<SPAN name="startofbook"></SPAN>
<h3>THE</h3>
<h1>VICISSITUDES</h1>
<h3>OF</h3>
<h1>BESSIE FAIRFAX.</h1>
<h2>A NOVEL.</h2>
<h3>BY</h3>
<h2>HOLME LEE</h2>
<hr />
<h3><SPAN name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></SPAN>CHAPTER I.</h3>
<h3><i>HER BIRTH AND PARENTAGE.</i></h3>
<p>The years have come and gone at Beechhurst as elsewhere, but the results
of time and change seem to have almost passed it by. Every way out of
the scattered forest-town is still through beautiful forest-roads—roads
that cleave grand avenues, traverse black barren heaths, ford shallow
rivers, and climb over ferny knolls whence the sea is visible. The
church is unrestored, the parsonage is unimproved, the long low house
opposite is still the residence of Mr. Carnegie, the local doctor, and
looks this splendid summer morning precisely as it looked in the
splendid summer mornings long ago, when Bessie Fairfax was a little
girl, and lived there, and was very happy.</p>
<p>Bessie was not akin to the doctor. Her birth and parentage were on this
wise. Her father was Geoffry, the third and youngest son of Mr. Fairfax
of Abbotsmead in Woldshire. Her mother was Elizabeth, only child of the
Reverend Thomas Bulmer, vicar of Kirkham. Their marriage was a
love-match, concluded when they had something less than the experience
of forty years between them. The gentleman had his university debts
besides to begin life with, the lady had nothing. As the shortest way to
a living he went into the Church, and the birth of their daughter was
contemporary with Geoffry's ordination. His father-in-law gave him a
title for orders, and a lodging under his roof, and Mr. Fairfax
grudgingly allowed his son two hundred a year for a maintenance.</p>
<p>The young couple were lively and handsome. They had done a foolish
thing, but their friends agreed to condone their folly. Before very long
a south-country benefice, the rectory of Beechhurst, was put in
Geoffry's way, and he gayly removed with his wife and child to that
desirable home of their own. They were poor, but they were perfectly
contented. Nature is sometimes very kind in making up to people for the
want of fortune by an excellent gift of good spirits and good courage.
She was very kind in this way to Geoffry Fairfax and his wife Elizabeth;
so kind that everybody wondered with great amazement what possessed that
laughing, rosy woman to fall off in health, and die soon after the birth
of a second daughter, who died also, and was buried in the same grave
with her mother.</p>
<p>The rector was a cheerful exemplification of the adage that man is not
made to live alone. He wore the willow just long enough for decency, and
then married again—married another pretty, portionless young woman of
no family worth mentioning. This reiterated indiscretion caused a breach
with his father, and the slender allowance that had been made him was
resumed. But his new wife was good to his little Bessie, and Abbotsmead
was a long way off.</p>
<p>There were no children of this second marriage, which was lucky; for
three years after, the rector himself died, leaving his widow as
desolate as a clergyman's widow, totally unprovided for, can be. She had
never seen any member of her husband's family, and she made no claim on
Mr. Fairfax, who, for his part, acknowledged none. Bessie's near
kinsfolk on her mother's side were all departed this life; there was
nobody who wanted the child, or who would have regarded her in any light
but an incumbrance. The rector's widow therefore kept her unquestioned;
and being a woman of much sense and little pride, she moved no farther
from the rectory than to a cottage-lodging in the town, where she found
some teaching amongst the children of the small gentry, who then, as
now, were its main population.</p>
<p>It was hard work for meagre reward, and perhaps she was not sorry to
exchange her mourning-weeds for bride-clothes again when Mr. Carnegie
asked her; for she was of a dependent, womanly character, and the doctor
was well-to-do and well respected, and ready with all his heart to give
little Bessie a home. The child was young enough when she lost her own
parents to lose all but a reflected memory of them, and cordially to
adopt for a real father and mother those who so cordially adopted her.</p>
<p>Still, she was Bessie Fairfax, and as the doctor's house grew populous
with children of his own, Bessie was curtailed of her indulgences, her
learning, her leisure, and was taught betimes to make herself useful.
And she did it willingly. Her temper was loving and grateful, and Mrs.
Carnegie had her recompense in Bessie's unstinting helpfulness during
the period when her own family was increasing year by year; sometimes at
the rate of one little stranger, and sometimes at the rate of twins. The
doctor received his blessings with a welcome, and a brisk assurance to
his wife that the more they were the merrier. And neither Mrs. Carnegie
nor Bessie presumed to think otherwise; though seven tiny trots under
ten years old were a sore handful; and seven was the number Bessie kept
watch and ward over like a fairy godmother in the doctor's nursery, when
her own life had attained to no more than the discretion and philosophy
of fifteen. The chief of them were boys—boys on the plan of their
worthy father; five boys with excellent lungs and indefatigable stout
legs; and two little girls no whit behind their brothers for voluble
chatter and restless agility. Nobody complained, however. They had their
health—that was one mercy; there was enough in the domestic exchequer
to feed, clothe, and keep them all warm—that was another mercy; and as
for the future, people so busy as the doctor and his wife are forced to
leave that to Providence—which is the greatest mercy of all. For it is
to-morrow's burden breaks the back, never the burden of to-day.</p>
<p>A constant regret with Mrs. Carnegie (when she had a spare moment to
think of it) was her inability, from stress of annually recurring
circumstances, to afford Bessie Fairfax more of an education, and
especially that she was not learning to speak French and play on the
piano. But Bessie felt no want of these polite accomplishments. She had
no accomplished companions to put her to shame for her deficiencies. She
was fond of a book, she could write an unformed, legible hand, and add
up a simple sum. The doctor, not a bad judge, called her a shrewd,
reasonable little lass. She had mother-wit, a warm heart, and a nice
face, as sweet and fresh as a bunch of roses with the dew on them, and
he did not see what she wanted with talking French and playing the
piano; if his wife would believe him, she would go through life quite as
creditably and comfortably without any fashionable foreign airs and
graces. Thus it resulted, partly from want of opportunity, and partly
from want of ambition in herself, that Bessie Fairfax remained a rustic
little maid, without the least tincture of modern accomplishments.
Still, the doctor's wife did not forget that her dear drudge and helpful
right hand was a waif of old gentry, whose restoration the chapter of
accidents might bring about any day. Nor did she suffer Bessie to forget
it, though Bessie was mighty indifferent, and cared as little for her
gentle kindred as they cared for her. And if these gentle kindred had
increased and multiplied according to the common lot, Bessie would
probably never have been remembered by them to any purpose; she might
have married as Mr. Carnegie's daughter, and have led an obscure, happy
life, without vicissitude to the end of it, and have died leaving no
story to tell.</p>
<p>But many things had happened at Abbotsmead since the love-match of
Geoffry Fairfax and Elizabeth Bulmer. When Geoffry married, his brothers
were both single men. The elder, Frederick, took to himself soon after a
wife of rank and fortune; but there was no living issue of the marriage;
and the lady, after a few years of eccentricity, went abroad for her
health—that is, her husband was obliged to place her under restraint.
Her malady was pronounced incurable, though her life might be prolonged.
The second son, Laurence, had distinguished himself at Oxford, and had
become a knight-errant of the Society of Antiquaries. His father said he
would traverse a continent to look at one old stone. He was hardly
persuaded to relinquish his liberty and choose a wife, when the failure
of heirs to Frederick disconcerted the squire's expectations, and, with
the proverbial ill-luck of learned men, he chose badly. His wife, from a
silly, pretty shrew, matured into a most bitter scold; and a blessed man
was he, when, after three years of tribulation, her temper and a strong
fever carried her off. His Xantippe left no child. Mr. Fairfax urged the
obligations of ancient blood, old estate, and a second marriage; but
Laurence had suffered conjugal felicity enough, and would no more of it.
It was now that the squire first bethought himself seriously of his son
Geoffry's daughter. He proposed to bring her home to Abbotsmead, and to
marry her in due time to some poor young gentleman of good family, who
would take her name, and give the house of Fairfax a new lease, as had
been done thrice before in its long descent, by means of an heiress. The
poor young man who might be so obliging was even named. Frederick and
Laurence gave consent to whatever promised to mitigate their father's
disappointment in themselves, and the business was put into the hands of
their man of law, John Short of Norminster, than whom no man in that
venerable city was more respected for sagacity and integrity.</p>
<p>If Mr. Fairfax had listened to John Short in times past, he would not
have needed his help now. John Short had urged the propriety of
recalling Bessie from Beechhurst when her father died; but no good
grandmother or wise aunt survived at Kirkham to insist upon it, and the
thing was not done. The man of law did not, however, revert to what was
past remedy, but gave his mind to considering how his client might be
extricated from his existing dilemma with least pain and offence. Mr.
Fairfax had a legal right to the custody of his young kinswoman, but he
had not the conscience to plead his legal right against the long-allowed
use and custom of her friends. If they were reluctant to let her go, and
she were reluctant to come, what then? John Short confessed that Mr.
Carnegie and Bessie herself might give them trouble if they were so
disposed; but he had a reasonable expectation that they would view the
matter through the medium of common sense.</p>
<p>Thus much by way of prelude to the story of Bessie Fairfax's
Vicissitudes, which date from this momentous era of her life.</p>
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