SEVEN YEARS LATER.
Seven years, and from a lovely child of eight years old Bessie McPherson
had grown to a wonderfully beautiful girl of fifteen, whose face once
seen could never be forgotten, it was so sweet, and pure, and refined,
and yet so sad in its expression at times, as if she carried some burden
heavier than the care of her father, who was fast sinking into a state
of confirmed invalidism, and to whom she devoted all the freshness of
her young life, with no thought for herself or her own comfort. And
there was a shadow on the girl's life; a burden of shame and regret for
the silly, frivolous mother, who spent so little time at home, but who
flitted from place to place on the Continent, not always in the best of
company but managing generally to hang on to some old dowager either
English, French, or German, and so cover herself with an appearance of
respectability. Sometimes Lord Hardy was with her, and sometimes he was
not, for as he grew older and knew her better, he began to weary of her
a very little. Just now he was in Egypt, and before he started he sent
her a receipt in full for all her indebtedness to him for borrowed money
which he knew she could never pay. And Daisy had written to her husband
that the debt was paid, and had given him to understand that a stroke of
unparalleled success had enabled her to do it. When her mother died two
years before, and left a few hundreds to her daughter, Archie had urged
the necessity of sending the whole to young Hardy, but Daisy had refused
and spent it for herself. Now, however, it was paid, and he was glad,
and quite content with his uneventful life, even though, it was a life
of the closest economy and self-denial for himself and Bessie.
When Daisy had plenty she divided with the household at Stoneleigh, and
when she had little she kept it for herself, and Archie and Bessie
shifted for themselves--or rather the latter did, and was sometimes
almost as hungry as she had been when she ate the dry bread and
shriveled grapes on the fifth floor back of some large hotel.
Bessie understood perfectly her mother's mode of life, and knew that
though she was not degraded in the worst sense of the word, she was an
adventuress and a gambler, whom good, pure women shunned, and over whom
she mourned as a mother mourns for the child which has gone astray. And
yet Bessie's life was a comparatively happy one, for she had her father,
and she had Neil, her cousin, the handsome and spirited boy from Eton,
and later the dashing student from Oxford, who came sometimes to
Stoneleigh and made the place like heaven to the young girl blooming
there unseen and unknown to the great world outside, and Bessie hoped to
see him soon, for she was going with her father to London, where she had
never been since she was a child, and of which she did not remember
much. This journey had cost Bessie a great deal of anxiety and planning
as to how they could afford it; but by saving a little here and there,
and by extra self-denials on her part, sufficient money for the journey,
and for a week in town, was raised at last, and the trip decided upon.
Bessie would have liked a new dress and hat for herself, and a new coat
for her father, but these were out of the question, so she brushed and
cleaned her father's three-year-old coat, and washed and ironed her
two-year-old Holland linen, freshened up a blue ribbon for her last
year's hat, mended her gloves, put plenty of clean collars, and cuffs,
and handkerchiefs, in her bag, borrowed Dorothy's umbrella, and was
ready to start on her journey without a thought that she might look a
little old-fashioned and countrified in the gay city. They found some
cheap lodgings in the vicinity of High street, Kensington, and then she
sent her card to Neil, who came at once, and tried to be gay, and appear
as usual, but she felt that he was ill at ease, and the old hair cloth
sofa and chairs looked shabbier than ever to her, when she saw his
critical eyes upon them, and felt how out of place he was in that humble
room, with his fashionable dress and town-bred air of elegance and
luxury.
"I say, Dot, why in the name of wonder did you stumble into such a hole
as this? Could you find no better lodgings than these in all London?" he
said to her at last.
"Yes, Neil," she replied, "we could find lodgings fit for the queen, but
then we have not the queen's income, and these rooms are so cheap--only
a pound a week, and the kitchen fire included, I know they are not
pretty, but they are very clean and quiet, and Mrs. Buncher is so kind."
Bessie tried to speak naturally, but there was a tremor in her voice,
and the tears came to her great blue eyes as she looked up at her
cousin. Neil saw the tears, and stooping over her he kissed the
quivering lips, and stroking the glossy hair, said to her:
"Never mind, Bess, your face makes everything lovely, and this dingy
parlor with you in it is pleasanter to me than the finest drawing-room
in Grosvenor Square. But you ought not to be here, you and your father.
You should be at Trevellian House, as our guests, and if I owned it you
should; but there's a lot of old pokes staying there now, friends of
Blanche--Lord and Lady Somebody, Mother is great on the titles, you
know."
"Yes, I know," Bessie said, slowly; then, after a moment, she added: "I
should like to see your mother and Miss Trevellian. I was too young at
Penrhyn Park to remember much about them. Do you think they will call?"
Neil knew they would not, and he could scarcely repress a smile as he
fancied the McPherson carriage, with his mother and Blanche, driving up
before that shabby house, but he said:
"Perhaps so, though they are always so busy during the season; but I'll
tell you how you can see them. Go to the park to-morrow afternoon about
five o'clock. They are sure to be there in their gorgeous attire, and
Blanche will have her poodle-dog."
"Shall you be there?" Bessie asked, and Neil replied:
"Yes, possibly," while to himself he thought that he should not, for how
could he ride by with the gay throng and know that Bessie was sitting in
a hired chair watching for him, and most likely making some
demonstration which would draw attention to her?
"I may, and I may not," he continued: "but it will make no difference;
you will see Blanche with her poodle and her red parasol, and you will
see the princess, if you are there about half past five or six, but for
Heaven's sake don't rush forward like an idiot, as so many do,
especially Americans and people from the country: it stamps you at once
as a greenhorn."
"No, I won't," Bessie said, humbly, for something in Neil's tone hurt
her; then, as she saw him consulting his watch, she said: "Oh, Neil,
can't I walk with you just a little way? Father never goes out after
tea, and I do so long for some fresh air."
Neil looked at his watch again. It was almost six, and at seven there
was a grand dinner at Trevellian house, at which he was expected to be
present. But Bessie's blue eyes and eager face drove everything else
from his mind, and he was soon walking with her in the lovely Kensington
gardens, and her hand was on his arm, and his hand was on hers, and in
watching her bright face and listening to her quaint remarks, he forgot
how fast the minutes were going by, and the grand dinner at home waited
for him a quarter of an hour, and then the guests sat down without him
and Lady Jane's face wore a dark, stormy look, when the son of the house
appeared smiling, handsome, and gracious, and apologizing for his
tardiness by saying frankly that he was in the garden, and forgot the
lapse of time.
"You must have been greatly interested. You could not have been alone,"
Blanche said to him in an undertone.
"No, I was not alone," he replied, with great frankness. "I was with the
prettiest girl in London, or out of it, either."
"And pray who may she be?" Blanche asked.
"My cousin Bessie. She arrived yesterday," was Neil's reply.
"Oh!" and Blanche's face flushed with annoyance.
She remembered the beautiful child at Penrhyn Park, and had heard her
name so often since, that the mere mention of it was obnoxious to her,
and she was silent and sulky all through the long dinner, which lasted
until nine o'clock. When it was over, and the guests were gone. Lady
Jane turned fiercely upon her son and asked what had kept him so late.
"Cousin Bessie," he answered, "She is in the city with her father, at
No. ---- Abingdon road, and I wish you would call upon them. They really
ought to be staying here, our own blood relations as they are."
"Staying here? Not if I know myself. Is that detestable gambling woman
with them?" Lady Jane replied, with ineffable scorn.
"No," Neil answered her. "She is never with them, and Bessie is no more
like her than you are. She is the purest, and sweetest and best girl I
ever knew, and I do not think it would hurt you or Blanche either to pay
her some attention;" and having said so much, the young man left the
room in time to escape Blanche's tears and his mother's anger and
reproaches.
The next day Neil was in a penitent frame of mind, for, however much he
might laugh at Blanche and her light eyebrows, and ridicule his mother's
plans for him in that quarter, he was not at all indifferent to the ten
thousand a year, and might perhaps wish to have it. Consequently he must
not drive Blanche too far, for she had a temper and a will, and there
was another cousin one degree further removed than himself, a
good-natured, good-looking and highly-aristocratic Jack Trevellian, who
was thirty years old, and a great favorite in the best society which
London afforded, and who, if a great-uncle and two cousins were to die
without heirs, would become Sir Jack, and who, it was thought, had an
eye on the ten thousand a year. So Neil was very gracious, and sugared
Blanche's strawberries for her at breakfast, and read to her after
breakfast, and staid at home to lunch, and never mentioned Bessie, or
hinted that he would much rather be sitting with her on the old
hair-cloth sofa in Mrs. Buncher's parlor than in that elegantly
furnished boudoir, and when the hour for driving came, and his mother
complained of a headache, and asked him to go with Blanche, he consented
readily, but suggested that she leave her poodle at home, as one puppy
was enough for her, he said.
And so about five o'clock the McPherson carriage drove into the park
near Apsley House, and in it sat Miss Blanche, gorgeous in light-blue
silk and white lace hat, with large solitaires in her ears, her red
parasol held airily over her head and her insipid face wreathed in
smiles, as she talked to her companion, the handsome Neil, whose dark
face was such a contrast to her own, and who reclined indolently at her
side, answering her questions mechanically, but thinking always of
Bessie, and wondering if she were there in the hired chair, and if she
would see him, or, what was more to the purpose, if he should see her
among the multitude which thronged the park that afternoon.
Bessie was there, and had been for more than an hour, sitting with her
father near one of the entrances from Piccadilly, and wholly unconscious
of the attention she was attracting with her beautiful, fresh young
face, her animated gestures and eager remarks to her father as she
watched the passers-by, and wondered who was who, and wished Neil was
there to tell her.
"I'd like to see a real duchess, and not mistake a barmaid for one," she
said; and then a pleasant-looking man, who was standing near, and had
heard her remarks, came up to her, and lifting his hat politely said to
Archie;
"If you will permit me, sir, I will tell the young lady who the people
are. I know most of them."
"Oh, thank you; I shall be so glad if you will," Bessie replied. "You
see, father and I are right from Wales, and it is all quite new to us."
"Then you were never here before?" the stranger asked, looking down upon
her with an undisguised admiration, which yet had nothing impertinent in
it.
"Yes, years ago, when I was a mere child, and did not care for things.
Now I want to see everybody--lords, and earls, and dukes, and deans, and
prime ministers, and everybody. Do you know them?"
"Yes, most of them, by sight," the stranger said slowly, and taking his
stand where he could see her as well as the passers-by, he told her this
was a lord, and this was Disraeli, and this a grand lady of fashion, and
this a famous beauty, and this a duchess, and that Prince Leopold.
It was a fortunate afternoon Bessie had chosen, for everybody was one in
the early June sunshine, and she enjoyed it immensely, and said out what
she thought; that titled ladies and grand dames were very ordinary
looking people after all, and that the fat old dowager who rode in a
coach and four, with powdered footman behind, and a face as red as a
beet, was coarse as any fish-woman and that old Dorothy would have
looked better on the satin cushions than this representative of English
aristocracy.
"I wonder what you would think of the queen," the stranger said; but
before Bessie could reply, there was a sudden murmur among the crowd,
and a buzz of expectancy, and then the princess appeared in view, riding
slowly, and bowing graciously to the right and to the left.
Instantly there was a rush to the front, and Bessie half rose to go,
too; but remembering what Neil had said about not making herself an
idiot, as the Americans and country people did, she resumed her seat,
and the country people and the Americans stood in her way and all she
saw of the princess was her sloping shoulders and long, slender neck,
with the lace scarf tied high about it. It was too bad, and Bessie could
scarcely keep back her tears of disappointment, and was wishing she had
disregarded Neil's orders and been an idiot, when a handsome open
carriage came in sight, drawn by two splendid bays, and in it sat
Blanche Trevellian, with her red parasol over her head, and beside her
Neil McPherson, eagerly scanning the crowd in quest of the little girl,
the very thought of whom made his heart beat as Blanche had never made
it beat in all her life.
"There they come! That's he! that's Neil, my cousin," Bessie exclaimed,
and forgetting all the proprieties in her excitement, she rose so
quickly that her hat fell from her head and hung down her back, as she
went forward three or four steps and waved her handkerchief.
Neil saw her, as did Blanche and many others, and a frown darkened his
face at this unlooked-for demonstration. Still he was struck with the
wonderful picture she made, with her strikingly beautiful face lit up
with excitement, and her bright, wavy hair gleaming in the sunlight, us
she stood with uncovered head waving to him, the fashionable Neil
McPherson, whom so many knew. His first impulse, naturally, was to lift
his hat in token of recognition, but something in his meaner nature
prompted him to take no notice, until Blanche said, in her most
supercilious tone:
"Who was that brazen-faced girl? Your cousin Bessie?"
"Yes, my cousin Bessie," Neil replied, and turned to make the bow he
should have made before.
But Bessie had disappeared, and was sitting again by her father,
adjusting her hat and hating herself for having been so foolish.
"Neil was angry, I know. I saw it in his face, and I was an idiot," she
thought, just as the stranger, who had watched the proceeding with a
highly amused expression around the corners of his mouth, said to her:
"You know Neil McPherson, then? You called him your cousin."
"Yes," Bessie answered, a little proud of the relationship, "Neil is my
cousin, or rather the cousin of my father, who is Mr. Archibald
McPherson, from Bangor, Wales."
She meant to show her companion how respectable she was, even if her
dress, which she was sure he had inspected critically, was poor and out
of date, and she was not prepared for his sudden start, as he repeated:
"Mr. Archibald McPherson, of Bangor! Then you are the daughter of
that--" he checked himself, and added, "I have met your mother at Monte
Carlo," and he drew back a step or two, as if he feared that something
of the mother's character might have communicated itself to the
daughter. And Bessie saw the movement, and the change of expression on
his face, and her cheeks were scarlet with shame, but she lifted her
clear blue eyes fearlessly to his, and said:
"Yes, mother is a monomaniac on the subject of play. It is a species of
insanity, I think."
Her voice shook a little, and about her mouth there settled the
grieved, sorry look which touched the stranger at once, and coming close
to her again, he said:
"Your mother is a very beautiful woman. I think she has the loveliest
face I ever saw, with one exception," and he looked straight at the
young girl whom he had wounded, hoping this implied compliment might
atone.
But if Bessie heard or understood him she made no sign, and sat with her
hands locked tightly together and her eyes looking far away across the
sea of heads and the rapidly moving line of carriages.
This man knew her mother at her worst--not sweet, loving and kind as she
was sometimes at Stoneleigh, but as a gambler, an adventuress, a woman
of whom men jested and made sport--a woman who had probably ensured and
fleeced him, as Neil would have expressed it. Bessie knew all the
miserable catalogue of expedients resorted to by her mother to extort
money from her victims; cards, chess, bets, philopenas, loans she never
intended to pay, and which she accepted as gifts the instant the offer
was made, and when these failed, pitiful tales of scanty means and
pressing needs, an invalid husband at home, and a daughter who must be
supported.
She knew the whole, for she had seen a letter to her father written by
Lady Jane, who stated the case in plain language, and, denouncing Daisy
as a disgrace to the McPherson family, asked that Archie should exercise
his marital authority and keep his wife at home.
This letter had hurt Bessie cruelly, and when next her mother came to
Stoneleigh she had begged of her to give up the life she was leading,
and stay in her own home.
"And so all starve together," Daisy had answered her. "Do you know,
child, that you would not have enough to eat or wear, if it were not for
me? Your father has never earned a shilling in his life, and never will.
It is not in him. We are owing everybody, and somebody must work. If I
am that somebody, I choose to do it in my own way, and I am not the
highly demoralized female Lady Jane thinks me to be. Her bosom friend,
old Lady Oakley, plays at Monte Carlo, and so do many high-bred English
dames, and Americans, too, for that matter. I am no worse than scores of
women, except that I am poor and play from necessity, while they do it
for pastime. I have never been false to your father; no man has ever
insulted me that way, or ever will. If he did, I would shoot him as I
would a dog. I cannot help being pretty any more than you; I cannot sew
myself up in a bag, and shall not try to catch the small-pox, so do not
worry me again with this sickly sentiment about respectability, and the
duties of a wife. I know my own business, and can protect my own
reputation."
After this there was nothing more to be said. Daisy went back to her
profession, and Bessie took up the old life again with an added burden
of care and anxiety, and with a resolve that she would use for herself
personally just as little as possible of the money her mother sent them.
Often and often had she speculated upon and tried to fancy the class of
men her mother associated with, and whom Lady Jane called her victims,
and now here was one beside her, speaking and acting like a gentleman,
and she felt her blood tingle with bitter shame and humiliation. Had her
mother fleeced _him_, she wondered, and at last, lifting her sad eyes to
his face, she said:
"Do you know my mother well? Did you ever--play with her?"
"Yes, often," he replied; "side by side at _rouge et noir_, and at cards
and chess where she is sure to beat. She bears a charmed hand, I think,
or she would not be so successful."
He had lost money by her then, and Bessie at once found herself thinking
that if she only knew how much, and who he was, she would pay it back
pound for pound when she made a fortune.
In a vague kind of way she entertained a belief that somewhere in the
world there was a fortune awaiting her; that little girl of fifteen
summers, who sat there in Hyde Park, in her old washed linen dress and
faded ribbons, with such a keen sense of pain in her heart for the
mother who bore her, and pity for herself and her father. The latter had
paid but little intention to what she was saying to her companion, for
when he was not engrossed in the passers-by he had been half asleep, but
when he caught the names _rouge et noir_ and cards, he roused up and
said:
"Sir, my daughter has never played for money in her life, and never
will."
"I am sure she will not," the stranger rejoined, "though many highly
respectable ladies do;" then, as if he wished to chance the subject, he
turned to Bessie and said: "If Neil McPherson is your cousin there ought
to be some relationship between you and me, for he is my cousin, too."
"Yours?" Bessie asked, in some surprise, and he replied:
"Yes, my father and his mother were cousins. I am Jack Trevellian. You
have probably heard him speak of me."
"No," Bessie replied, with a decided shake of her head, which told
plainly that neither from Neil nor any one else had she ever heard of
Jack Trevellian, who felt a little chagrined that he, the man of
fashion, whose name was so familiar in all the higher circles of London,
should be wholly unknown to this girl from Wales.
Truly, she had much to learn. But she did not seem at all impressed now,
or embarrassed either, though she looked at him more closely and decided
that he resembled Neil, but was not nearly so good-looking, and that he
was awfully old.
"You know my cousin Blanche, of course," he said to her next. "You must
have seen her when you visited at Neil's father's."
"I saw her at Penrhyn Park when I was a child, but not since then until
this afternoon. I was never at Trevellian House," Bessie said, and with
the mental decision: "Poor relations who are outside the ring," Jack
Trevellian continued:
"She is not a beauty, though a great heiress. Rumor says Neil is engaged
to her."
"Neil engaged! No, he isn't. He would have told me; he tells me
everything; he is not engaged," Bessie said, quickly, while a keen sense
of pain thrilled every nerve as she thought what it would be to lose
Neil as he would be lost if he married the proud Blanche.
He was so much to her; something more than a brother, something less
than a lover, for she was too young to think of such an ending to her
friendship for him, and her heart beat rapidly and her lips quivered as
she arose on the instant to go.
"Come, father, I think we have staid long enough. You must be tired,"
she said to her father; then turning to Jack, who was thinking: "Is the
child in love with Neil? What a pity!" she said to him: "Thank you, Mr.
Trevellian, for telling me who the people were. It was very kind in you.
I will tell Neil I met you. Good-by," and she gave him her ungloved
hand, which, though small and plump and well formed, showed that it was
not a stranger to work.
Dishwashing, sweeping, dusting, bed making, and many other more menial
things it had done at intervals to save old Dorothy, the only female
domestic at Stoneleigh. But it was a very pretty hand for all that, and
Jack Trevellian felt a great desire to squeeze it as it lay in his broad
palm. But he did not, for something in Bessie's eyes forbade anything
like liberty with her, and he merely said:
"I was very glad to tell you. I wish I could do something more for you
while you stay in London. Perhaps you will let me call upon you--with
Neil," he added, as he saw a flush in Bessie's face.
She was thinking of the old hair cloth furniture, and the room which
Neil designated a hole, and which Jack Trevellian might wonder at and
despise. Such men as he had nothing in common with Mrs. Buncher's
lodgings, and she said to him, as she withdrew her hand and put on her
mended gloves:
"You had better not; father and I are out so much that we might not be
home, and you would have your trouble for nothing. Good-by again."
She took her father's arm and walked away, while Jack Trevellian stood
looking after her and thinking to himself:
"That girl has the loveliest face I ever saw. It is so full of
sweetness, and patience, and pathos, that you want to take her in your
arms and pity her, and make much of her, as a child who has been hurt
and wants soothing. She is even prettier than Flossie. By Jove, if the
coronet were mine, and the money, I'd make that girl my lady as sure as
my name is Jack. Lady Bessie Trevellian! It sounds well, and what a
sensation she would make in society. But what a mother-in-law for a man
to be saddled with. Welsh Daisy! Bah!" and with thoughts not very
complimentary to Daisy, he left the park and walked rapidly along
Piccadilly toward Grosvenor Square and Trevellian House.