The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax Part 6

"I wish Mr. Moxon better preferment. As for young Musgrave, he must have talent. I was driving through Brook yesterday, and I called at the manor-house. The mother is a modest person of much natural dignity. The son was out. I left a message that I should be glad to see him, and do something for him, if he would walk over to Fairfield."

"He will not come, I warrant," exclaimed Mr. Wiley. "He is a radical fellow, and would say, as soon as look at you, that he had no wish to be enc.u.mbered with patronage."

"He would not say so to Lady Latimer," cried Bessie Fairfax. Her voice rang clear as a bell, and quite startled the composed, refined atmosphere. Everybody looked at her with a smile. My lady exchanged a glance with her niece.

"Then young Musgrave is a friend of yours?" she said, addressing her little guest.

"We are cousins," was Bessie's unhesitating reply.

"I was not aware of it," remarked her grandfather drily.

Bessie was not daunted. Mrs. Musgrave was Mrs. Carnegie's elder sister.

Young Musgrave and the young Carnegies called cousins, and while she was one of the Carnegies she was a cousin too. Besides, Harry Musgrave was the nephew of her father's second wife, and their comradeship dated from his visits to the rectory while her father was alive. She did not offer explanations, but in her own mind she peremptorily refused to deny or relinquish that cousinship. She went on eating in a dream of confusion, very rosy as to the cheeks and very downcast as to the eyes, but not at all ashamed. The little girls wondered with great amazement. Mr. Wiley did not relish his rebuke, and eyed Bessie with anything but charity.

His bad genius set him expatiating further on the hazardous theme of ambition in youths of low birth and mean estate, with allusions to Brook and the wheelwright's shed that could not be misunderstood. Mr. Fairfax, observing his granddaughter, felt uneasy. Lady Latimer generalized to stop the subject. Suddenly said Bessie, flashing at the rector, and quoting Mr. Carnegie, "You attribute to cla.s.s what belongs to character." Then, out of her own irrepressible indignation, she added, "Harry Musgrave is as good a gentleman as you are, and little Christie too, though he may be only a carpenter's son." (Which was not saying much for them, as Mr. Phipps remarked when he was told the story.)

Lady Latimer stood up and motioned to all the young people to come away.

They vanished in retiring, some one road, some another, and for the next five minutes Bessie was left with my lady alone, angry and exquisitely uncomfortable, but not half alive yet to the comic aspect of her very original behavior. She glanced with shy deprecation in Lady Latimer's face, and my lady smiled with a perfect sympathy in her sensations.

"You are not afraid to speak up for an absent friend, but silence is the best answer to such impertinences," said she, and then went on to talk of Abbotsmead and Kirkham till Bessie was almost cheated of her distressing self-consciousness.

Fairfield was a small house, but full of prettiness. Bessie Fairfax had never seen anything so like a picture as the drawing-room, gay with flowers, perfumed, airy, all graceful ease and negligent comfort. From a wide-open gla.s.s door a flight of steps descended to the rose-garden, now in its beauty. Paintings, mirrors decorated the walls; books strewed the tables. There were a hundred things, elegant, grotesque, and useless, to look at and admire. How vivid, varied, delicious life must be thus adorned! Bessie thought, and lost herself a little while in wonder and curiosity. Then she turned to Lady Latimer again. My lady had lost herself in reverie too; her countenance had an expression of weary restlessness and unsatisfied desire. No doubt she had her private cares.

Bessie felt afraid, as if she had unwittingly surprised a secret.

Visitors were announced. The gentlemen came from the dining-room. Mr.

Bernard and Margaret appeared from the rose-garden. So did some of the little girls, and invited Bessie down the steps. There was a general hum of voices and polite laughter. More visitors, more conversation, more effort. Bessie began to feel tired of the restraint, and looked up to her grandfather, who stood in the doorway talking to Margaret. The next minute he came to her, and said, with as much consideration as if she were a grown-up person, "You have had enough of this, Elizabeth. It is time we were returning to Beechhurst."

Margaret understood. "You wish to go? Come, then; I will take you to my room to put on your hat," said she.

They escaped unnoticed except by Lady Latimer. She followed them for a hasty minute, and began to say, "Margaret I have been thinking that Bessie Fairfax will do very well to take Winny's place as bridesmaid next week, since Winny cannot possibly come."

"Oh no, no, no!" cried Bessie, clasping her hands in instant, pleading alarm.

Margaret laughed and bade her hush. "n.o.body contradicts Aunt Olympia,"

she said in a half whisper.

"I will speak to Mr. Fairfax and arrange it at once," Lady Latimer added, and disappeared to carry out her sudden intention.

Bessie reiterated her prayer to be left alone. "You will do very well.

You are very nice," rejoined Margaret, not at all understanding her objections. "White over blue and blue bonnets are the bridesmaids'

colors. My cousin Winny has caught the measles. Her dress will fit you, but Aunt Olympia's maid will see to all that. You must not refuse me."

When they went down stairs Bessie found that her grandfather had accepted for her Lady Latimer's invitation, and that he had also accepted for himself an invitation to the wedding. Nor yet were the troubles of the day over.

"Are you going to walk?" said Mr. Wiley, coming out into the hall. "Then I shall have much pleasure in walking with you. Our roads are the same."

Bessie's dismay was so evident as to be ludicrous. Mr. Wiley was either very forgiving or very pachydermatous. Lady Latimer kissed her, and whispered a warning "Take care!" and she made a sign of setting a watch on her lips.

"So you will not have to be a teacher, after all, Bessie?" the judicious rector took occasion to say the moment they were clear of Fairfield. Mr.

Fairfax listened. Bessie felt hot and angry: what need was there to inflict this on her grandfather? "Was it a dressmaker or a school-mistress Lady Latimer last proposed to make of you? I forget,"

said Mr. Wiley with an air of guileless consideration as he planted his thorn.

"I never heard that there was any idea of dressmaking: I am not fond of my needle," said Bessie curtly.

"Yes, there was. Her ladyship spoke of it to Mrs. Wiley. We hoped that you might be got into Madame Michaud's establishment at Hampton to learn the business. She is first-cla.s.s. My wife patronizes her."

"I wish people would mind their own business."

"There is no harm done. But the remembrance of what you have been saved from should keep you meek and lowly in spirit, Bessie. I have been grieved to-day, _deeply grieved_, to see that you already begin to feel uplifted." Mr. Wiley dwelt in unctuous italics on his regret, and waved his head slowly in token of his mournfulness. Bessie turned scarlet and held her peace.

"You must be very benevolent people here," said Mr. Fairfax sarcastically. "Is Mr. Carnegie so poor and helpless a man that his kind neighbors must interfere to direct his private affairs?"

Mr. Wiley's eyes glittered as he replied, parrying the thrust and returning it: "No, no, but he has a large and increasing family of his own; and with little Bessie thrown entirely on his hands besides, friends might well feel anxious how she was to be provided for--Lady Latimer especially, who interests herself for all who are in need. Her ladyship has a great notion that women should be independent."

"My father is perfectly able and perfectly willing to do everything that is necessary for his children. No one would dream of meddling with us who knew him," cried Bessie impetuously. Her voice shook, she was so annoyed that she was in tears. Mr. Fairfax took her hand, squeezed it tight, and retained it as they walked on. She felt insulted for her dear, good, generous father. She was almost sobbing as she continued in his praise: "He has insured his life for us. I have heard him say that we need never want unless by our own fault. And the little money that was left for me when my real father died has never been touched: it was put into the funds to save up and be a nest-egg for me when I marry."

Mr. Wiley's teeth gleamed his appreciation of this _nave_ bit of information. And even her grandfather could not forbear a smile, though he was touched. "I am convinced that you have been in good hands, Elizabeth," said he warmly. "It was not against Mr. Carnegie that any neglect of natural duty was insinuated, but against me."

Bessie looked down and sighed. Mr. Wiley deprecated the charge of casting blame anywhere. Mr. Fairfax brusquely turned the conversation to matters not personal--to the forest-laws, the common-rights and enclosure acts--and Bessie kept their pace, which quickened imperceptibly, ruminating in silence her experiences of the day.

Mortification mingled with self-ridicule was uppermost. To be a bridesmaid amongst the grand folks at Fairfield--could anything be more absurdly afflicting? To be a seamstress at Madame Michaud's--the odious idea of it! Poor Bessie, what a blessing to her was her gift of humor, her gift for seeing the laughable side of things and people, and especially the laughable side of herself and her trials!

Mr. Wiley was shaken off on the outskirts of the village, where a ragged, unkempt laborer met him, and insisted on exchanging civilities and conventional objections to the weather. "We wants a shower, parson."

"A shower! You're _wet_ enough," growled Mr. Wiley with a gaze of severe reprobation. "And you were drunk on Sunday."

"Yes! I'se wet every day, and at my own expense, too," retorted the delinquent with a grin.

Mr. Fairfax and Bessie walked on to the "King's Arms," and there for the present said good-bye. Bessie ran home to tell her adventures, but on the threshold she met a check in the shape of Jack, set to watch for her return and tell her she was wanted. Mr. John Short was come, and was with Mrs. Carnegie in the drawing-room.

"I say, Bessie, you are not going away, are you?" asked the boy, laying violent hands on her when he had acquitted himself of his message.

"Biddy says you are. I say you sha'n't."

Mrs. Carnegie heard her son's unabashed voice in the hall, and opening the door, she invited Bessie in.

CHAPTER VII.

_HER FATE IS SEALED._

Mr. John Short rose as Miss Fairfax entered, and bowed to her with deference. Bessie, being forbidden by her mother to retreat, sat down with ostentatious resignation to bear what was to come. But her bravado was not well enough grounded to sustain her long. The preliminaries were already concluded when she arrived, and Mrs. Carnegie was giving utterance to her usual regret that her dear little girl had not been taught to speak French or play on the piano. Mr. Fairfax's plenipotentiary looked grave. His own daughters were perfect in those accomplishments--"Indispensable to the education of a finished gentlewoman," he said.

Thereupon Bessie, still in excited spirits, delivered her mind with considerable force and freedom. "It is nonsense to talk of making me a finished gentlewoman," she added: "I don't care to be anything but a woman of sense."

Mr. John Short answered her shrewdly: "There is no reason why you should not be both, Miss Fairfax. A woman of sense considers the fitness of things. And at Abbotsmead none but gentlewomen are at home."

Bessie colored and was silent. "We have been proposing that you should go to school for a year or two, dear," said Mrs. Carnegie persuasively.

Tears came into Bessie's eyes. The lawyer's letter had indeed mentioned school, but she had not antic.i.p.ated that the cruel suggestion would be carried out.