The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax | Page 8

forelock, and
presented themselves almost first on the scene. Mrs. Wiley, ready and
waiting out of doors to welcome her more distinguished guests, met a
trio of the little folks, in Bessie's charge, trotting round the end of the
house to reach the lawn.
"Always in good time, Bessie Carnegie," said she. "But is not your
mother coming?"
"No, thank you, Mrs. Wiley," said Bessie with prim decorum.
"By the by, that is not your name. What is your name, Bessie?"
"Elizabeth Fairfax."
"Ah! yes; now I remember--Elizabeth Fairfax. And is your uncle pretty
well? I suppose we shall see him later in the day? He ought to look in
upon us before we break up. There! run away to the children in the
orchard, and leave the lawn clear."
Bessie accepted her dismissal gladly, thankful to escape the
catechetical ordeal that would have ensued had there been leisure for it.
She was almost as shy of the rector's wife as of the rector. Mrs. Wiley
had a brusque, absent manner, and it was a trick of hers to expose her
young acquaintance to a fire of questions, of which she as regularly
forgot the answers. She had often affronted Bessie Fairfax by asking
her real name, and in the next breath calling her affably Bessie
Carnegie, the doctor's step-daughter, niece or other little kinswoman
whom he kept as a help in his house for charity's sake.
Bessie had but faint recollections of the rectory as her home, for since
her father's death she had never gone there except as a visitor on public
days. But the tradition was always in her memory that once she had
lived in those pleasant rooms, had run up and down those broad sunny
stairs, and played on the spacious lawns of that mossy, tree-shadowed
garden. In the orchard had assembled, besides the children, a group of
their ex-teachers--Miss Semple and her sister, the village dressmakers,

Miss Genet, the daughter at the post-office, and the two Miss
Mittens--well-behaved and well-instructed young persons whom Mr.
Wiley's predecessors had been pleased to employ, but for whom Mrs.
Wiley found no encouragement. She had the ordering of the school, and
preferred gentlewomen for her lay-sisters. She had them, and only
herself knew what trouble in keeping them punctual to their duty and in
keeping the peace amongst them. There was dear fat Miss Buff, who
had been right hand in succession to Mr. Fairfax, Mr. Roebuck and Mr.
Hutton, who adored supremacy, and exercised it with the easy sway of
long usage; she felt herself pushed on one side by that ardent young
Irish recruit, Miss Thusy O'Flynn, whose peculiar temper no one cared
to provoke, and who ruled by the terror of it with a caprice that was
trying in the last degree. Miss Buff gave way to her, but not without
grumbling, appealing, and threatening to withdraw her services. But
she loved her work in the school and in the choir, and could not bear to
punish herself or let Miss Thusy triumph to the extent of driving her
into private life; so she adhered to her charge in the hope of better days,
when she would again be mistress paramount. And the same did Miss
Wort--also one of the old governing body--but from higher motives,
which she was not afraid to publish: she distrusted Mr. Wiley's doctrine,
and she feared that he was inclined to truckle to the taste for
ecclesiastical decoration manifested by certain lambs of his flock who
doted on private theatricals and saw no harm in balls. She adhered to
her post, that the truth might not suffer for want of a witness; and if the
rising generation of girls in preposterous hats had taken her for their
pattern of a laborious teacher, true to time as the school-bell itself, Mrs.
Wiley's preference for young ladies over young persons would have
been better justified, and Lady Latimer would not have been able to
find fault with the irregular attendance of the children, to express her
opinion that the school was not what it might be, and to throw out hints
that she must set about reforming it unless it soon reformed itself.
Bessie Fairfax was on speaking terms with nearly everybody, and Miss
Mitten called her the moment she appeared to help in setting a ring for
"drop hankercher." Two of the little Carnegies merrily joined hands
with the rest, and they were just about to begin, Jack being
unanimously nominated as first chase for his dexterous running, when a

shrill voice called to them peremptorily to desist.
"Why have you fallen out of rank? You ought to have kept your ranks
until you had sung grace before tea. Get into line again quickly, for
here come the buns;" and there was Miss