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Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax

<h3>CHAPTER XLI.</h3> <h3>FRIENDS AND ACQUAINTANCES.</h3> Mrs. Carnegie from the dining-room window witnessed the colloquy between the rector and her husband, and came out into the porch to receive her dear Bessie. "They will not expect you at Fairfield until they see you; so come in, love," said she, and Bessie gladly obeyed. The doctor's house was all the quieter for the absence of the elder boys at Hampton. The other children were playing in the orchard after school. "It is a great convenience to have a school opened here where boys and girls are both taught from four up to ten, and very nicely taught," said the mother. "It gives me a little leisure. Even Totty goes, and likes it, bless her!" Mr. Carnegie was not many minutes in-doors. He ate a crust standing, and then went away again to answer a summons that had come since he went out in the morning. "It will be a good opportunity, Bessie, to call on Miss Buff and Miss Wort, and to say a word in passing to the Semples and Mittens; they are always polite in asking after you," Mrs. Carnegie mentioned at the children's dinner. But Miss Buff, having heard that Miss Fairfax was at the doctor's house, forestalled these good intentions by arriving there herself. She was ushered into the drawing-room, and Bessie joined her, and was embraced and rejoiced over exuberantly. "You dear little thing! I do like you in your habit," cried she. "Turn round—it fits beautifully. So you have been having a ride with the doctor, and seeing everybody, I suppose? Mrs. Wiley wonders when you will call." "Oh yes, Bessie dear, you must not neglect Mrs. Wiley," said Mrs. Carnegie. "It will do some day with Lady Latimer—she has constant business at the rectory," Bessie said. She did not wish to waste this precious afternoon in duty-visits to people she did not care for. "Well, I was to have written to you, and I never did," recommenced Miss Buff. "Out of sight, out of mind: don't apologize!" But Miss Buff would explain and extenuate her broken promise: "The fact is, my hands are almost too full: what with the school and the committee, the organ and church, the missionary club and my district, I am a regular lay-curate. Then there is Mr. Duffer's early service, eight o'clock; and Fridays and Wednesdays and all the saints' days, and decorating for the great festivals—perhaps a little too much of that, but on Whitsunday the chancel was lovely, was it not, Mrs. Carnegie?" Mrs. Carnegie nodded her acquiescence. "Then I have a green-house at last, and that gives me something to do. I should like to show you my green-house, Bessie. But you must be used to such magnificent things now that perhaps you will not care for my small place." "I shall care as much as ever. I prefer small things to great yet." "And my fowl-house—you shall see that—and my pigeons. You used to be so fond of live creatures, Bessie." "By the by, Miss Buff, have you discovered yet the depredator of your poultry-yard?" Mrs. Carnegie asked. "No, but I have put a stop to his depredations. I strongly suspect that pet subject of Miss Wort's—that hulking, idle son of Widow Burt. I am sorry for her, but he is no good. You know I wrote to the inspector of police at Hampton. Did I not tell you? No! Well, but I did, and said if he would send an extra man over to stay the night in the house and watch who stole my pigeons, he should have coffee and hot buttered toast; and I dare say Eppie would not have objected to sit up with him till twelve. However, the inspector didn't—he did not consider it necessary—but the ordinary police probably watched, for I have not been robbed since. And that is a comfort; I hate to sleep with one eye open. You are laughing, Bessie; you would not laugh if you had lost seven pigeons ready to go into a pie, and all in the space of ten days. I am sure that horrid Burt stole 'em." Bessie still laughed: "Is your affection so material? Do you love your pigeons so dearly that you eat them up?" said she. "What else should I keep them for? I should be overrun with pigeons but for putting them in pies; they make the garden very untidy as it is. I have given up keeping ducks, but I have a tame gull for the slugs. Who is this at the gate? Oh! Miss Wort with her inexhaustible physic-bottle. Everybody seems to have heard that you are here, Bessie." Miss Wort came in breathless, and paused, and greeted Bessie in a way that showed her wits were otherwise engaged. "It is the income-tax," she explained parenthetically, with an appealing look round at the company. "I have been so put out this morning; I never had my word doubted before. Jimpson is the collector this year—" "Jimpson!" broke out Miss Buff impetuously. "I should like to know who they will appoint next to pry into our private affairs? As long as old Dobbs collected all the rates and taxes they were just tolerable, but since they have begun to appoint new men every year my patience is exhausted. Talk of giving us votes at elections: I would rather vote at twenty elections than have Tom, Dick, and Harry licensed to inquire into my money-matters. Since Dobbs was removed we have had for assessors of income-tax both the butchers, the baker, the brewer, the miller, the little tailor, the milk-man; and now Jimpson at the toy-shop, of all good people! There will soon be nobody left but the sweep." "The sweep is a very civil man, but Jimpson is impertinent. I told him the sum was not correct, and he answered me: 'The government of the country must have money to carry on; I have nothing to do with the sum except to collect it. If you don't like it, ma'am, you've got to appeal and go before the commissioners.' He may puzzle me with his figures, but he will never convince me I have the income, for I have not. And he said if I supposed he was fond of the job I was mistaken." "Can Mr. Carnegie help you, Miss Wort? Men manage these things so much more easily than we do," said Mrs. Carnegie kindly. "Thank you, but I paid the demand as the least trouble and to have done with it." "Of course; I would pay half I am possessed of rather rather than go before the commissioners," said Miss Buff. "Old Phipps is one of them; and here he is. Come to see you, Bessie; you are having quite a levee. I shall be off now." Miss Buff rose, and Miss Wort with her, but before they went there were some rallying speeches to be exchanged between Miss Buff and the quaint old bachelor. They were the most friendly of antagonists, and their animosity was not skin-deep. "Have you seen Lady Latimer since the last school committee, Mr. Phipps?" asked Miss Buff, in mischievous allusion to their latest difference of opinion. "No. I always keep as far as possible out of her ladyship's way." "If you had her spirit of charity you would not avow it." "You take the name of charity in vain. 'It is the beginning, the excuse, and the pretext for a thousand usurpations.' Poverty has a new terror now-a-days in the officiousness of women with nothing to do but play at charity." Miss Wort shook her head and shut her eyes, as if to stave off the shock of this profanity. Miss Buff only laughed the more merrily, and declared that Mr. Phipps himself had as much to answer for as anybody in Beechhurst, if charity was a sin. "I can charge myself with very few acts of charity," said he grimly. "I am not out of bonds to bare justice." Mr. Phipps was in his sarcastic vein, and shot many a look askance at Cinderella in the sofa corner, with her plumed velvet hat lying on a chair beside her. She had been transformed into a most beautiful princess, there was no denying that. He had heard a confidential whisper respecting Mr. Cecil Burleigh, and had seen that gentleman—a very handsome personage to play the part of prince in the story. Mr. Phipps had curiosity, discernment, and a great shrewdness. Bessie had a happy face, and was enjoying her day in her old home; but she would never be Cinderella in the nursery any more—never the little sunburnt gypsy who delighted to wander in the Forest with the boys, and was nowhere so well pleased as when she might run wild. He told her so; he wanted to prove her temper since her exaltation. "I shall never be only twelve years old again, and that's true," said Bessie, with a sportive defiance exceedingly like her former self. "But I may travel—who knows how far and wide?—and come home browner than any berry. Grandpapa was a traveller once; so was my uncle Laurence in pursuit of antiquities; and my poor uncle Frederick—you know he was lost in the Baltic? The gypsy wildness is in the blood, but I shall always come back to the Forest to rest." "She will keep up that delusion in her own mind to the last," said Mr. Phipps. Then after an instant's pause, as if purposely to mark the sequence of his thoughts, he asked, "Is that gentleman who is staying at Fairfield with you now, Mr. Cecil Burleigh, a Woldshire man or South country?" "Woldshire," said Bessie curtly; and the color mounted to her face at the boldness of her old friend's insinuation. Mr. Phipps admired her anger, and went on with great coolness: "He has some reputation—member for Norminster, I think you said? The Fairfaxes used to be great in that part of the county fifty years ago. And I suppose, Miss Fairfax, you can talk French now and play on the piano?" Bessie felt that he was very impertinent, but she preserved her good-humor, and replied laughing, "Yes, Mr. Phipps, I can do a little of both, like other young ladies." Mr. Carnegie had now come in. "The old piano is sadly out of tune, but perhaps, Bessie dear, you would give us a song before you go," suggested her mother. Bessie gracefully complied, but nobody thought much of her little French canzonette. "It is but a tiny chirp, Bessie; we have better songs than that at home—eh, mother?" said the doctor, and that was all the compliment she got on her performance. Mr. Phipps was amused by her disconcerted air; already she was beyond the circle where plain speaking is the rule and false politeness the exception. She knew that her father must be right, and registered a silent vow to sing no more unless in private. Just at this crisis a carriage drove up and stopped at the gate. "It is the Fairfield carriage come to carry you off, Bessie," said her mother. Lady Latimer looked out and spoke to the footman, who touched his hat and ran to the porch with his message, "Would Miss Fairfax make haste?—her ladyship was in a hurry." "I must go," said Bessie, and took her hat. Mr. Phipps sighed like an echo, and everybody laughed. "Good-bye, but you will see me very soon again," she cried from the gate, and then she got into the carriage. "To Admiral Parking's," said Lady Latimer, and they drove off on a round of visits, returning to Fairfield only in time to dress for dinner. Just at that hour Harry Musgrave was coming back from his ramble in the red light of a gorgeous sunset, to be met by his mother with the news that Bessie Fairfax had called at the manor in the course of a ride with the doctor in the morning, and what a pity it was that he was out of the way! for he might have had a ride with them if he had not set off quite so early on his walk. Harry regretted too much what he had missed to have much to say about it; it was very unlucky. Bessie at Fairfield, he clearly discerned, was not at home for him, and Lady Latimer was not his friend. He had not heard any secrets respecting Mr. Cecil Burleigh, but a suspicion obscured his fancy since last night, and his mother's tidings threw him into a mood of dejection that made him as pale as a fond lover whom his lady has rebuffed. <hr /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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