_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 anticipated that the cruel suggestion would be
carried out.
"Shall it be an English school or a school in France?" said Mr. Short,
taking the indulgent cue, to avoid offence and stave off resistance. But
his affectation of meekness was more provoking than his sarcasm. Bessie
fired up indignantly at such unworthy treatment.
"You are deciding and settling everything without a word to my father.
How do you know that he will let me go away? I don't want to go," she
said.
"That _is_ settled, Bessie darling. _You have to go_--so don't get angry
about it," said Mrs. Carnegie with firmness. "You may have your choice
about a school at home or abroad, and that is all. Now be good, and
consider which you would like best."
Bessie's tears overflowed. "I hate girls!" she said with an asperity
that quite shamed her mother, "they are so silly." Mr. John Short with
difficulty forbore a smile. "And they don't like me!" she added with
gusty wrath. "I never get on with girls, never! I don't know what to say
to them. And when they find out that I can't speak French or play on the
piano, they will laugh at me." Her own countenance broke into a laugh as
she uttered the prediction, but she laughed with tears still in her
eyes.
The lawyer nodded his head in a satisfied way. "It will all come right
in time," said he. "If you can make fun of the prospect of school, the
reality will not be very terrible to a young lady of your courageous
temper."
Poor Bessie was grave again in an instant. She felt that she had let her
fate slip out of her hands. She could not now declare her refusal to go
to school at all; she could only choose what kind of school she would go
to. "If it must be one or another, let it be French," she said, and
rushed from the room in a tempestuous mood.
Mrs. Carnegie excused her as very affectionate, and as tired and
overdone. She looked tired and overdone herself, and out of spirits as
well. Mr. John Short said a few sympathetic words, and volunteered a few
reasonable pledges for the future, and then took his leave--the kindest
thing he could do, since thus he set the mother at liberty to go and
comfort her child. Her idea of comforting and Bessie's idea of being
comforted consisted, for the nonce, in having a good cry together.
* * * * *
When his agent came to explain to Mr. Fairfax how far he had carried his
negotiations for his granddaughter's removal from Beechhurst, the squire
demurred. The thorn which Mr. Wiley had planted in his conscience was
rankling sorely; his pride was wounded too--perhaps that was more hurt
even than his conscience--but he felt that he had much to make up to the
child, not for his long neglect only, but for the indignities that she
had been threatened with. She might have been apprenticed to a trade; he
might have had to negotiate with some shopkeeper to cancel her
indentures. He did not open his mind to Mr. John Short on this matter;
he kept it to himself, and made much more of it in his imagination than
it deserved. Bessie had already forgotten it, except as a part of the
odd medley that her life seemed coming to, and in the recollection it
never vexed her; but it was like a grain of sand in her grandfather's
eye whenever he reviewed the incidents of this time. He gathered from
the lawyer's account of the interview how little acceptable to Bessie
was the notion of being sent to school, and asked why she should not go
to Abbotsmead at once?
"There is no reason why she should not go to Abbotsmead if you will have
a lady in the house--a governess," said Mr. John Short.
"I will have no governess in the house; I suppose she is too young to be
alone?"
"Well, yes. Mrs. Carnegie would not easily let her go unless in the
assurance that she will be taken care of. She has been a good deal
petted and spoiled. She is a fine character, but she would give you
nothing but trouble if you took her straight home."
Lady Latimer, with whom Mr. Fairfax held further counsel, expressed much
the same opinion. She approved of Elizabeth, but it was impossible to
deny that she had too much self-will, that she was too much of the
little mistress. She had been sovereign in the doctor's house; to fall
amongst her equals in age and seniors in school would be an excellent
discipline. Mr. Fairfax acquiesced, and two or three years was the term
of purgatory to which Bessie heard herself condemned. It was no use
crying. My lady encouraged her to anticipate that she would be very
tolerably happy at school. She was strong enough not to mind its
hardships; some girls suffered miserably from want of health, but she
had vigor and spirits to make the best of circumstances. Bessie was
flattered by this estimate of her pluck, but all the same she preferred
to avert her thoughts from the contemplation of the strange future that
was to begin in September. It was July now, and a respite was to be
given her until September.
Mr. John Short--his business done--returned to Norminster, and Mr.
Fairfax and Mr. Carnegie met. They were extremely distant in their
behavior. Mr. Carnegie refused to accept any compensation for the
charges Bessie had put him to, and made Mr. Fairfax wince at his
information that the child had earned her living twice over by her
helpfulness in his house. He did not mean to be unkind, but only to set
forth his dear little Bessie's virtues.
"She will never need to go a-begging, Bessie won't," said he. "She can
turn her hand to most things in a family. She has capital sense, and a
warm heart for those who can win it."
Mr. Fairfax bowed solemnly, as not appreciating this catalogue of homely
graces. The doctor looked very stern. He had subdued his mind to the
necessity, but he felt his loss in every fibre of his affections. No
one, except Bessie herself, half understood the sacrifice he was put
upon making, for he loved her as fondly as if she had been his very own;
and he knew that once divided from his household she never would be like
his own again. But her fate was settled, and the next event in her
experience seemed to set a seal upon it.
The day Mr. John Short left the Forest, Beechhurst began to set up its
arches and twine its garlands for the wedding of Lady Latimer's niece.
Bessie made a frantic effort to escape from the bridesmaid's honors that
were thrust upon her, but met with no sympathy except from her father,
and even he did not come to her rescue. He bade her never mind, it would
soon be over. One sensible relief she had in the midst of her fantastic
distress: Harry Musgrave was away, and would not see her in her
preposterous borrowed plumes. He had gone with Mr. Moxon on a week's
excursion to Wells, and would not return until after the wedding. Bessie
was full of anxieties how her dear old comrade would treat her now. She
found some people more distant and respectful, she did not wish that
Harry should be more respectful--that would spoil their intercourse.
Jolly Miss Buff was an immense help, stay, and comfort to her little
friend till through this perplexing ordeal. She was full of harmless
satire. She proposed to give Bessie lessons in manners, and to teach her
the court curtsey. She chuckled over her reluctance to obey commands to
tea at the rectory, and flattered her with a prediction that she would
enjoy the grand day of the wedding at Fairfield. "I know who the
bridesmaids are, and you will be the prettiest of the bunch," she
assured her. "Don't distress yourself: a bridesmaid has nothing to do
but to look pretty and stand to be stared at. It will be better fun at
the children's feast than at the breakfast--a wedding breakfast is
always slow--but you will see a host of fine people, which is amusing,
and since Lady Latimer wishes it, what need you care? You are one of
them, and your grandfather will be with you."
Before the day came Bessie had been wrought up to fancy that she should
almost enjoy her little dignity. Its garb became her well. The Carnegie
boys admired her excessively when she was dressed and set off to
Fairfield, all alone in her glory, in a carriage with a pair of gray
horses and a scarlet postilion; and when she walked into church, one of
a beautiful bevy of half a dozen girls in a foam of white muslin and
blue ribbons, Mrs. Carnegie was not quick enough to restrain Jack from
pointing a stumpy little finger at her and crying out, "There's our
Bessie!" Bessie with a blush and a smile the more rallied round the
bride, and then looked across the church at her mother with a merry,
happy face that was quite lovely.
Mr. Fairfax, who had joined the company at the church door, at this
moment directed towards her the notice of a gentleman who was standing
beside him. "That is Elizabeth--my little granddaughter," said he. The
gentleman thus addressed said, "Oh, indeed!" and observed her with an
air of interest.
Then the solemnity began. There was a bishop to marry the happy couple
(Bessie supposed they were happy, though she saw the blossoms quiver on
the bride's head, and the bridegroom's hand shaking when he put the ring
on her finger), and it was soon done--very soon, considering that it was
to last for life. They drove back to Fairfield with a clamor of
bells--Beechhurst had a fine old peal--and a shrill cheering of children
along the roadside. Lady Latimer looked proud and delighted, and
everybody said she had made an excellent match for her charming niece.
Bessie Fairfax was in the same carriage returning as the gentleman whose
attention had been called to her by her grandfather in the church. He
paid her the compliment of an attempt at conversation. He also sat by
her at the breakfast, and was kind and patronizing: her grandfather
informed her that he was a neighbor of his in Woldshire, Mr. Cecil
Burleigh. Bessie blushed, and made a slight acknowledgment with her
head, but had nothing to say. He was a very fine gentleman indeed, this
Mr. Cecil Burleigh--tall and straight, with a dark, handsome face and an
expression of ability and resolution. His age was seven-and-twenty, and
he had the appearance of an accomplished citizen of the world. Not to
make a mystery of him, _he_ was the poor young gentleman of great
talents and great expectations of whom the heads of families had spoken
as a suitable person to marry Elizabeth Fairfax and to give the old
house of Abbotsmead a new lease of life. He was a good-natured person,
but he found Bessie rather heavy in hand; she was too young, she had no
small talk, she was shy of such a fine gentleman. They were better
amused, both of them, in the rose-garden afterward--Bessie with Dora and
Dandy, and Mr. Cecil Burleigh with Miss Julia Gardiner, the most
beautiful young lady, Bessie thought, that she had ever seen. She had a
first impression that they were lovers.
Mr. Fairfax had been entirely satisfied by his granddaughter's behavior
in her novel circumstances. Bessie was pretty and she was pleased.
Nothing was expected of her either to do or to say. She had a frank,
bright manner that was very taking, and a pleasant voice when she
allowed it to be heard. Lady Latimer found time to smile at her once or
twice, and to give her a kind, encouraging word, and when the guests
began to disperse she was told that she must stay for a little dance
there was to be in the evening amongst the young people in the house.
She stayed, and danced every dance with as joyous a vivacity as if it
had been Christmas in the long parlor at Brook and Harry Musgrave her
partner; and she confessed voluntarily to her mother and Mr. Phipps
afterward that she had been happy the whole day.
"You see, dear Bessie, that I was right to insist upon your going," said
her mother.
"And the kettles never once bumped the earthen pot--eh?" asked Mr.
Phipps mocking.
"You forget," said Bessie, "I'm a little kettle myself now;" and she
laughed with the gayest assurance.