"HERE IS OUR BESSIE."
An interruption occurred at this moment. The friendly guard made his
appearance again, accompanied by the same white-haired old clergyman
whom Bessie had noticed. He came to offer his services to the young
ladies. He cheered Miss Sefton's drooping spirits by reiterating the
guard's assurance that they need only fear the inconvenience of another
hour's delay.
The sight of the kind, benevolent countenance was reassuring and
comforting, and after their new friend had left them the girls resumed
their talk with fresh alacrity.
Miss Sefton was the chief speaker. She began recounting the glories of a
grand military ball at Knightsbridge, at which she had been present, and
some private theatricals and tableaux that had followed. She had a
vivid, picturesque way of describing things, and Bessie listened with a
sort of dreamy fascination that lulled her into forgetfulness of her
parents' anxiety.
In spite of her alleged want of imagination, she was conscious of a sort
of weird interest in her surroundings. The wintry afternoon had closed
into evening, but the whiteness of the snow threw a dim brightness
underneath the faint starlight, while the gleam of the carriage lights
enabled them to see the dark figures that passed and repassed underneath
their window.
It was intensely cold, and in spite of her furs Miss Sefton shivered and
grew perceptibly paler. She was evidently one of those spoiled children
of fortune who had never learned lessons of endurance, who are easily
subdued and depressed by a passing feeling of discomfort; even Bessie's
sturdy cheerfulness was a little infected by the unnatural stillness
outside. The line ran between high banks, but in the mysterious twilight
they looked like rocky defiles closing them in.
After a time Bessie's attention wandered, and her interest flagged.
Military balls ceased to interest her as the temperature grew lower and
lower. Miss Sefton, too, became silent, and Bessie's mind filled with
gloomy images. She thought of ships bedded in ice in Arctic regions; of
shipwrecked sailors on frozen seas; of lonely travellers laying down
their weary heads on pillows of snow, never to rise again; of homeless
wanderers, outcasts from society, many with famished babes at their
breasts, cowering under dark arches, or warming themselves at smoldering
fires.
"Thank God that, as father says, we cannot realize what people have to
suffer," thought Bessie. "What would be the use of being young and happy
and free from pain, if we were to feel other people's miseries? Some of
us, who are sympathetic by nature, would never smile again. I don't
think when God made us, and sent us into the world to live our own
lives, that He meant us to feel like that. One can't mix up other
people's lives with one's own; it would make an awful muddle."
"Miss Lambert, are you asleep, or dreaming with your eyes open? Don't
you see we are moving? There was such a bustle just now, and then they
got the steam up, and now the engine is beginning to work. Oh! how
slowly we are going! I could walk faster. Oh! we are stopping again--no,
it is only my fancy. Is not the shriek of the whistle musical for once?"
"I was not asleep; I was only thinking; but my thoughts had travelled
far. Are we really moving? There, the snow-plow has cleared the line; we
shall go on faster presently."
"I hope so; it is nearly eight. I ought to have reached London an hour
ago. Poor Neville, how disappointed he will be. Oh, we are through the
drift now and they are putting on more steam."
"Yes, we shall be at Cliffe in another ten minutes;" and Bessie roused
in earnest. Those ten minutes seemed interminable before the lights of
the station flashed before their eyes.
"Here she is--here is our Bessie!" exclaimed a voice, and a fine-looking
young fellow in an ulster ran lightly down the platform as Bessie waved
her handkerchief. He was followed more leisurely by a handsome,
gray-haired man with a quiet, refined-looking face.
"Tom--oh, Tom!" exclaimed Bessie, almost jumping into his arms, as he
opened the carriage door. "Were mother and Hattie very frightened? Why,
there is father!" as Dr. Lambert hurried up.
"My dear child, how thankful I am to see you! Why, she looks quite
fresh, Tom."
"As fit as possible," echoed Tom.
"Yes, I am only cold. Father, the guard put me in with a young lady. She
was going to London, but it is too late for her to travel alone, and she
is afraid of going to a hotel. May I bring her home? Her name is Edna
Sefton. She lives at The Grange, Oatlands."
Dr. Lambert seemed somewhat taken aback by his daughter's speech.
"Edna Sefton! Why, that is Eleanor Sefton's daughter! What a strange
coincidence!" And then he muttered to himself, "Eleanor Sartoris'
daughter under our roof! I wonder what Dora will say?" And then he
turned to the fair, striking-looking girl whom Tom was assisting with
all the alacrity that a young man generally shows to a pretty girl:
"Miss Sefton, you will be heartily welcome for your mother's sake; she
and I were great friends in the 'auld lang syne.' Will you come with me?
I have a fly waiting for Bessie; my son will look after the luggage;"
and Edna obeyed him with the docility of a child.
But she glanced at him curiously once or twice as she walked beside him.
"What a gentlemanly, handsome man he was!" she thought. Yes, he looked
like a doctor; he had the easy, kindly manner which generally belongs to
the profession. She had never thought much about her own father, but
to-night, as they drove through the lighted streets, her thoughts, oddly
enough, recurred to him. Dr. Lambert was sitting opposite the two girls,
but his eyes were fixed oftenest on his daughter.
"Your mother was very anxious and nervous," he said, "and so was Hatty,
when Tom brought us word that the train was snowed up in Sheen Valley I
had to scold Hatty, and tell her she was a goose; but mother was nearly
as bad; she can't do without her crutch, eh, Bessie?" with a gleam of
tenderness in his eyes, as they rested on his girl.
Edna felt a little lump in her throat, though she hardly knew why;
perhaps she was tired and over-strained; she had never missed her father
before, but she fought against the feeling of depression.
"I am so sorry your son has to walk," she said politely; but Dr. Lambert
only smiled.
"A walk will not hurt him, and our roads are very steep."
As he spoke, the driver got down, and Bessie begged leave to follow his
example.
"We live on the top of the hill," she said apologetically; "and I cannot
bear being dragged up by a tired horse, as father knows by this time;"
and she joined her brother, who came up at that moment.
Tom had kept the fly well in sight.
"That's an awfully jolly-looking girl, Betty," he observed, with the
free and easy criticism of his age. "I don't know when I have seen a
prettier girl; uncommon style, too--fair hair and dark eyes; she is a
regular beauty."
"That is what boys always think about," returned Bessie, with
good-humored contempt. "Girls are different. I should be just as much
interested in Miss Sefton if she were plain. I suppose you mean to be
charmed with her conversation, and to find all her remarks witty because
she has _les beaux yeux_."
"I scorn to take notice of such spiteful remarks," returned Tom, with a
shrug. "Girls are venomous to each other. I believe they hate to hear
one another praised, even by a brother."
"Hold your tongue, Tom," was the rejoinder. "It takes my breath away to
argue with you up this hill. I am not too ill-natured to give up my own
bed to Miss Sefton. Let us hurry on, there's a good boy, or they will
arrive before us."
As this request coincided with Tom's private wishes, he condescended to
walk faster; and the brother and sister were soon at the top of the
hill, and had turned into a pretty private road bordered with trees,
with detached houses standing far back, with long, sloping strips of
gardens. The moon had now risen, and Bessie could distinctly see a
little group of girls, with shawls over their heads, standing on the top
of a flight of stone steps leading down to a large shady garden
belonging to an old-fashioned house. The front entrance was round the
corner, but the drawing-room window was open, and the girls had gained
the road by the garden way, and stood shivering and expectant; while the
moon illumined the grass terraces that ran steeply from the house, and
shone on the meadow that skirted the garden.
"Run in, girls; you will catch cold," called out Bessie; but her prudent
suggestion was of no avail, for a tall, lanky girl rushed into the road
with the rapturous exclamation, "Why, it is our Bessie after all, though
she looked so tall in the moonlight, and I did not know Tom's new
ulster." And here Bessie was fallen upon and kissed, and handed from one
to another of the group, and then borne rapidly down the steps and
across the terrace to the open window.
"Here she is, mother; here is our Bessie, not a bit the worse. And Hatty
ought to be ashamed of herself for making us all miserable!" exclaimed
Katie.
"My Hatty sha'n't be scolded. Mother, dear, if you only knew how sweet
home looks after the Sheen Valley! Don't smother me any more, girls. I
want to tell you something that will surprise you;" and Bessie, still
holding her mother's hand, but looking at Hatty, gave a rapid and
somewhat indistinct account of her meeting with Edna Sefton.
"And she will have my room, mother," continued Bessie, a little
incoherently, for she was tired and breathless, and the girl's
exclamations were so bewildering.
Mrs. Lambert, a pale, care-worn woman, with a sweet pathetic sort of
face, was listening with much perplexity, which was not lessened by the
sight of her husband ushering into the room a handsome-looking girl,
dressed in the most expensive fashion.
"Dora, my dear, this is Bessie's fellow-sufferer in the snowdrift; we
must make much of her, for she is the daughter of my old friend, Eleanor
Sartoris--Mrs. Sefton now. Bessie has offered her her own room to-night,
as it is too late for her to travel to London."
A quick look passed between the husband and wife, and a faint color came
to Mrs. Lambert's face, but she was too well-bred to express her
astonishment.
"You are very welcome, my dear," she said quietly. "We will make you as
comfortable as we can. These are all my girls," and she mentioned their
names.
"What a lot of girls," thought Edna. She was not a bit shy by nature,
and somehow the situation amused her. "What a comfortable, homelike
room, and what a lovely fire! And--well, of course, they were not rich;
any one could see that; but they were nice, kind people."
"This is better than the snowdrift," she said, with a beaming smile, as
Dr. Lambert placed her in his own easy chair, and Tom brought her a
footstool and handed her a screen, and her old acquaintance Bessie
helped her to remove her wraps. The whole family gathered round her,
intent on hospitality to the bewitching stranger--only the "Crutch," as
Tom called her, tripped away to order Jane to light a fire in her room,
and to give out the clean linen for the unexpected guest, and to put a
few finishing touches to the supper-table.
The others did not miss her at first. Christine, a tall, graceful girl
who had inherited her father's good looks, was questioning Edna about
the journey, and the rest were listening to the answers.
Hatty, a pale, sickly-looking girl, whose really fine features were
marred by unhealthy sullenness and an anxious, fretful expression, was
hanging on every word; while the tall schoolgirl Ella, and the smaller,
bright-eyed Katie, were standing behind their mother, trying to hide
their awkwardness and bashfulness, till Tom came to the rescue by
finding them seats, with a whispered hint to Katie that it was not good
manners to stare so at a stranger. Edna saw everything with quiet,
amused eyes; she satisfied Christine's curiosity, and found replies to
all Mrs. Lambert's gentle, persistent questioning. Tom, too, claimed her
attention by all sorts of dexterous wiles. She must look at him, and
thank him, when he found that screen for her; she could not disregard
him when he was so solicitous about the draft from the window, so
anxious to bring her another cushion.
"I did not know you were such a ladies' man, Tom," observed Dr. Lambert
presently, in a tone that made Tom retreat with rather a foolish
expression.
With all his love for his children, Dr. Lambert was sometimes capable of
a smooth sarcasm. Tom felt as though he had been officious; had, in
fact, made a fool of himself, and drew off into the background. His
father was often hard on him, Tom said to himself, in an aggrieved way,
and yet he was only doing his duty, as a son of the house, in waiting on
this fascinating young lady.
"Poor boy, he is very young!" thought Edna, who noticed this by-play
with some amusement; "but he will grow older some day, and he is very
good-looking;" and then she listened with a pretty show of interest to a
story Dr. Lambert was telling her of when he was snowed up in Scotland
as a boy.
When Bessie returned she found them all in good spirits, and her
fellow-traveller laughing and talking as though she had known them for
years; even Tom's brief sulkiness had vanished, and, unmindful of his
father's caustic tongue, he had again ventured to join the charmed
circle.
It was quite late before the girls retired to rest, and as Edna followed
Bessie up the broad, low staircase, while Tom lighted them from below,
she called out gayly. "Good-night, Mr. Lambert; it was worth while
being snowed up in the Sheen Valley to make such nice friends, and to
enjoy such a pleasant evening."
Edna really meant what she said, for the moment; she was capable of
these brief enthusiasms. Pleasantness of speech, that specious coinage
of conventionality, was as the breath of life to her. Her girlish vanity
was gratified by the impression she had made on the Lambert family, and
even Tom's crude, boyish admiration was worth something.
"To be all things to all men" is sometimes taken by vain, worldly people
in a very different sense from that the apostle intended. Girls of Edna
Sefton's caliber--impressionable, vivacious, egotistical, and capable of
a thousand varying moods--will often take their cue from other people,
and become grave with the grave, and gay with the gay, until they weary
of their role, and of a sudden become their true selves. And yet there
is nothing absolutely wrong in these swift, natural transitions; many
sympathetic natures act in the same way, by very reason and force of
their sympathy. For the time being they go out of themselves, and, as it
were, put themselves in other people's places. Excessive sympathy is
capable of minor martyrdom; their reflected suffering borders upon real
pain.
When Bessie ushered Edna into her little room, she looked round proudly
at the result of her own painstaking thoughtfulness. A bright fire
burned in the small grate, and her mother's easy chair stood beside
it--heavy as it was, Bessie had carried it in with her own hands. The
best eider-down quilt, in its gay covering, was on the bed, and the new
toilet-cover that Christine had worked in blue and white cross-stitch
was on the table. Bessie had even borrowed the vase of Neapolitan
violets that some patient had sent her father, and the sweet perfume
permeated the little room.
Bessie would willingly have heard some encomium on the snug quarters
provided for the weary guest, but Edna only looked round her
indifferently, and then stifled a yawn.
"Is there anything you want? Can I help you? Oh, I hope you will sleep
comfortably!" observed Bessie, a little mortified by Edna's silence.
"Oh, yes: I am so tired that I am sure I shall sleep well," returned
Edna; and then she added quickly, "but I am so sorry to turn you out of
your room."
"Oh, that does not matter at all, thank you," replied Bessie, stirring
the fire into a cheerful blaze, and then bidding her guest good-night;
but Edna, who had taken possession of the easy chair, exclaimed:
"Oh, don't go yet--it is only eleven, and I am never in bed until
twelve. Sit down a moment, and warm yourself."
"Mother never likes us to be late," hesitated Bessie; but she lingered,
nevertheless. This was not an ordinary evening, and there were
exceptions to every rule, so she knelt down on the rug a moment, and
watched Edna taking down the long plaits of fair hair that had crowned
her shapely head. "What lovely hair!" thought Bessie; "what a beautiful
young creature she is altogether!"
Edna was unconscious of the admiration she was exciting. She was looking
round her, and trying to realize what her feelings would be if she had
to inhabit such a room. "Why, our servants have better rooms," she
thought.
To a girl of Edna's luxurious habits Bessie's room looked very poor and
mean. The little strips of faded carpet, the small, curtainless
bedstead, the plain maple washstand and drawers, the few simple prints
and varnished bookcase were shabby enough in Edna's eyes. She could not
understand how any girl could be content with such a room; and yet
Bessie's happiest hours were spent there. What was a little shabbiness,
or the wear and tear of homely furniture, to one who saw angels'
footprints even in the common ways of life, and who dreamed sweet,
innocent dreams of the splendors of a heavenly home? To these sort of
natures even threadbare garments can be worn proudly, for to these free
spirits even poverty loses its sting. It is not "how we live," but "how
we think about life," that stamps our characters, and makes us the men
and women that we are.