Chapter 49

GREY AND HIS AUNT.

Grey had been very sick the entire voyage. Since the day when he heard that Bessie was dead he had lost all interest in everything, and though he went wherever his aunt wished to go, it was only to please her, and not because he cared in the least for anything he saw. From Flossie he had never heard, for her letter did not reach him, and he had no thought that Bessie was alive, and everywhere he went he saw always the dear face, white and still, as he knew it must have looked when it lay in the coffin. Sometimes the pain in his heart was so hard to bear that he was half tempted to tell his aunt of his sorrow and crave her sympathy. But this he had not done, and Bessie's name had never passed his lips since he heard she was dead.

At last, alarmed by the pallor of his face, and the tired, listless manner, so unlike himself, Lucy suggested that they go home, and to this Grey readily assented. But first he must see Bessie's grave, and at London he left his aunt in charge of some friends who were going home in the same ship and would see her to Liverpool. He was going to Wales on business, he said, and as she knew he had been there two or three times before, Lucy asked no questions, and had no suspicion of the nature of the business which took him first to Carnarvon, where a last fruitless search was made for Elizabeth Rogers or some of her kin, and then to Stoneleigh, which he reached on an early morning train, the same which took Bessie to Liverpool! Thus near do the wheels of fate oftentimes come to each other.

In her hurry to secure a compartment, Bessie did not see the young man alighting from a carriage only the fourth from the one she was entering, and as both Anthony and Dorothy, who were at the station with her, went across the bridge to do some errands before returning home, no one observed Grey as he hurried along the road to Stoneleigh, and entering the grounds, stood at last by the new grave in the corner close to the fence, where he believed Bessie was lying.

Bearing his head to the falling rain, which seemed to cool his burning brow, he said aloud:

"Darling Bessie, can you see me now? Do you know that I am here, standing by your grave, and do you know how much I love you? Surely it is no wrong to Neil for me to whisper to your dead ears the story of my love. Oh, Bessie, I have come to say good-by, and my heart is breaking as I say it. If you could only answer me--could give me some token that you know, it would be some comfort to me when I am far away, for I am going home, Bessie, to the home over the sea, where I once hoped I might take you as my wife, before I knew of Neil's prior claim, but so long as life lasts I shall remember the dear little girl who was so much to me; and here I pledge my word that no other love shall ever come between us. I have loved you; I have lost you; but thank God, I have not lost your memory. Good-by, darling; good-by."

He stooped and kissed the rain-wet sod above the grave, then walked swiftly away in the direction of Bangor, and took the first through train to Liverpool. On arriving at the hotel he learned that his aunt had already gone to the wharf with her friends, and taking a cab, he, too, was driven there, meeting with Neil, who confounded and disgusted him with his apparent indifferences and heartlessness.

Absorbed in his own sad refection, Grey had no thought for any of his fellow passengers, whether steerage or cabin, and disguised by her hood and vail, Bessie might have brushed against him without recognition.

So he had no idea how near she was to him, and as the motion of the ship soon began to affect him, he went to his state-room, which he scarcely left again for several days. Once, when the doctor was visiting him, his aunt, who was present, asked if there were many sick among the steerage passengers, and if they were comfortable?

There was but one who was very sick, the doctor replied, and her case puzzled him, she seemed so superior to her class, and so reticent with regard to herself.

"I will go and see her," Lucy said, and that afternoon she made her visit to Bessie, with the result we have seen.

Puzzled and curious, she went next to her nephew, whom she found dressed and in his sea-chair, which had been brought into his state-room. He was better, and was going on deck as soon as the steward could come and help him. Sitting down beside him, Lucy began rather abruptly:

"I have heard you talk a great deal of Neil McPherson, whose father is brother to Miss Betsey McPherson, of Allington, and I have heard you speak of a Bessie McPherson. Do you know where she is?"

Grey's face was white as marble, while a spasm of pain passed over his features as he said: "Oh, Aunt Lucy, you do not know how you hurt me Why did you speak of her?"

"Because I have a suspicion that she is on the ship," Lucy replied; but Grey shook his head mournfully as he said to her:

"That is impossible; Bessie is dead. She died in Rome last spring. She was sick with the fever all the time we were there, and I was with her every day, but did not tell you, as I knew you would be so anxious for me. And when she died I could not talk of her to any one. Poor little Bessie! She was so young, and sweet, and pure. You would have loved her so much."

"Yes," Lucy said, taking one of Grey's hands, and holding it caressingly, for she guessed what was in his heart. "Tell me about her if you can. You say she is dead, and you are sure?"

"Yes, sure," he answered. "I did not see her die, it is true, but I know she is dead, and I have stood by her grave at Stoneleigh. When I left you in London I went to her grave, and I believe I left all my life and soul there with her. I never thought I could talk to any one of her, but it seems to me now it would be a relief to tell you about her. Shall I?"

"Yes, tell me," Lucy said, and closing his eyes, and leaning back wearily in his chair, Grey told her everything he knew with regard to Bessie McPherson, who had died in Rome, and whose grave he had stood beside in the yard at Stoneleigh; told her, too, of Bessie's engagement to Neil, of which he had heard from Jack Trevellian, and of Neil's apparent heartlessness and indifference when he met him in the streets of Liverpool.

"Poor little Bessie," he said in conclusion. "You don't know what a weary life she led, or how bravely she bore it; but she is dead, and perhaps it is better so than if she were the wife of Neil."

"Poor boy," Lucy said, very gently, when he had finished his story, "you loved Bessie very much."

"Yes, I loved her so much that just to have her mine for one brief month I believe I would give twenty years of my life," Grey replied, and every word was a sob, for he was moved as he had never before been moved, even when he first heard that Bessie was dead.

All thoughts of going on deck were given up for that day, and when the steward came to help him up the stairs, he helped him instead to his berth, where he lay with his eyes closed, though Lucy, who sat beside him, knew he was not asleep, for occasionally a tear gathered on his long lashes and dropped upon his cheek.

Late in the afternoon Lucy made her way again to the steerage quarters, for thoughts of the sick girl had haunted her continually, though she did not now believe her to be the Bessie whom Grey had loved and lost. But who was she, and who was the Neil of whom she had inadvertently spoken? and why was she so like the Bessie, Grey had described?

"Blue eyed, golden-haired, with a face like an angel," she repeated to herself, as she descended the stairs to the lower deck and walked to the door, around which several women were gathered with anxious concern upon their faces.