Chapter 26

NEIL'S DISCOMFORTURE.

Meanwhile Neil was driving on in no very enviable frame of mind. Bessie's startling demonstration had annoyed him more than he liked to confess. Why had she made such a spectacle of herself? and how oddly she had looked standing there in that old linen gown with her hat hanging down her back--and such a hat! He had noticed it in the gardens and thought it quite out of style, and had even detected that the ribbons had been ironed! But he did not think as much about it, or her gown either, when he was alone with her, as he did now when there was all his world to see and Blanche to criticise, as she did unsparingly.

"I thought you once told me she was very pretty," she said: "but I think her a fright in that dowdy dress, and bare-headed, too! Did it to show her hair, no doubt! There is probably some of her mother's nature in her."

Neil could have sworn, he was so angry with Blanche and with all the world, especially Bessie, who had got him into this mess. He tried to make himself believe that he had intended to take Bessie and her father for a drive in the park, but he should not do it now. Probably the linen gown was the only one Bessie had brought with her, and the elegant Neil McPherson, who thought so much of one's personal appearance and what Mrs. Grundy would say, could not face the crowd with that gown at his side, even if Bessie were in it. She would never know it, perhaps, but she had lost her chances with Neil, who nevertheless, hated himself for his foolish pride, and when the drive, which he shortened as much as possible, was over, he left Blanche to go home alone, and taking a cab drove straight to Oxford street and bought a lovely navy-blue silk and a pretty chip hat, with a wreath of eglantines around it. These he ordered sent to Bessie, at No. ---- Abingdon road, and then, feeling that he was a pretty good fellow after all, he started for home, where to his surprise, he found his cousin Jack.

"Why, Jack!" he exclaimed; "I thought you were in Ireland! When did you return?"

"This morning; and, as you see, have lost no time in paying my respects to you all," Jack answered, as he rose from his seat by Blanche and went forward, with his easy, patronizing manner, which always exasperated Neil; it had in it such an air of superiority over him, as if he were a mere boy, to be noticed and made much of.

There was always a show of friendship between these two, but no genuine liking. Still, they were now very gracious to each other, and talked together until dinner was announced, when Jack offered his arm to Blanche, to whom he devoted himself so assiduously that Neil was jealous at once, even though for Blanche herself he did not care a penny. And he knew Jack did not either, except as she was surrounded by the golden halo of ten thousand a year. Neil had not made up his mind whether he wanted that ten thousand with the incumbrance, or not; but he certainly did not want Jack to get it, and his brow grew cloudy, and he became very silent, until Jack startled him by saying:

"By the way, Neil, why have you never told me of that pretty little wild blossom hidden away in Wales?"

"Whom do you mean?" Neil asked savagely; and Jack replied:

"I mean your cousin Bessie. I stumbled upon her and her father in the park this afternoon, and told them who some of the people were. I was standing by Miss McPherson's chair when you drove by--"

"And she made that rush at Neil as if she had been a mad thing; it was too absurd!" Blanche chimed in, and turning to Lady Jane, she described the scene with great minuteness of detail. "It was really too ridiculous, to see her standing there waving her handkerchief with her head bare to show her abundant hair, and that old linen gown, which must have seen some years' service. I was intensely mortified to have our friends see her, and so was Neil."

"I beg your pardon, I was not mortified at all; I liked it, and I do not care who saw her," Neil said, rousing up in defense of Bessie, and lying easily and fluently, for Blanche's cruel remarks made him very angry.

"Oh, you did like it, then? Your face told a different story," Blanche retorted; while Lady Jane, forgetting her dignity, commenced a tirade against both Bessie and her mother, the latter of whom she cordially despised. Of the girl she knew nothing, she said, but it was fair to suppose she was like her mother, and she did not blame Blanche for feeling shocked at such unmaidenly advances in public to a young man.

Had Neil been a few years younger he would have called his mother a fool, as he had done more than once in his boyhood; but he could not do that now, and turning to Jack, who had been quietly eating his dinner, he said:

"Jack, what did you think of Bessie? Is she a bold hussy, and ought Blanche to smash her red parasol because Bessie's eyes have rested upon it?"

Thus appealed to, Jack looked up, with an amused smile on his face, and said:

"I don't quite believe Bessie's eyes did rest on Blanche's parasol. I thought they were on you, and envied you as a lucky dog. Seriously, though," he continued, as he saw the thunderous gleam in Neil's eyes, and the look of triumph in Blanche's, "it did not occur to me that there was anything bold or unmaidenly in what the young lady did, and I never saw a more beautiful tableau than she made, standing there in the sunshine, with her bright, wavy hair, and her lovely, eager face. She is very beautiful, and I am so glad I have seen her. They are stopping at--" He hesitated, and looked at Neil, who, grateful for his defense of Bessie, unhesitatingly replied:

"No. ---- Abingdon road, near High street"

"Thank you," Jack said, making a mental memorandum of the place, with a view to call, even if Bessie had said he better not.

After this little skirmish the dinner proceeded in peace, so far as Bessie was concerned, for Jack Trevellian was a kind of oracle, whose verdict could raise one to the pinnacle of public opinion, or cast him down to the depths, and if he said Bessie was not bold, nor brazen-faced, then she was not, though Lady Jane and Blanche disliked her just the same.

Neil, on the contrary, forgave her fully for the annoyance he had felt, and immediately after breakfast the next morning he started for Mrs. Buncher's. Bessie was trying on the hat when he entered. She had received the box only a few moments before, and had readily guessed that Neil was the donor, and had in part divined his motive.

"He was ashamed of my old gown and hat; and they are rather the worse for the wear, and looked very shabby among the fine dresses in the park. But they are the best I have, unless I make over those mother sent me--and that I cannot do," she thought, as she remembered, with a pang, the trunkful of half-worn garments of various kinds, which her mother had sent her from time to time, and which she could never bring herself to wear, because of the association. They had been worn in the moral mire of Monte Carlo and other places equally disreputable, and Bessie could no more have put them on than she could have adopted her mother's habits. In her linen dress, which she bought with money paid her for roses by the ladies who frequented the "George," she felt pure and respectable. But this gift from Neil, her cousin, she surely might keep, for her father said so, and, young-girl-like, she was admiring herself, or rather the hat, before the glass, when Neil himself came in.

"Hallo, Dot," he said, coming quickly to her side. "At it, I see, like the rest of your kind; but don't it become you, though! Why, you are sweet and fresh this morning as a rose from the old Stoneleigh garden," and the tall young man stooped and kissed the blushing girl two or three times before she could withdraw herself from him. "Why, Bess," he continued, "what a lump of dignity you are this morning! You did not used to wriggle so when I kissed you. What has happened?"

"Nothing has happened," Bessie replied, though she knew very well there had, for what Jack Trevellian had told her that rumor said of Neil and Blanche had opened a new channel of thought, and made her older far than she was before; too old for Neil to be kissing her as if she were a child.

And then, if what Jack said was true, he had no right to kiss her, even if she were his cousin. But was it true? She wished she knew, and after she had thanked Neil for the dress, and asked if he were very angry with her the day before for trying to attract his attention, and he had assured her that he was not, she burst out:

"Oh, Neil, is it true you are to marry Miss Blanche? Mr. Jack Trevellian stood by us yesterday and told me who the people were, and he said--"

"Jack be hanged!" Neil interrupted her. "What business has he to talk such nonsense to you? Marry Blanche? Never! What do I want of those light eyebrows and that pointed chin--I, who know you?"

Here he stopped, struck by something in Bessie's face which seemed to brighten and beautify it until it shone like the face of some pure saint to whom the gate of Paradise has just been opened. Then it occurred to Neil suddenly that Bessie was not a child. She was a girl of fifteen and more, with an experience which made her older than her years; and, selfish as he was, and much as he would like to have her look at him always as she was looking now, he felt that he must not encourage it. He had told her he should never marry Blanche, but in his heart he thought it possible, for, as there was no money in his own family, and he could not exist without it, he must marry money and forget the sweet face and soft blue eyes which moved him with a strange power and made him long to fold Bessie in his arms, and, young as she was, claim her as something more than a cousin. But, always politic and cautious, he restrained himself, and said to her instead:

"I do not believe I shall ever marry anybody, certainly not for many years, and you and I will be the best of friends always, brother and sister, which is better than cousins. Do you consent?"

"Yes," Bessie answered, falteringly, not quite understanding him, or knowing whether she should like the brother and sister arrangement as well as the cousin.

Then they talked together of what Bessie had seen in the park, and she told him all Jack Trevellian had said, and how kind he was, and how much she liked him, until Neil felt horribly jealous of his cousin, and wished he had staid in Ireland while Bessie was in London.

"Oh, it must be so fine to drive in a handsome carriage with the crowd. I wish I could try it. Does it cost so very much?" she asked, and Neil detested himself because he did not at once offer to take her and her father for the coveted drive.

"Could he do it?" he asked himself many times, deciding finally that he could not face his fashionable friends, and, more than all, his mother and Blanche, with these country cousins--Archie, in his threadbare coat, and Bessie, in her linen gown, with the big puffs at the top of the sleeves.

Had she been less beautiful he might venture it, but everybody would look at that face and turn to look again, and wonder who she was, and question him about her.

No, he couldn't do it, and so he went away at last, deciding to take the underground road to St. James Park, and meeting, as he was entering the station, Jack Trevellian coming out.

"Hallo, Hallo!" was said by each to the other, while both looked a little conscious, and Neil burst out, impulsively, "I say, Jack, what brings you over here?"

"The same which brought you, I dare say," Jack replied. "I am going to call upon your cousin."

"The deuce you are! I thought so," Neil answered, in a tone of voice indicative of anything but pleasure.

"Have you any objections?" Jack asked, and Neil replied:

"No--yes. Jack. You are as good--yes, better than most of the fellows in our set, but--" He hesitated, and Jack rejoined:

"But what? Go on."

"By Jove, I will speak out!" Neil continued, going close to his cousin. "You are a man of the world, accustomed to all sorts of girls--girls who laugh and flirt and let you make soft speeches to them and never think of you again because they know you mean nothing. But Bessie is not that kind; she is innocent and pure as a baby, and believes all you say, and--and--by George, Jack, if you harm a hair of her head I'll beat you into a pomace! You understand?"

"Yes, I rather think I do," Jack answered, with a smile; "and, Neil, you are more of a man than I supposed; upon my soul you are; but never fear, I will not flirt with Bessie, I will not make love to her, unless--I fall in love myself, in which case I cannot promise; but don't distress yourself. The Welsh rose is as safe with me as with you. Good-morning!" and so saying, he walked off in the direction of Abingdon road, while Neil rather unwillingly bought his ticket and went through the narrow way and down the stairs to wait for the incoming train.