_SOME DOUBTS AND FEARS_.
Sir Edward Lucas was a gentleman for whom Lady Angleby had a
considerable degree of favor: it was a pity he was so young, otherwise
he might have done for Mary. Poor Mary! Mr. Forbes and she had a long,
obstinate kindness for each other, but Lady Angleby stood in the way:
Mr. Forbes did not satisfy any of her requirements. Besides, if she gave
Mary up, who was to live with her at Brentwood? Therefore Mr. Forbes and
Miss Burleigh, after a six years' engagement, still played at patience.
She did not drive into Norminster that afternoon. "Mr. Fairfax and Cecil
will be glad of a seat back," said she, and stood excused.
Sir Edward Lucas had more pleasure in facing his contemporary: Miss
Fairfax he regarded as his contemporary. He was smitten with a lively
admiration for her, and in course of the drive he sought her advice on
important matters. Lady Angleby began to instruct him on what he ought
to do for the improvement of his fine house at Longdown, but he wanted
to talk rather of a new interest--the mineral wealth still waiting
development on his property at Hippesley Moor.
"Now, what should you do, Miss Fairfax, supposing you had to earn your
bread by a labor always horribly disagreeable and never unattended by
danger?" he asked with great eagerness.
Bessie had not a doubt of what she should do: "I should work as hard as
ever I could for the shortest possible time that would keep me in
bread."
"Just so," said Sir Edward rubbing his hands. "So would I. Now, will
that principle work amongst colliers? I am going to open a pit at
Hippesley Moor, where the coal is of excellent quality. It is a fresh
start, and I shall try to carry out your principle, Miss Fairfax; I am
convinced that it is excellent and Christian."
_Christian!_ Bessie's blue eyes widened with laughing alarm. "Oh, had
you not better consult somebody of greater experience?" cried she.
Lady Angleby approved her modesty, and with smiling indulgence
remarked, "I should think so, indeed!"
"No, no: experience is always for sticking to grooves," said Sir Edward.
"I like Miss Fairfax's idea. It is shrewd--it goes to the root of the
difficulty. We must get it out in detail. Now, if in three days' hard
work the collier can earn the week's wages of an agricultural laborer
and more--and he can--we have touched the reason why he takes so many
play-days. It would be a very sharp spur of necessity indeed that would
drive me into a coal-pit at all; and nothing would keep me there one
hour after necessity was satisfied. I shall take into consideration the
instinct of our common humanity that craves for some sweetness in life,
and as far as I am able it shall be gratified. Now, the other three
days: what shall be their occupation? Idleness will not do."
"No, I should choose to have a garden and work in the sun," said Bessie,
catching some of his spirit.
"And I should choose to tend some sort of live-stock. In the way of
minor industries I am convinced that a great deal may be put in their
way only by taking thought. I shall lay parcels of land together for
spade cultivation--the men will have a market at their own doors; then
poultry farms--"
"Not forgetting the cock-pit for Sunday amusement," interrupted Lady
Angleby sarcastically. "You are too Utopian, Sir Edward. Your colony
will be a dismal failure and disappointment if you conduct it on such a
sentimental plan."
Sir Edward colored. He had a love of approbation, and her ladyship was
an authority. He sought to propitiate her better opinion, and resumed:
"There shall be no inexorable rule. A man may work his six days in the
pit if it be his good-will, but he shall have the chance of a decent
existence above ground if he refuse to live in darkness and peril more
than three or four. Schools and institutes are very good things in their
place, and I shall not neglect to provide them, but I do not expect that
more than a slender minority of my colliers will ever trouble the
reading-room much. Let them feed pigs and grow roses."
"They will soon not know what they want. The common people grow more
exacting every day--even our servants. You will have some fine stories
of trouble and vexation to tell us before long."
Sir Edward looked discouraged, and Bessie Fairfax, with her impulsive
kind heart, exclaimed, "No, no! In all labor there is profit, and if you
work at doing your best for those who depend on your land, you will not
be disappointed. Men are not all ungrateful."
Sir Edward certainly was not. He thanked Miss Fairfax energetically, and
just then the carriage stopped at the "George." Mr. Fairfax and Mr.
Cecil Burleigh came out in the most cheerful good-humor, and Mr. Cecil
Burleigh began to tell Bessie that she did not know how much she had
done for him by securing Buller's vote; it had drawn others after it.
Bessie was delighted, and was not withheld by any foolish shyness from
proclaiming that her mind was set on his winning his election.
"You ought to take these two young people into your counsels, Cecil;
they have some wonderful devices for the promotion of contentment
amongst coal-miners," said Lady Angleby. Mr. Fairfax glanced in his
granddaughter's innocent, rosy face, and shook hands with Sir Edward as
he got out of the carriage. Mr. Cecil Burleigh said that wisdom was not
the monopoly of age, and then he inquired where they were going.
They were going to call at the manor on Lady Eden, and to wind up with a
visit to Mr. Laurence Fairfax in the Minster Court. Mr. Fairfax said he
would meet them there, and the same said Mr. Cecil Burleigh. Sir Edward
Lucas stood halting on the inn-steps, wistfully hoping for a bidding to
come too. Lady Angleby was even kinder than his hopes; she asked if he
had any engagement for the evening, and when he answered in the negative
she invited him to come and dine at Brentwood again. He accepted with
joy unfeigned.
When the ladies reached Minster Court only Mr. Cecil Burleigh had
arrived there. Lady Angleby was impatient to hear some private details
of the canvass, and took her nephew aside to talk of it. Mr. Laurence
Fairfax began to ask Bessie how long she was to stay at Brentwood.
"Until Monday," Bessie said; and her eyes roved unconsciously to the
cupboard under the bookcase where the toys lived, but it was fast shut
and locked, and gave no sign of its hid treasures. Her uncle's eyes
followed hers, and with a significant smile he said, if she pleased, he
would request her grandfather to leave her with him for a few days,
adding that he would find her some young companions. Bessie professed
that she would like it very much, and when Mr. Fairfax came in the
request was preferred and cordially granted. The squire was in high
good-humor with his granddaughter and all the world just now.
Bessie went away from Minster Court with jubilant anticipations of what
might happen during the proposed visit to her uncle's house. One thing
she felt sure of: she would become better acquainted with that darling
cherub of a boy, and the vision she made of it shed quite a glow on the
prospect. She told Miss Burleigh when she returned to Brentwood that she
was not going out of reach on Monday; she was going to stay a few days
with her uncle Laurence in Minster Court.
"Cecil will be so glad!" said his devoted sister.
"There are no more Bullers to conquer, are there?" Bessie asked, turning
her face aside.
"I hope not. Oh no! Cecil begins to be tolerably sure of his election,
and he will have you to thank for it. Mr. John Short blesses you every
hour of the day."
Bessie laughed lightly. "I did good unconsciously, and blush to find it
fame," said she.
A fear that her brother's success with Miss Fairfax might be doubtful,
though his election was sure, flashed at that instant into Miss
Burleigh's mind. Bessie's manner was not less charming, but it was much
more intrepid, and at intervals there was a strain of fun in it--of
mischief and mockery. Was it the subacid flavor of girlish caprice,
which might very well subsist in combination with her sweetness, or was
it sheer insensibility? Time would show, but Miss Burleigh retained a
lurking sense of uneasiness akin to that she had experienced when she
detected in Miss Fairfax, at their first meeting, an inclination to
laugh at her aunt--an uneasiness difficult to conceal and dangerous to
confess. Not for the world would she, at this stage of the affair, have
revealed her anxiety to her brother, who held the even tenor of his
way, whatever he felt--never obtrusive and never negligent. He treated
Bessie like the girl of sense she was, with courtesy, but without
compliments or any idle banter; and Bessie certainly began to enjoy his
society. He improved on acquaintance, and made the hours pass much more
pleasantly at Brentwood when he was there than they passed in his
absence. This was promising. The evening's dinner-party would have been
undeniably heavy without the leaven of his wit, for Mr. Logger, that
well-known political writer, had arrived from London in the course of
the afternoon, and Lady Angleby and he discoursed with so much solemn
allusion and innuendo on the affairs of the nation that it was like
listening surreptitiously at a cabinet council. Sir Edward Lucas was
quite silent and oppressed.
Coming into the morning-room after breakfast on the following day armed
with a roll of papers, Mr. Logger announced, "I met our excellent friend
Lady Latimer at Summerhay last week; she is immensely interested in the
education movement."
Mr. Fairfax and Mr. Cecil Burleigh instantly discovered that it was time
they were gone into the town, and with one compunctious glance at
Bessie, of which she did not yet know the meaning, they vanished. The
roll in Mr. Logger's hand was an article in manuscript on that education
movement in which he had stated that his friend Lady Latimer was so
immensely interested; and he had the cruelty to propose to read it to
the ladies here. He did read it, his hostess listening with gratified
approval and keeping a controlling eye on Miss Fairfax, who, when she
saw what impended, would have escaped had she been able. Miss Burleigh
bore it as she bore everything--with smiling resignation--but she
enjoyed the vivacity of Bessie's declaration afterward that the lecture
was unpardonable.
"What a shockingly vain old gentleman! Could we not have waited to read
his article in print?" said she.
"Probably it will never be in print. He toadies my aunt, who likes to be
credited with a literary taste, but Cecil says people laugh at him; he
is not of any weight, either literary or political, though he has great
pretensions. We shall have him for a week at least, and I have no doubt
he has brought manuscript to last the whole time."
Bessie was so uncomfortably candid as to cry out that she was glad,
then, her visit would soon be over; and then she tried to extenuate her
plain-speaking, not very skilfully.
Miss Burleigh accepted her plea with a gentleness that reproached her:
"We hoped that you would be happy at Brentwood with Cecil here; his
company is generally supposed to make any place delightful. He is
exceedingly dear to us all; no one knows how good he is until they have
lived with him a long while."
"Oh, I am sure he is good; I like him much better now than I did at
first; but if he runs away to Norminster and leaves us a helpless prey
to Mr. Logger, that is not delightful," rejoined Bessie winsomely.
Miss Burleigh kissed and forgave her, acknowledged that it was the
reverse of delightful, and conveyed an intimation to her brother by
which he profited. Mr. Logger favored the ladies with another reading on
Sunday afternoon--an essay on sermons, and twice as long as one. Mr.
Jones should have been there: this essay was much heavier artillery than
Miss Hague's little paper-winged arrows. In the middle of it, just at
the moment when endurance became agony and release bliss, Mr. Cecil
Burleigh entered and invited Miss Fairfax to walk into the town to
minster prayers, and Bessie went so gladly that his sister was quite
consoled in being left to hear Mr. Logger to an end.
The two were about to ascend the minster steps when they espied Mr.
Fairfax in the distance, and turned to meet him. He had been lunching
with his son. At the first glance Bessie knew that her grandfather had
suffered an overwhelming surprise since he went out in the morning. Mr.
Cecil Burleigh also perceived that something was amiss, and not to
distress his friend by inopportune remark, he said where he and Miss
Fairfax were going.
"Go--go, by all means," said the squire. "Perhaps you may overtake me as
you return: I shall walk slowly, and I want a word with Short as I pass
his house." With this he went on, and the young people entered the
minster, thinking but not speaking of what they could not but
observe--his manifest bewilderment and pre-occupation.
On the road home they did not, however, overtake Mr. Fairfax. He reached
Brentwood before them, and was closeted with Lady Angleby for some
considerable time previous to dinner. Her ladyship was not agreeable
without effort that evening, and there was indeed a perceptible cloud
over everybody but Mr. Logger. Whatever the secret, it had been
communicated to Mr. Cecil Burleigh and his sister, and it affected them
all more or less uncomfortably. Bessie guessed what had happened--that
her grandfather had seen his son Laurence's little playfellow, and that
there had been an important revelation.
Bessie was right. Mr. Laurence Fairfax had Master Justus on his lap when
his father unexpectedly walked into his garden. There was a lady in blue
amongst the flowers who vanished; and the incompetent Sally, with
something in her arms, who also hastily retired, but not unseen, either
her or her burden. Master Justus held his ground with baby audacity, and
the old squire recognized a strong young shoot of the Fairfax stock. One
or two sharp exclamations and astounded queries elicited from Mr.
Laurence Fairfax that he had been five years married to the lady in
blue--a niece of Dr. Jocund--and that the bold little boy was his own,
and another in the nurse's arms. Mr. Fairfax did not refuse to sit at
meat with his son, though the chubby boy sat opposite, but he declined
all conversation on the subject beyond the bald fact, and expressed no
desire to be made acquainted with his newly-discovered daughter-in-law.
Indeed, at a hint of it he jerked out a peremptory negative, and left
the house without any more reference to the matter. Mr. Laurence Fairfax
feared that it would be long before his father would darken his doors
again, but it was a sensible relief to have got his secret told, and not
to have had any angry, unpardonable words about it. The squire said
little, but those who knew him knew perfectly that he might be silent
and all the more indignant. And undoubtedly he was indignant. Of his
three sons, Laurence had been always the one preferred; and this was his
usage of him, his confidence in him!