The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax | Page 4

busy replenishing the little mugs that came up in
single file incessantly for more milk. A momentary pause in the wants
of her offspring gave her leisure to notice her husband's visage--a
dusk-red and weather-brown visage at its best, but gathered now into
extraordinary blackness. She looked, but did not speak; the doctor was
the first to speak.
"It is about Bessie--from her grandfather's agent," said he with
suppressed vexation as he replaced the large full sheet in its envelope.
"What about _me_?" cried Bessie in an explosion of natural curiosity.

"Your mother will tell you presently. Mind, boys, you are good to-day,
and don't tire your sister."
So unusual an admonition made the boys stare, and everybody was
hushed with a presentiment of something going to happen that nobody
would approve. Mrs. Carnegie had her conjectures, not far wide of the
truth, and Bessie was conscious of impatience to get the children out of
the way, that she might have her curiosity appeased.
The doctor discerned the insurrection of self in her face, and said,
almost bitterly, "Wait till I am gone, Bessie; you will have all the rest
of your life to think of it. Now, boys, you have done eating; be off, and
get ready for school."
Jack and the rest cleared out of the parlor and pattered up stairs, Bessie
following close on their heels, purposely deaf to her mother's voice:
"You may stay, love." She was hurt and perturbed. An idea of what was
impending had flashed into her mind. After all, her abrupt exit was
convenient to her elders; they could discuss the circumstances more
freely in her absence. Mrs. Carnegie began.
"Well, Thomas, what does this wonderful letter say? I think I can
guess--Bessie is to go home?"
"Home! What place can be home to her if this is not?" rejoined the
doctor, and strode across the room to shut the door on his retreating
progeny, while his wife entered on the perusal of the letter.
It was from Mr. John Short, on the business that we wot of. To Mr.
Carnegie it read like a cool intimation that Bessie Fairfax was
wanted--was become of importance at Abbotsmead, and must break
with her present associations. It would have been impossible to convey
in palatable words the requisition that the lawyer was put upon making;
but to Mrs. Carnegie the demand did not sound harsh, nor the manner
of it insolent. She had always kept her mind in a state of preparedness
for some such change, and the only sense of annoyance that smote her
was for her own shortcomings--for how she had suffered Bessie to be
almost a servant to her own children, and how she could neither speak

French nor play on the piano.
The doctor pooh-poohed her remorse. "You have done the best for her
you could, Jane. What right has her grandfather to expect anything? He
left her on your hands without a penny."
"Bessie has been worth more than she costs, if that were the way to
look at it. But she will have to leave us now; she will have to go."
"Yes, she will have to go. But the old gentleman shall never deny our
share in her."
"The future will rest with Bessie herself."
"And she has a good heart and a will of her own. She will be a woman
with brains, whether she can play on the piano or not. Don't fret
yourself, Jane, for any fancied neglect of Bessie."
"I am sadly grieved for her, Thomas; she will be sent to school, and
what a life she will lead, dear child, so backward in her learning!"
"Nonsense! She is a bit of very good company. Wherever Bessie goes
she will hold her own. She has plenty of character, and, take my word
for it, character tells more in the long-run than talking French. There is
the gig at the gate, and I must be off, though Bessie was starting for
Woldshire by the next post. The letter is not one to be answered on the
spur of the moment; acknowledge it, and say that it shall be answered
shortly."
With a comfortable kiss the doctor bade his wife good-bye for the day,
admonishing her not to fall a-crying with Bessie over what could not be
remedied. And so he left her with the tears in her eyes already. She sat
a few minutes feeling rather than reflecting, then with the lawyer's
letter in her hands went up stairs, calling softly as she went, "Bessie
dear, where are you?"
"Here, mother, in my own room;" and Bessie appeared in the doorway
handling a scarlet feather-brush with which she was accustomed to dust

her small property in books and ornaments each morning after the
housemaid had performed her