Bessie

Chapter I

" /^|HI offende non perdona," says the Italian proverb. Well, it is hard to forgive one whom we have wronged, for there is no magnanimity about it, as there is, for instance, in the forgiveness of the men and women who have sinned against us. And magnanimity, as setting us all right with ourselves, is, in sooth, a very pleasant inducement to virtue. But still there are generous souls who can injure, or attempt to injure their neighbours, and yet forgive them ; and of these Mademoiselle Aubrey was one. She had tried to warn me against giving too much love or trust to Elizabeth ; and she did not resent that warning against her. Far B VOL. BESSIE more, it was from the evening on which this wrong was attempted that she too yielded to the secret wiles of the charmer. I do not think her judgment Avas warped, or that her opinion was altered, but her heart Avas won, and she let her heart rule her.

These two became friends — not as Elizabeth and I Avere friends, in plea sant companionship, for the chasm of years is one which friendship rarely crosses, but in con fidence and trust. Yes, even I could see that Elizabeth, Avho silenced Mr. de Lusignan AA'hen ever he attempted to utter a word concerning that past which was the great bond between them, Avho was so reticent with me that Made moiselle Aubrey had felt it as a breach of friendship — I could see that with the aunt of her dead husband she was willing to talk of his youth and early manhood. SeA'eral times when I came upou them, I found that their discourse was of the two boys whom Mademoiselle Aubrey had loved so Avell iu life, and Avhom she could not separate in death. The subject Avas in variably dropped Avith my presence — not, I be lieve, that either wished to exclude me from it.

BESSIE. 3 as from a secret, but because I, a stranger, had, and could have, nothing in common Avith that grief. Once Mademoiselle made a sort of apology ou the subject. "I never could talk to your guardian as I talk to Elizabeth," she said ; " his self-condemn ation is too bitter and too keen, but Avith her I can open my Avhole heart ; for, Mignonne, she knew my darling well, and sometimes I fancy — it may be but a dream of mine — that to him also she was very dear. I always did think that these two boys loved the same girl, and, when I look at her lovely face, I cannot help thinking that to have loved and lost her must have been the great trouble of his life — that trouble which he would not tell even to me." I confess I too thought that Elizabeth's link with the past was a double one, and that heuce arose her reticence.

I thought it natural that she should open her heart, as much as she could open it, to the aunt of her dead husband, and the faithful friend of her unsuccessful lover, if Mademoiselle's conjecture was indeed a correct one. To me all this seemed as it should be, B BESSIE. but not so to my guardian. He looked Avith jealousy on this good understanding AA'hich had suddenly sprung up between his sister-in-law and his son's widow ; and once his displeasure Avas not merely felt but spoken. The house in Portland Place had been an ex pensive affair, I believe, and Ave had come to a furnished house in Fontainebleau for economy's sake. But Mr. de Lusignan, who could not be happy long Avithout spending, soon found out a neAV way of parting with his money. I had gone up to my room one morning after breakfast, when Hermance came with a message from my guardian.

" He wanted Mademoiselle at once," added Hermance — " Monsieur was iu a great hurry." I felt half frightened. Was it, could it be, anything about James Carr? — for I cannot say Avhy, but every fear of my quiet life noAV pointed tOAvards the best and dearest friend I had. I was a great coward, I suppose, and had never got over that fit of Othello jealousy to which it had pleased my cousin to treat me on the eve of my departure. BESSIE. 5 I therefore Avent down in some trepidation, and found Mr. de Lusignan alone in the dining room, his SAvarthy features all alive with un usual excitement. " I have got something for you, Mignonne," he said, in great glee ; " but are you prepared to brave dust, cobwebs, and spiders? Come, be heroic. A Watteau is Avorth it, surely." "A Watteau! Oh, Avhere is it?" and I looked round the dining-room.

" You silly thing ! Did I not speak of dust, cobwebs, and spiders ?" " Then it is up in the lumber-room," I said shrewdly ; for there was a lumber-room in the upper regions of the house, as I knew, one of my trunks having been consigned to it. " Precisely— in the lumber-room. I have just been there and discovered it, and got its history from Hermance. It seems that Baron Regnier's great-great-grandfather was a goodly old gentleman, whose three wives had blessed him with an ample progeny. This patriarch took a fancy, towards the close of his life, to collect all the youth and beauty of his descend- BESSIE. ants, and to set them keeping lambs, piping flutes, dancing sarabands, and eating cherries, all in a Watteau, Avhich I found in the lumber room with its face to the Avail." "And is it a Watteau?"

I asked, in some Avonder. " This is a sceptical, doubting age," sighed my guardian. " The very babes put questions, and say 'Is it a Watteau ?' Bessie, my dear, Avhen you are as old as I am, you AviU feel the profound wisdom of the French adage, ' II ny a que la foi qui sauve^ So now are you willing to come up and see the Watteau ?" I professed my willingness, and up to the lumber-room Ave went. Hermance had a saying about the amount of dust which every man and Avoman is bound, by the Fates Avho preside over these things, to swallow before death. Surely the share allotted to me must have been considerably diminished in the lumber-room that morning. I was half choked, and could scarcely look at the Watteau for coughing. AVhen I did look I was pleased with Avhat I saw. I knoAv I have a depraved taste, and that unreal BESSIE. pictures are all wrong, but, I like them, as I like fairy-tales, to this day.

They are nonsense, granted, but then they are delightful, which sensible things are not always. Every age has its beau-ideal, and that of fine ladies under the reign of the last French Louis seems to have been wonderfully pas toral. To Avear satin petticoats, high-heeled shoes, dainty bodices, and in that attire to feed sheep, milk-white, adorned Avith pink and blue favours, and wander in delicious valleys, watered by bubbling streams, in which reiguedthe fresh ness of a perpetual Spring, was the cream of an ideal life to these fair Comtesses and Marquises. Some one Avanted a wolf in Florian's sweet Idylls. I wonder, Watteau, did no one ever ask you for that dreary wolf Winter in the pretty stories you painted so Avell. " Of course you like it," said Mr. de Lusignan, after I had expressed my admiration, with the frank enthusiasm of eighteen ; " and of course it is a Watteau."

" I don't know, sir," I replied cautiously. " But what matter ?" BESSIE. " What matter ! You little heretic, are you like Juliet, who proclaimed that there was no thing in a name. Mignonne, Juliet was all wrong. Name is everything ; and she Avould not have cared for Romeo if he had not been a Montague. Now, take the asphodel, for in stance — I am no botanist, thank Heaven, and I neither know nor wish to know anything about the asphodel, save that it blooms in Elysium, Avhere all the heroes and the poets go." " There are onions that belong to the order of the asphodelaiæ," I began, perversely. " Onions !" cried my guardian, stopping his ears. " Oh ! Bessie, Bessie, how often must I entreat you not to crush me with your matter of-fact ways. Was it not purposely that I kept true to my Elysian floAver, and could knoAv no thing of my earthly one ; and do you tell me of onions ? — call them bulbs, at least."

" Hermance raves about onion soup — shall we call it bulb soup henceforth ?" The idea tickled my fancy, and I laughed till the tears ran down my cheek. My guardian looked at me and smiled, then he looked at BESSIE the Watteau again, then once more at me. " Which is the better of the two, Mignonne ?" he asked, very kindly — " to look at you or at the Watteau ?" " That is silent, sir," I replied, trying to look demure. " Yes, that is the best and the worst of pictures, they are silent. That is a very deep remark of yours, Mignonne ; but I daresay you know nothing about its profundity. And now let us impart our discovery to the good people below." He went down in one of his happiest, most, genial moods, for there was something almost boyish in the facility with which the simplest things could aAvaken his keen sense of enjoy ment ; and before five minutes had gone by his dark face was convulsed with passionate emotion, his eyes flashed fire, and the thick veins in his forehead Avere swollen with anger.

It happened thus : We entered the draAving-room rather suddenly ; Mademoiselle Aubrey and Elizabeth were sitting side by side in one of the windows, and in its light I saw them well, BESSIE. both framed by the old yellow curtains, as in a picture. Elizabeth's figure was bowed, her face was buried in her hands, and she Avas sobbing passionately, as I could see by the convulsive motion of her shoulders under the black lace fichu which she Avore. Mademoiselle Aubrey Avas leaning back in her chair, looking at Eliza beth very Avistfully ; she Avas not crying, but her face Avas troubled and pale, and on her lap lay the miniature portrait Avhich she had once shown to me. What I saAv my guardian saAv too, and at once came that change in his whole aspect Avhich I have recorded above. " I beg your pardon," he said, very bitterly.

" I am intruding. I believe you Avere discussing those subjects which are forbidden in my presence. Elizabeth raised her tear-stained face, and looked at him with a sort of scorn. "Mademoiselle Aubrey Avas shoAving me the portrait of my dead husband as a child," she said, rising as she spoke. "And of my dead son," he retorted, his features quiA'ering with emotion. " Perhaps BESSIE. you were more open and communicative to his aunt, Mrs. Henry de Lusignan, than you have ever been to his father." Mademoiselle Aubrey looked at her angry brother-in-law. " It was of Harry we were talking," she said, soothingly ; " not of Henry." " Ay, to be sure. Harry was nothing to you ; but you loA'ed him better than your sister's child." He Avas very angry indeed — so angry that he forgot the usual reserve and respect of his bearing towards his sister-in-law.

But though nature had made her quick-tempered, will and judgment kept her patient ; she looked at him as he now walked up and doAvn the room in mingled grief and anger, and she said, quietly, but firmly : " Since my mother died, I have loved no one so Avell as the boy whom I reared. I do not deny it. But I can defy you, Mr. de Lusignan, to say that your son and my nephew was not very dear to me." Elizabeth here flung her arms around Made- BESSIE. moiselle Aubrey's neck, and, smiling through her tears, said tenderly : " You loved them both ; and their love was the truest love that ever bound man to man. Whichever of the tAvo you most loved, it shall make no difference to me uoav— no difference." And, glancing at Mr. de Lusignan, she smiled at him a very SAveet but defiant smile. The colour deepened in his cheek to crimson.

He felt that he had been ungenerous and unwise, and it cut him to the quick to have been so, for, if his nature was wayward, it was not mean. "And I too loved them," he said, speaking in a low tone, as he suddenly stood still in the middle of the draAving-room ; " and surely I proved it. In life I gave them both a father's love ; and in death surely — surely," he added, his full voice quivering as he spoke, " I gave them both a father's sorrow." There was a deep silence after this. Then Elizabeth, disentAvining her arms from Made moiselle Aubrey's neck, left the room, and I followed her. " Bessie," she said, laying her hand on mine BESSIE. 13 as I closed the door, " it will be war to the end of the chapter between that man and me." War indeed it always was after a certain fashion ; but assuredly not such war as I under derstood by the word.

For this was in the morning; and though my guardian and his daughter-in-law remained on the qui vive for the afternoon, they both relaxed in the severity of their demeanour after dinner, and were on de lightful terms before it was night. They could not help it. Mr. de Lusignan could not be really angry Avith a beautiful woman ; and my fair Elizabeth could not be long vexed with an admirer whose admiration was always in perfect taste. Moreover, Mr. de Lusignan had the great advantage that he Avas not, and could not be a lover. His homage for this beautiful star was of the kind which need never change, never grow more, or, worse still, become less. He did not covet it, nor foolishly ask it to come down to him from its native heavens. The distance of years from which he gazed at it gave it a purer radiance, a softer and more tender light, than would have done a nearer BESSIE. view.

And if Elizabeth was too lovely and too much accustomed to worship not to take it as her due, she was also far too delicate and refined not to be very fastidious as to its nature. Now it is often the lot of beautiful women to be coveted, like the rose, by every outstretched hand, but to be set like a planet iu the sky is a rarer fate. It is only fair to state, however, that on this evening the Watteau helped to this good under standing. No sooner had my guardian men tioned it than Elizabeth's blue eyes sparkled. " A Watteau ! " she cried, all ardour. " Oh ! let us see it !" For she could not live Avithout excitement of some kind, and failing better things, a Watteau in the lumber-room was welcome. So up we Avent again to view the picture by candlelight, Mademoiselle Aubrey wisely remaining below, and saying she could Avait till the morning.

" What is a Watteau ?" Avhispered Elizabeth to me on the way. For a knoA\iedge of art, ancient and modern, was not one of her gifts. Once more we made our way through trunks, BESSIE. 15 packages, and crazy old furniture, to the picture. " There !" cried my guardian, enthusiastically, as he moved the light up and down to help our survey. " There is delicacy for you ; and flesh and poetry, and all that a man's soul and heart could put in a pseudo-pastoral " And is that a Watteau !" said Elizabeth, turning away from it with disappointment — " dingy old thing !" " It is a Watteau of the first water," retorted my guardian, warmly ; " is it not, Mignonne ?" "I don't know, sir, but I think it is a fine picture." Elizabeth raised her eyebrows and laughed. She had neither love nor veneration for antiqui ties of any kind, old lace excepted, and she would have said so in the face of a Raffaelle or a Correggio.

That daring honesty was one of her many attractions. I never knew one whose tastes and opinions had been less influenced by conventional rules than those of Elizabeth de Lusignan. My admiration of the Watteau, however, was as genuine as her contempt, and it secured me BESSIE. goldeu opinions from my guardian. A hobby Avas to him what excitement was to Elizabeth, and having found this, he now rode it without mercy. After having come, for the twentieth time, to the conclusion that the picture in the lumber-room was a Watteau, he resolved to secure the prize, and wrote to Baron Regnier to ask to purchase it. The Baron proved tract able, and for a handsome consideration the pic ture became my guardian's property. He was delighted, especially because Mr. Gray had not got it, I am convinced. He cleaned and var nished it himself, got a magnificent frame for it, and had it hung up in the drawing-room, where even Elizabeth confessed that it looked Avell under these improved surroundings.

I do not knoAv whether it Avas a Watteau or not, but I am sure that it was a beautiful pic ture. Years have passed since I saAv it, and I have not yet forgotten the freshness of those green bowers, the coolness of those still Avaters, the beauty of those fair Avomeu. It took a strange hold of my imagination, perhaps be cause it had been a realitA', and not a mere BESSIE. 17 painter's dream. I knew that these bright eyes had had life and light once on a time, that these rosy cheeks and plump white shoulders had been Avarm and living ; nay, the very silks and satins had been true, and they too attracted me. There was a flowered blue petticoat, which I would have given my ears to have had the like of, and a red kid shoe that used to set me wild with envy. For, though dear Uncle John had given me an all but classical education, I Avas still a daughter of Eve, and I liked dress and its belongings very dearly.

About a fortnight after the first discovery of the Watteau, my guardian had business which called him to Paris, and it was agreed that we were all to go with him, and do some of that shopping without Avhich true women cannot exist. We were all ready, and waiting only for Elizabeth, when, to our great surprise, she came down in home attire, and said quietly : " I am so sorry that I cannot go with you, but Harry is bilious, and I can neither take him nor trust him alone with Watkins." VOL. II. C BESSIE. I do not know that Mr. de Lusignan wanted his daughter-in-law particularly in Paris, but he never liked any of his plans to be interfered Avith, and he looked much annoyed. " Shall we put it off till to-morrow ?" he sug gested. "I daresay Harry would be bilious to-mor roAv," she said, with provoking coolness ; and she sat down in one of the deep arm-chairs, and calmly folding her hands upon her lap, looked demurely at her rosy fingers.

Mr. de Lusignan darted a quick keen glance at her ; but I Avas so far from suspicion myself that I neA'er guessed what the real meauiug of that look might be. Moreover, I was sadly disappointed. I had made up my mind that Eliza beth and I were to spend half the day in the Palais Royal, and now Avhat would even that magic palace be without her ? " Since Harry is bilious," said Mr. de Lusig nan rather sarcastically, " we must go without Harry's mamma." " Yes," replied Elizabeth, in a provoking way which she had to perfection, " I am afraid you must." BESSIE. 19 And she laughed as if she enjoyed his annoy ance, and indeed I have no doubt that she did. We accordingly drove away without Mrs. Henry de Lusignan. Her father-in-law looked verymoodyall the Avayto the station, and several times wished he had asked Elizabeth to tele graph to him iu case the child got worse, for we AA'ere to spend no less than two days in Paris.

I suggested that Elizabeth Avould be sure to write if the child was really ill. " She does not even know Avhat hotel we stop at," said my guardian, impatiently. "No, we must come back this evening, that is all." Now, whether he knew it or not, Mademoi selle Aubrey's errand in Paris could not be despatched in one afternoon, for she was going to see an old friend who liA'ed in Versailles, and who happened to be away Avhen we were at the Hotel Meyerbeer in the Spring. I saAv an ex pression of deep disappointment cross her face ; but she said not a word. Long ago she had made it a rule never to interfere with her brother-in-law's plans, however much they might clash with her OAvn ; and, thanks to that C BESSIE. forbearance, these two, spite my guardian's wayward temper, had always lived in peace.

Still I knew how she looked forward to that meeting. " Only think, Mignonne," she had said to me that morning, " Ave were school-girls together, Blanche and I, and now see how Fate makes us meet again after so many chances and so many years. She, an English girl, the Avidow of a Frenchman, is living in Versailles, with her French children around her ; and I, a French woman, am like a stranger and a visitor in my own country, with my English brother-in-law and my English nephew's child. I wonder if we shall know each other again, Mignonne. I remember her well — a rosy young thing — the Sylph, Ave used to call her. She writes that she has got stout. I cannot believe it — my Sylph stout ! — impossible !" And she had laughed Avith pleasure, and her blue eyes had glistened as she had told me this.

And noAv she was to be balked of that joy ! I could not bear it. A bright idea struck me, and I said eagerly : BESSIE. 21 " Please, sir, I do not care to go to Paris for an afternoon. If you like it, I will drive home again, and telegraph to you if anything should ail Harry. I was surprised eveu then at the eagerness with Avhich my guardian embraced a proposal Avhich I fully expected to be scouted with disdain. " Why, Bessie, that is a capital idea !" he ex claimed. " As you say. it is not worth your Avhile to go to Paris for a feAv hours only. Better come another time with Mrs. de Lusig nan and me. I shall be sure to want to go again soon. You can go back at once, for here's the station ; and Ave are only just in time by the clock. Good-bye." He jumped doAvn, hurried off his sister-in-law, and, bidding the coachman drive me home, Avas gone in a moment.

" Oh ! my goodness !" I thought, when I had fairly turned my back on the station, and the carriage Avas rattling along the stony street which leads to Fontainebleau, " he has never told me the name of the hotel after all."

Chapter II. My

dismay did not last long. With the ready hopefulness of youth, I promptly concluded that Mr. de Lusignan would remember his omis sion, and send me Avord of his whereabouts by an early post. Besides, I argued, in the same buoyant mood, why should Harry be ill, unless he did it on purpose, little monkey, whilst his grandpapa Avas away? Bilious! — well, he was very often bilious, especially after being out with Watkins, Avho took it for granted that she was to rule her young charge by the law of persuasion, and whose prime minister under that. Avise government Avas the pastrycook. HaA'ing settled that matter, I leaned back in the carriage, and enjoyed my solitude and my liberty. There is a pleasure no doubt in the BESSIE. 23 sense of independence and irresponsible action, for no sooner did I feel alone and free than I dismissed the driver, and bade him set me down in the Market Place, instead of taking me home, as he had been told.

At length I could indulge myself in a view of that market which had been all but forbidden ground to me, and was there fore doubly attractive. Mademoiselle Aubrey did not care for going to market — not even for floAvers ; and my guardian scouted the mere idea. " I am a man of sophisticated tastes, Bessie," he said. " I have no pleasure in looking at un dressed vegetables ; and I like fruit by wax light best — when the epergne is on the table, and there is a glitter of crystal and silver." " Indeed, sir," I remonstrated, " if you were to see the big cabbages tumbling about, and the white cauliflowers, and the basketfuls of eggs " Bessie, how often must I implore you not to crush me with your matter-of-fact ways ? You do not knoAv me, child. Why, if I had the power, cabbages should grow ready cooked, as partridges rained doAvn ready roasted from the BESSIE. sky in the Avonderful land of Cockayne.

Yes, I would do away with the noble art of cook ery, and there should not be a saucepan nor a broom nor a duster in the land. I for one shall always regret that the time is gone by when Brownies swept the hearth clean in the night, and the dust and turmoil of a houseful of servants, not to speak of board and wages, Avas unknown in a decent family." Thanks to this fastidiousness of Mr. de Lu signan, I had only had cursory glimpses of the market of Fontainebleau ; so, this being market day, I realized the desire of my heart, and with a feeling of daring and half wickedness upon me, I got doAvn and mingled Avith the crowd. What a shrill and noisy crowd it was ! What scream ing, what haggling Avent on in that hot place, aud under the shade of the low lime-trees that grow around it ! I wondered what the bronze effigy of the General standing there thought of it all.

He Avas born in this little town, I be lieve, and perhaps he had played as a child on this very spot ; maybe he had lingered near these stalls of tempting plums, so rich, so dark, BESSIE. 25 so large, looking at them with covetous boyish eyes ; or he had pined with vain longing for these Reine Claudes of golden green lying coyly on broad vine-leaves. In the very din and dust of battle the place may have flashed back upon him as a glimpse of some lost Eden ; for I take it as granted that Ave have all been in Paradise, and all lost it through sin and folly, or by the inevitable curse of Time. And now that he had come back to it at last, that he had done his day's work, got his wages, and been raised on a pedestal by his admiring countrymen, did he care so very much for that vision of brown peasant Avomen in Avhite caps sitting iu the sun, or driving hard bargains from under the shade of gigantic umbrellas, and never giving a thought to the dead whose image had been thus set among them ?

However this might be, to speculate upon the thoughts of a statue had not been my object in getting down at the market-place. I had a very definite object in vieAV, and one which I resolved to carry out at once. The fruit was both lovely and tempting, but leaving it by, I went straight to the vegetables. BESSIE. The fact is, I wanted to paint a picture of the Dutch school, with carrots, turnips, and a cabbage all in a group. Those brought home by the cook at my request had all been failures in an artistic point of view ; but noAV my only difficulty was the abundance and luxuriance ofthe subjects before me, of the cabbages especially. At length I got one so large, so green, so round, so crisp, so beautiful, in short, that I had never seen its peer save in my dreams during the last week. Having secured this prize, and turnips and carrots to match, I looked round in search of a carrier, and found myself face to face Avith my little viper-seller.

Spite the prediction of Mr. de Lusignan, he had not turned up since the day of his unlucky fall in the gorges of Apremont, and I uttered an ex clamation of glad surprise on seeing him as bronzed, as ragged, as wild, and evidently as Avell as ever. " Well," I said eagerly, " how are you ? How did you get over that accident ? Why did you never come to see me in Fontainebleau ? And how is your little sister Belle ?" BESSIE. 27 Of all my inquiries, this was the only one which my viper-seller answered. " Belle is well," he said in his brief way. " And so are you," I remarked, glancing at his little brown feet, still stockingless, but cased in strong shoes. " You are not selling vipers in the market, are you ?" "No," he sententiously answered. " Well, then, AA'ill you carry these for me ?' " Do you live far ?" he inquired dubiously.