Chapter 28

CHRISTMAS AT STONELEIGH.

Two years and a half after that visit to London, Bessie McPherson, now a young lady of nearly eighteen, stood by the western window of the old house at Stoneleigh reading a letter from Neil. He had been at Stoneleigh several times since that summer in London, and these visits, with his letters always so affectionate and bright, were the only breaks in Bessie's monotonous life. Once Jack had been there for a few days, or rather to the "George," where he slept and took his meals, spending the rest of the time with Bessie, who interested him more and more, and from whom he at last fled as from a positive danger. With his limited income and his habits, he could not hope to marry, even if Bessie would have joined her young life with his matured one, which he doubted, and, with a great pang of regret he left her in the old Stoneleigh garden and did not dare look back at her, sitting there with the troubled look on her face, because he was leaving, lest he should turn back and, taking her in his arms, say the words he must not say.

And so he went his way to busy London, and heard from Blanche that the white-haired old earl in the north of England was dead, and the puny Dick master in his place.

"Only two between you and a fortune," seemed whispered in his ear, and with it came a thought of Bessie sitting under the old yew tree in the summer sunshine and looking after him.

"Murderer!" he said to himself again, "do you wish Dick dead and Hal, too, the finest fellow that ever lived, for the sake of a young girl whose mind is full of a prig like Neil McPherson?"

And so he put all thoughts of Bessie aside, and wore mourning for his great-uncle, and wrote a letter to the new heir, Sir Dick, and sent his love to Flossie, and went no more to Stoneleigh. But Neil was coming again, and his letter to Bessie was as follows:

"LONDON, Dec, 20th, 18--,

"MY SWEETEST COUSIN: and when I say that I mean it, for though Blanche is just as much my cousin as you are, and is in her way sweet as sugar, she bears no comparison to you, my little Dot, as I used to call you when you were a wee thing and let me kiss you as often as I liked. My Welsh rose I call you now, when you wear long dresses and will not let me kiss you, or at least will not kiss me as you did before you made that trip to London two years ago last June. Something happened to you then which shot you up into a woman, and I lost my little Bessie. But how absurdly I am writing, as if I were your lover, instead of your cousin, and as good as engaged to Blanche. I suppose mother would break her heart if I did not marry that £10,000 a year. I used to say I wouldn't, you know; but, _nous verrons_; what I wish to tell you now is, that I am coming to Stoneleigh for the holidays. Mother wishes me to go with her and Blanche to some stupid place near Edinburgh, and we have had a jolly row about it, but I prefer Stoneleigh and you; so you may expect me the 23rd, on the evening train from Bangor; and please tell old Dorothy to have a roasting fire in my room, which you know is something after the stable order, and oh, if she would have plum-pudding and chicken-pie for dinner! You see, I make myself quite at home at Stoneleigh, and I have a weakness for the good things of this world. I do not believe I was cut out for a poor man. I might be poor and honest, but never poor and happy.

"By the way, I am to bring a friend with me, or rather he is to stop first at Carnarvon, to hunt up somebody by the name of Rogers, whom he is very anxious to find."

"Rogers--Rogers," Bessie repeated, thoughtfully. "Seems to me I have heard that name before. Who is Neil's friend, I wonder? I am sorry he is coming, for that means another fire, and another plate at table, and we are so poor. Neil is right; it is not so easy to be poor and happy as one might think," and the look of care habitual to Bessie's face deepened upon it, for funds were very low at Stoneleigh just then.

It was weeks since they had received anything from Daisy, and Archie's slender income would barely suffice for absolute necessaries, leaving nothing for extra fires and extra mouths to feed with plum-pudding and chicken-pie, and all the etceteras of a regular Christmas dinner such as Neil would expect.

Resuming the letter at last, Bessie read on:

"I have asked him to spend a day at Stoneleigh after he has finished his business in Carnarvon, and he has accepted and will be with us at Christmas. He is an American--Grey Jerrold, from Boston--and the right sort of a fellow, too: not a bit of a cad, if he did thrash me unmercifully the first time I ever saw him. He served me just right, and we are great friends now. He was at Eton with me and at Oxford, too, and took the wind out of all our sails in both places. No sneak about him, and though he seems more English than American from having lived with us so long, he would knock me down now if I were to say a word against his star spangled banner. His father and mother are in Boston, and he has crossed, I don't know how many times, mostly, I think, to see an old Aunt Hannah, whom he seems to worship, and whose photograph he actually kissed the day he got it at Eton. Such an old fashioned woman, too, as she must be, judging from her dress and hair; but such a sweet, patient, sorry face, with an expression about the mouth like you when 'la petite madame' is under discussion. I hear she is at Monte Carlo still. A friend saw her there flirting with and fleecing an Italian count, who has quite cut out that poodle of a Hardy."

"Oh, Neil! oh, mother!" Bessie cried, and the look about her mouth, of which Neil had spoken, was pitiable to see, as the lips quivered and the great tears sprang to her eyes and stood on her long lashes. "Fleecing an Italian count!" she whispered. "If mother were to send us money now, I do not believe I would touch it."

Then she read on:

"You are sure to like Grey Jerrold, and if you do not fall in love with him I shall be surprised. He, of course, will surrender to you at once, and he is worthy of you. I am to make some stupid calls with my mother and Blanche so good-by till Tuesday night. I only live till then.

"Your loving cousin,

"NEIL."

For some time after finishing Neil's letter Bessie staid by the window, very still and thoughtful, with a half-pleased, half-troubled look in her young face. She was thinking of Neil's projected visit, and planning how she could make him comfortable, and his friend.

"I can dispense with a fire in my room, and the boots I was going to buy; these are not so very bad, though they do leak at times," and she glanced down rather ruefully at the little shabby boots in which her feet were incased, and which she had worn so long. "I hope Neil will not notice them, he is so fastidious about such things," she said, with a sigh; and then her thoughts went back to the summer when she had visited London and met Jack Trevellian who had been so kind and done so much for her.

Her mother had been home several times since then, and had spoken of Jack as a noble fellow, with nothing small in his nature.

"But he is greatly changed from what he used to be," she said. "When I first knew him at Monte Carlo, he was almost as regular at the tables as I was myself, and a capital partner at cards; but now he never plays at all, and did not even go inside the Casino, notwithstanding I did my best to persuade him. I think there must be some woman concerned in the change. Well she is fortunate if she gets Jack Trevellian. I wish Bessie, you had more tact, for I know he was interested in you. He is worth forty Neil McPhersons."

"Oh, mother, please don't talk like that," Bessie said, thinking to herself that she could tell, if she would, why he did not play as formerly, and feeling a great throb of gladness that he was keeping his promise to her.

If he had been coming to Stoneleigh, Bessie would not have cared for her surroundings, or her shabby shoes for he would not have noticed them, or if he did, he would not have let her know it as Neil was sure to do. Neil was very particular and critical, and had more than once hurt Bessie cruelly with his criticism upon her dress. But then he was just as severe upon Blanche, and that was some comfort, and with a sigh, as she remembered what he had said of being as good as engaged, she put the letter aside, and went to tell Dorothy of the expected guests and to consult with her as to the ways and means of making them comfortable.

"Fortunately I have some money saved, of my own, and you must make it go as far as possible, and be sure that we have a good Christmas dinner, with plum-pudding and whipped cream," she said, as she emptied into the old servant's hand what had been intended for boots and gloves, and a Christmas present for her father.

And now the day when Neil was expected had come, and it lacked but a few minutes of the time for the arrival of the train. Everything was ready, and the old house wore quite a festive appearance with its holiday dress of evergreens and scarlet berries, and all the flowers there were in blossom in the conservatory, which opened from the dining room, and was kept warm without extra expense. Everything which could be spared from other parts of the house had been brought to Neil's room, where a cheerful fire was burning in the grate, and where Bessie's own easy chair, and couch, and bright Afghan were doing duty, and making the place very comfortable and attractive.

During the two years and a half which had elapsed since Bessie's visit to London, she had changed somewhat, and was more a woman than a child, with a matured and, if possible, a sweeter expression in her face, though there still lingered about her mouth that same sorry, patient look which Jack Trevellian had wanted so much to kiss away. It was very apparent this afternoon, as she stood by the window looking out upon the snow which covered the garden and park, and made her shiver a little, and think of the mother who should have been at home, lightening her daughter's burden and cheering her lonely life.

"How happy the girls must be who have real mothers," Bessie thought, and then as if the regret for the mother reflected upon the father, who was so much to her, she went up to him by the fire, and stooping over him kissed him tenderly.

She always did that when her mother was in her mind and by some subtle intuition Archie had come to know it, and now his voice was very tender and loving as he drew her down upon his knee, and stroking her hair, said to her:

"Good little Bessie, what should I do without you? You are very lovely to-night in your finery. Are you glad Neil is coming?"

"Yes, very glad," Bessie replied, blushing a little. "Very glad for Neil, but I do not think I want that American here, too. I wish Neil had left him from the programme."

"Oh, yes; I remember you told me that Neil said he was coming. They are great friends, I believe," Archie said. Then, after a moment, he continued: "I dare say he is a gentleman. You may like him very much."

"No, I shall not," Bessie rejoined, tapping the floor impatiently with her boot, whose shabbiness French blacking could not wholly conceal, "I shall be civil to him, of course, as Neil's friend, but I would rather he did not come, spoiling everything. I see Neil so seldom that I want him all to myself when he is here. He is the only cousin I have, you know."

For a moment Archie was silent, and when at last he spoke, he said:

"Bessie, don't think too much of Neil. As I told you once in London, so I tell you now. He is too selfish by nature, and too ambitious to care particularly for anything which cannot advance his interests. He likes you very much, no doubt, and if you had a fortune, I dare say he would seek to make you his wife; but as you have not he will marry Blanche Trevellian, who has."

"Yes, he will marry Blanche," Bessie said, softly, and the old, tired, sorry look crept into her eyes and deepened about her mouth as she thought: "If I had a fortune! Oh, that _if_! What a big one it is in my case. And yet it is impressed upon me that somewhere in the world there _is_ a fortune awaiting me; very far from here, it may be, but still somewhere; but then, Neil will be gone before I get it, and I shall not care."

And as it had done more than once before, a sharp pain cut through Bessie's heart as she thought what life would be with Neil making no part of it. So absorbed had she and her father been that neither of them had heard the train as it glided swiftly by, but when, after a few moments had elapsed, there was the stamping of feet outside, and a cheery call to the house dog, who had set up a welcome bark, Bessie sprang from her father's knee, exclaiming:

"That's Neil; he has come, and I am so glad."

She was out in the hall by this time, waiting expectantly, while Anthony opened the door admitting Neil, who kissed Bessie twice, and told her how glad he was to see her again, and how well her stuff dress of dark claret became her, or would, if she had left off that knot of Scotch plaid ribbon at the throat, which marred the effect.

Bessie's checks flushed at this criticism upon the ribbon she liked so much, and had bought for this very occasion, with a view to please her cousin. He was in very high spirits, it seemed to her, as she listened to his gay badinage and laughter. But how handsome he was in his new holiday suit, every item of which was faultless, and of the latest style. If his mother stinted him in other ways, she surely did not where his wardrobe was concerned, and he had the reputation of being one of the best dressed young men in London.

When dinner was over, and he had finished his cigar which he smoked in the presence of Bessie, she asked him of the American, who was coming the next evening.

"Oh, yes, Grey Jerrold," Neil said, "and the finest specimen of a Yankee you ever saw."

"I don't believe I like Yankees," Bessie said curtly, and Neil replied:

"You will like this one; you cannot help it, every body likes him, from the shabbiest old woman in the railway carriage to the prettiest girl in Piccadilly. Perhaps it was a liberty I ought not to have taken, inviting him here without consulting you first, but I wanted you to see him, and him to see you," and there was a vehemence in Neil's voice and manner which Bessie could not understand. "He is rich, or will be by and by," Neil said. "And the most generous chap I ever saw. He was always helping us out of scrapes at school. He has a rich aunt in America, who keeps him well supplied with money, besides what his father gave him when he came of age."

"What did you say he was doing in Carnarvon?" Bessie asked, and Neil replied:

"Hunting up some old woman, or young woman, I don't know which, as I never paid much attention to what he did say about it, I believe, though, there is some money in the case. I wish it was for me," Neil said, and then suddenly he sank into a thoughtful, abstracted mood, from which he did not rouse till the clock struck ten and it was time to say good-night. "I have not been very good company for the last hour, I have been worried lately and am not quite myself," he said to Bessie, when she asked if he were ill and if there was anything she could do for him or send to his room.

And Neil had been worried and exasperated and wrought upon until he was half beside himself. His mother had wished him to accompany her and Blanche to the house of a friend near Edinburgh, and when he refused, saying he preferred to go to Stoneleigh, there had been a jolly row, as he expressed it, and his mother had charged him with his preference for the daughter of that bold adventuress, and had told him decidedly that if he ever dared to marry her he should never touch a shilling of her money either during her life-time or after, for once assured of the marriage she would so arrange her matters that he would be as great a beggar as Archie McPherson himself.

"A family of paupers!" she said, scornfully. "Your father has nothing to give you; absolutely nothing, and you can yourself judge, how, with your tastes and habits, you will like living at Stoneleigh with two meals a day, as I hear they sometimes do, blacking your own boots and building your own fires."

Here Neil winced, for he knew very well that he had no fancy for poverty, even if Bessie shared it with him But he told his mother he had, and consigned Blanche's ten thousand a year to a place where the gold might be melted, and said he loved Bessie McPherson better than anything in life, and should marry her if he pleased in spite of a hundred mothers. But he knew he should not--knew he could not face the reality when it came to the point. He was too dependent upon what wealth would bring him to throw it away for one girl, even if that girl were Bessie, whom he loved with all the intensity of his selfish nature--loved so much that for an hour or so after his interview with his mother, he balanced the two questions, Blanche with ten thousand a year, or Bessie with nothing. Naturally Blanche turned the scale, and then to himself, he said:

"I will go to Stoneleigh and live for a few days in Bessie's presence, and then I will say good-by forever and marry Blanche as mother wishes me to do. She is not so very bad except for her eyebrows and that horrid drawl. But Bessie, oh, Bessie, how can I give her up!" and the young man's heart cried out in pain for the sweet young girl he had loved all his life, and who, he was sure loved him. To do Neil justice, this was the bitterest drop in the cup--the knowing that Bessie, too, would suffer. "She has enough to bear," he said, "without an added drop from me, I wish she would get in love with some one else and throw me overboard. I believe I could bear it better. There's Jack he was awfully sweet on her in London, but he has only been to see her once since. He is too poor to marry, and there is no one else--yes, by Jove, there is!" and Neil started to his feet. "There is Grey Jerrold. He is just the man for Bessie to fall in love with if she could see him, and I'll bring that about."

It may seem strange that one so utterly selfish as Neil McPherson should have devised this plan to help him in his dilemma, but this in fact was only another phase of his selfishness. He knew it was impossible for him to marry Bessie, and felt that it was also impossible to give her up without other aid than his own feeble will. If she could prefer some one else to himself, it would be a help, however much his self-love might be wounded, and if another than himself must taste the sweetness he so coveted he would far rather that other should be Grey Jerrold, an American, even though he bore the rose away to foreign soil, than to have one of his own countrymen flaunting his happiness in his face, Bessie and Grey were suited to each other, he thought, and he would bring them together; so, when he heard from Grey of his intended trip to Carnarvon, he suggested that he defer it until the holidays and spend a day or two at Stoneleigh. Then he wrote to Bessie that he was as good as engaged to Blanche, and that she would probably fall in love with Grey, who was sure to do so with her. This done, he began to anticipate the visit, which he said to himself was to be his last, and from which he meant to get all the happiness possible, he would kiss Bessie as often as he liked; he would hold her hands in his, the dear little hands which had worked so hard, but, which nevertheless, were so soft and pretty; he would look into the innocent blue eyes and see them kindle and droop beneath his gaze, and then there should be one long, never to be forgotten walk by themselves across the suspension bridge, through the straggling old town, and along the road by the river toward Beaumaris, and he would tell her everything, all his love for her and its utter hopelessness because they were both so poor, and he would say good-by forever, and bid her marry Grey Jerrold, and so remove temptation from him and make it easier for him to be true to Blanche.

It was much easier for Neil to form this plan than to be satisfied with it, and during the few days which elapsed before he started for Stoneleigh he was cross and irritable and even rude at times both to his mother and Blanche, the latter of whom finally treated him with a cold indifference which made him fear a little for the ten thousand.

"What if she should take the bits in her teeth and throw me overboard?" he thought, and at the very last, he changed his tactics and devoted himself to the heiress with an assiduity which left her little doubt of his intentions. Still, to her he did not speak, though to his mother he said, half irritably, as if it were something wrung from him against his will:

"Don't trouble yourself. I intend to marry Blanche in my own good time; but I will not be hurried, and am going to Stoneleigh first."

And he went to Stoneleigh and tried all the way there to think of Bessie as she looked in the park, in the old faded gown with the disfiguring puffs; tried to make himself believe that she had no manner, no style, and would not pass for a great lady among people city bred; that she was better suited to some quiet home such as Grey Jerrold might give her, were he happy enough to win her. Neil had no doubt that Grey would try to win her when once he had seen her, and he began at last to feel sorry that he had invited his friend to Stoneleigh, and to have doubts as to his ability to give Bessie up even to him. He was sure of it when he reached Stoneleigh and saw her with the brightness on her face and the sparkle in her eye as she welcomed him. She might not be as elegant or as stylish as Blanche, who had lived in the city all her life, but she was inexpressibly sweet and womanly, and there was in every movement a grace and quiet dignity which stamped her as a lady. And Neil recognized it as he never had before, and fought the battle over again all through the silent night, and was still fighting it in the morning when he went down to breakfast and looked at Bessie as she poured his coffee, in her gray dress and pretty white muslin apron, with the daintily frilled pockets, and just the corner of a blue-bordered handkerchief showing in one of them. Neil liked the dress and the effect of the blue handkerchief but he did not like the apron, it made her look so like a housemaid, and he told her so when breakfast was over and they stood a moment alone by the fire.

Reddening a little, Bessie answered him, laughingly; "Yes, you told me once before that you did not like my apron, and I know it would be out of place on your mother or Blanche, but it suits me, for you see I _am_ housemaid here, and clear my own table and wash my own silver and china. Dorothy is old and has the rheumatism in her feet, and I must help; so, Mr. Aristocrat, if you do not wish to see me degrade myself, just go and take a walk, and when you come back the obnoxious apron shall be laid aside and we will practice that song you brought me."

Neil did not go out and walk, but staid in the dining-room and smoked his cigar, and looked at Bessie as she cleared away the breakfast dishes and washed the silver and china, with her sleeves drawn half-way to her elbows, showing her round, white arms.

"Yes, she is just suited to America, where, I believe, the women all wear aprons and wash their own dishes," Neil thought, as he watched her with a strange feeling in his heart of pain and happiness; happiness that for a few days at least she was his to look at, to love, to caress; pain that the days were so few and so short when he must leave her.

And then there arose before him, as in a vision, a picture of a quiet home amid green hedge-rows and sunny lanes, not a home such as Blanche's would be, with gorgeous surroundings and liveried servants everywhere, but such a home as makes a man better for living in it; a home where the housewifely Bessie was the presiding goddess, flitting about just as she was doing now, putting away the silver and china, brushing up the hearth, moving a chair here and another there, watering her pots of flowers in the conservatory, tea-roses and carnations and heliotrope and lilies all in bloom and filling the room with sweet perfume as if it were the summer-time, instead of chill December with its biting blasts sweeping against the windows.

"There!" Bessie said, at last, removing her apron, pulling down her sleeves, and smoothing her bright wavy hair, "I have dismissed the housemaid, and now I am ready to sing for you, or play chess, or do whatever you like."

But Neil was in no mood for singing or playing chess, or even talking much, and his fit of abstraction lasted all day, or until late in the afternoon, when Bessie began to speak of getting herself in readiness for Grey, who was to come in the evening train from Carnarvon. Then Neil roused, and as if he had nerved himself for the sacrifice, manifested a great deal of interest with regard to Bessie's personal appearance.

"I want you to get yourself up stunningly," he said, "so as to make a good first appearance. I have told Grey so much about you that he must not be disappointed."

"Ridiculous! I shall wear just what I wore yesterday, bow and all, for I like it," Bessie said, with a little defiant toss of her head.

She, too, had been thinking while Neil sat so silent and moody by the fire, and had decided that he had greatly changed for the worse since she had seen him last--that he was hard to please, moody, exacting, and quite too much given to criticising her and her dress.

"As if it is any of his business what I wear," she thought, and she took a kind of exultant satisfaction in fastening on the knot of ribbon he had condemned and which really was very becoming to her plain, dark dress.

"I suppose, Mr. Grey Jerrold, I must waste a clean collar and a pair of cuffs on you, though that will be so much more for me to iron next week," she said, as she stood before the mirror in her room, which was to be given to the coming guest, "I hope, sir, you will appreciate all I am doing for you, for I assure you it is no small matter to turn out from my comfortable quarters into that barn of a room where the wind blows a hurricane and the rats scurry over the floor. Ugh! how I dread it, and _you_, too!" she continued, shaking her head at the imaginary Grey, who stood before her mind's eye, black-eyed, black-whiskered, black-faced, and a very giant in proportions, as she fancied all Americans to be.

Her toilet completed, she removed from the room everything which she thought would betray the fact that it was her apartment, and carried them with a shiver to the chamber facing the north, where the rats scurried over the floor at night, and the wind blew a hurricane.

"There! I am ready for your Pythias! Do you think I shall pass muster?" she said to Neil, as she entered the dining-room where he was sitting.

It would indeed have been a very censorious, fault-finding man who could have seen aught amiss in the beautiful young girl, plain as her dress might be, and for answer to her question, Neil stood up and kissed her, saying as he did so:

"He will think you perfect, though I don't like the ribbon, I don't like any color about you except your hair and eyes. I wish you would take it off."

"Mr. Jerrold may think differently. I am dressed for him, and as I like it I mean to wear it," Bessie answered, curtly, but with a bright smile, as she looked into Neil's face.

"Oh, well; _chacun a son gout_," he said, consulting his watch, and adding: "It is time I was starting for the station; the train is due in fifteen minutes."

When he was gone Bessie began to feel a little nervous with regard to the stranger coming among them. Hitherto she had thought only of the extra expense and the trouble he would give old Dorothy, whose feet and ankles were badly swollen and paining her so much.

"I may have to cook and serve the Christmas dinner myself," she said, "and I don't mind the work; only I do not want this American from Boston, where the women are so full of brains, to think me a mere dishwasher and chimney-sweep. I wonder if he is half as nice as Neil says he is, and if I shall like him. Of course I sha'n't, but I shall treat him well for Neil's sake, and be so glad when he has gone."

Then she proceeded to lay the table for supper, as they usually dined in the middle of the day. Dorothy's feet were more active then, and Archie preferred an early dinner. Everything was in readiness at last; the bread and the butter and the jam, with cold chicken and ham, and the kettle singing on the hearth; the curtains drawn and the bright fire making shadows on the wall and falling upon the young girl, who, as her ear caught the sound of footsteps without, ran to the window, and parting the heavy curtains, looked out into the darkness so that the first glimpse Grey Jerrold had of her was of her fair, eager face framed in waves of golden brown hair, and pressed against the window pane in the vain effort to see the dreaded American.