denounced her, in a moment of extreme irritation, as a presumptuous and mischievous woman; and Miss Wort had publicly rejoined that she would not call in Mr. Carnegie if she were at death's door, because who could expect a blessing on the remedies of a man who was not a professor of religion? The most cordial terms they affected was an armed neutrality. The doctor was never free from suspicion of Miss Wort. Though she looked scared and deprecating, she did not shrink from responsibility, and would administer a dose of her own prescribing in even critical cases, and pacify the doubts and fears of her unlucky patient with tender a.s.surances that if it did her no good, it could do her no harm. Men she let alone, they were safe from her: she did not pretend to know the queer intricacies of their insides; also their aversion for physic she had found to be invincible.

"Two of the pills ten minutes afore dinner-time, Miss Wort, ma'am, did you say? It is not wrote so plain on the box as it might be," cried a plaintive treble from the cottage door. The high hedge and a great bay tree hid Mr. Carnegie from Mrs. Christie's view, but Miss Wort, timorously aware of his observation, gave a guilty start, and shrieking convulsively in the direction of the voice, "Yes, yes!" rushed to the doctor's stirrup and burst into eager explanation:

"It is only Trotter's strengthening pills, Mr. Carnegie. The basis of them is iron--iron or steel. I feel positive that they will be of service to Mrs. Christie, poor thing! with that dreadful sinking at her stomach; for I have tried them myself on similar occasions. No, Mr.

Carnegie, a crust of bread would not be more to the purpose. A crust of bread, indeed! Dr. Thomson of Edinburgh, the famous surgeon, has the highest opinion of Trotter."

Mr. Carnegie's face was a picture of disgust. He would have felt himself culpable if he had not delivered an emphatic protest against Miss Wort's experiments. Mrs. Christie had come trembling to the gate--a pretty-featured woman, but sallow as old parchment--and the doctor addressed his expostulations to her. Many defeats had convinced him of the futility of appealing to Miss Wort.

"If you had not the digestion of an ostrich, Mrs. Christie, you would have been killed long ago," said he with severe reprobation. "You have devoured half a man's earnings, and spoilt as fine a const.i.tution as a woman need be blessed with, by your continual drugging."

"No, Mr. Carnegie, sir--with all respect to your judgment--I never had no const.i.tution worth naming where const.i.tutions come," said Mrs.

Christie, deeply affronted. "That everybody's witness as knew me afore ever I married into the Forest. And what has kept me up since, toiling and moiling with a husband and boys, if the drugs hasn't? I hope I'm thankful for the blessing that has been sent with them." Miss Wort purred her approval of these pious sentences.

"Some day you'll be in a hurry for an antidote, Mrs. Christie: that will be the end of taking random advice."

"Well, sir, if so I be, my William is not the man to grudge me what's called for. As you _are_ here, Mr. Carnegie, I should wish to have an understanding whether you mean to provide me with doctor's stuff; if not, I'll look elsewhere. I've not heard that Mr. Robb sets his face against drugs yet; which it stands to reason has a use, or G.o.d Almighty wouldn't have given them."

Mr. Carnegie rode off with a curt rejoinder to Mrs. Christie that he would not supply her foolish cravings, Robb or no Robb. Miss Wort was sorry for his contempt of the divine bounties, and sought an explanation in his conduct: "Poor fellow! he has not entered a church since Easter, unless he walks over to Littlemire, which is not likely."

"If he has not entered Mr. Wiley's church, I'm with him, and so is my William," said Mrs. Christie with sudden energy. "I can't abide Mr.

Wiley. Oh, he's an arrogant man! It's but seldom he calls this way, and I don't care if it was seldomer; for could he have spoken plainer if it had been to a dog? 'You'd be worse if you ailed aught, Mrs. Christie,'

says he, and grins. I'd been giving him an account of the poor health I enjoy. And my William heard him with his own ears when he all but named Mr. Carnegie in the pulpit, and not to his credit; so he's in the right of it to keep away. A kinder doctor there is not far nor near, for all he has such an unaccountable prejudice against what he lives by."

"But that is not Christian. We ought not to absent ourselves from the holy ordinances because the clergyman happens to offend us. We ought to bear patiently being told of our faults," urged Miss Wort, who on no account would have allowed one of the common people to impugn the spiritual authorities unrebuked: her own private judgment on doctrine was another matter.

"'Between him and thee,' yes," said Mrs. Christie, who on some points was as sensitive and acute as a well-born woman. "But it is taking a mean advantage of a man to talk at him when he can't answer; that's what my William says. For if he spoke up for himself, they'd call it brawling in church, and turn him out. He ain't liked, Miss Wort; you can't say he is, to tell truth. Not many of the gentlemen does attend church, except them as goes for the look o' the thing, like the old admiral and a few more."

Miss Wort groaned audibly, then cheered up, and with a gush of feeling a.s.sured her humble friend that it would not be so in a better world; _there_ all would be love and perfect harmony. And so she went on her farther way. Mr. Carnegie and Bessie Fairfax, riding slowly, were still in sight. The next visit Miss Wort had proposed to pay was to a scene of genuine distress, and she saw with regret that the doctor would forestall her. He dismounted and entered a cottage by the roadside, and when she reached it the door was shut, Brownie's bridle hung on the paling, and Bessie was letting Miss Hoyden crop the sweet gra.s.s on the bank while she waited. Miss Wort determined to stay for the doctor's exit; she had remedies in her pocket for this case also.

Within the cottage there was a good-looking, motherly woman, and a large-framed young man of nineteen or twenty who sat beside the fire with a ghastly face, and hands hanging down in dark despondency. He had the aspect of one rising from a terrible illness; in fact, he had just come out of prison after a month's hard labor.

"It is his mind that's worst hurt, sir," said his mother, lifting her eyes full of tears to Mr. Carnegie's kind face. "But he has a sore pain in his chest, too, that he never used to have."

"Stand up, Tom, and let me have a look at you," said the doctor, and Tom stood up, grim as death, starved, shamed, unutterably miserable.

"Mr. Wiley's been in, but all he had to say was as he hoped Tom would keep straight now, since he'd found out by unhappy experience as the way of transgressors is hard," the poor woman told her visitor, breaking into a sob as she spoke.

Mr. Carnegie considered the lad, and told him to sit down again, then turned to the window. His eye lit on Miss Wort Standing outside with downcast face, and hands as if she were praying. He tapped on the gla.s.s, and as she rushed to the door he met her with a flag of truce in the form of a requisition for aid.

"Miss Wort, I know you are a liberal soul, and here is a case where you can do some real good, if you will be guided," he said firmly. "I was going to appeal to Lady Latimer, but I have put so much on her ladyship's kindness lately--"

"Oh, Mr. Carnegie! I have a right to help here," interrupted Miss Wort.

"A _right_, for poor Tom was years and years in my Sunday-school cla.s.s; so he can't be very bad! Didn't Admiral Parkins and the other magistrates say that they would rather send his master to prison than him, if they had the power?"

"Yes; but he has done his prison now, and the pressing business is to keep him from going altogether to the deuce. I want him to have a good meal of meat three or four times a week, and light garden-work--all he is fit for now. And then we shall see what next."

"I wo'ant list and I wo'ant emigrate; I'll stop where I am and live it down," announced Tom doggedly.

"Yes, yes, that is what I should expect of you, Tom," said Miss Wort.

"Then you will recover everybody's good opinion."

"I don't heed folks' opinions, good or bad. I know what I know."

"Well, then, get your cap, and come home to dinner with me; it is roast mutton," said Miss Wort, as if pleading with a fractious child.

Tom rose heavily, took his cap, and followed her out. Mr. Carnegie watched them as they turned down a back lane to the village, the lathy figure of the lad towering by the head and shoulders above the poke bonnet and drab cloak of Miss Wort. He was talking with much violent gesture of arm and fist, and she was silent. But she was not ruminating physic.

"Miss Wort is like one of the old saints--she is not ashamed in any company," said Bessie Fairfax.

"If justice were satisfied with good intentions, Miss Wort would be a blameless woman," said her father.