"Oh, Mr. Trevellian," Bessie cried, turning her bright face to him, while the glad tears sprang to her eyes, and she forgot that until yesterday she did not know there was such a person as this elegant man making himself so much at home with them; forgot everything except the pleasure it would be to drive with her father in Hyde Park, and "be one of them," as she expressed it to herself.
"Then Neil has not asked you, and you will go with me?" Jack said, addressing himself to Archie, who replied:
"If Bessie likes--yes; and I thank you so much. You are giving my little girl a greater pleasure than you can ever guess."
Meanwhile the color had all faded from Bessie"s face, leaving it very pale, as she stood with clasped hands and wide-open eyes, looking first at herself in the gla.s.s and then at Jack. She was thinking of her old linen dress and hat, and of her father"s clothes. Neil was ashamed of them, her father had said, and she believed him, though it hurt her cruelly to do so. Would not Mr. Trevellian be ashamed of them too, when he came to realize the contrast there was between them and the people of his set who daily frequented the park?
"What do you say, Miss McPherson? Will you go?" Jack asked, and she answered quickly:
"I"d like it, so much; but I thought--I"m quite sure we had better not;"
and as she thus gave up the happiness she had so coveted, she burst into tears--tears for her poverty, and tears for Neil, who had not been so kind to them as this stranger was.
"Why, Bessie," her father said, "what is the matter? I thought you wanted to drive."
"I do, I do," she sobbed; then, with a quick, impatient movement she dashed the tears from her eyes which shone like stars as she lifted them bravely to Jack Trevellian and said, with a tinge of pride in her lone: "I should enjoy the drive more than anything else in the world, and it was kind in you to ask us; but, Mr. Trevellian, you don"t know what it would be to you to be seen there with father and me--he in his darned coat and I in this gown, the best I have here, or anywhere, for summer; and then, my hat; the ribbons are all faded and poor, just as we are, dear father and I;" and as she talked she stepped to her father"s side and wound her arms around his neck.
There was a world of pathos in the low, sweet voice which said so sadly, "dear father and I," and it moved Jack with a strange power, bringing a moisture to his eyes where tears had not been in years.
Mastering his weakness Jack burst into a merry laugh which was good to hear, as he said:
"Is it the gown, and the hat, and the old darned coat? And do you think I care for trifles like these? I tell you honestly, I would rather take your linen gown, to drive this afternoon, with you in it, than the most elegant dress in London and you out of it."
And so it was arranged that they should go, and Jack staid on and on, and read aloud to Bessie, and told her of his travels in the East, and in Australia, and then, he scarcely knew how or why, he spoke of the old Trevellian home in the north of England, near the border. Trevellian Castle it was called, he said, and it had been in the family for years.
"I have two cousins there," he said, "or rather second cousins, d.i.c.k and Harry, and I like them both so much, especially Hal, who is six feet three inches high, and well proportioned. Quite a giant, in fact. Then there is a young girl, Florence Meredith, Flossie we call her, she is so like a playful kitten. She is not a cousin, at least to me, though she calls me that. She is a distant relative of Sir Paul"s wife, the mother of d.i.c.k and Hal, and was adopted by her when a baby, Flossie is lovely, and you remind me of her, except that she is much younger. She will make a lovely woman, and somebody"s heart will ache on her account one of these days."
Jack hardly knew why he was taking to Bessie of little frolicsome Flossie Meredith, the Irish la.s.sie, who was not in the least like Bessie McPherson, except that she was sweet, and loving, and true, and said what she thought, and would have darned a coat or scrubbed the floor, if necessary. He only knew that he liked sitting by Bessie and that if he sat he must talk, and so he kept on and only arose to go when he heard the rattling of tea-cups outside and guessed that Mrs. Buncher might be preparing to bring up luncheon.
About half-past four that afternoon Mrs. Buncher was amazed to see a smart carriage, with handsome horses and servants in livery, drive up before her door and still more amazed to see her lodgers take their seats in it, Bessie and her father, side by side, and Jack Trevellian opposite them, with his back to the driver. It was a glorious June afternoon, and the park was, if possible, gayer and more crowed than on the previous day. The excitement incident upon the pa.s.sing of the princess had subsided, when the carriage turned in at the Marble Arch and joined the moving throng, which Jack scarcely noticed, so absorbed was he in watching Bessie"s face as it sparkled and shone with eager joy and excitement. How beautiful she was in spite of the brown linen and the sleeve puffs which had so annoyed Neil, and while watching her Jack felt his heart thrill with a strange feeling he had never experienced before in all his intercourse with women, and found himself mentally subtracting fifteen from thirty, and feeling rather appalled at the result.
After they had been in the park ten minutes or more and were nearing a curve, he saw a sudden flush in Bessie"s face and a gleam of triumph in her blue eyes as she looked ahead of her. Neil was coming from the opposite direction, he was sure, and in a moment the McPherson turn-out appeared, with Neil sitting as Jack sat, his back to the horses and his mother and Blanche opposite. The latter saw Bessie first, and giving her a haughty stare, spoke quickly to Lady Jane, whose stare was even more haughty and supercilious. Neither bowed even to Jack, but Neil lifted his hat with such a look of undisguised astonishment and disapproval on his face that Jack laughed merrily, for he understood perfectly how chagrined Neil was to see him there with Bessie. And Neil was chagrined and out of sorts, and called himself a sneak, and a coward, while to Jack he gave the name fool with an adjective prefixed. He did not even hear what his mother and Blanche were saying of Bessie until he caught the words from the former, "She has rather a pretty face;" then he roused up and rejoined:
"Rather a pretty face! I should think she had. It is the loveliest face I ever saw, and I"d rather have it beside me in the park than all the faces in London!"
"Reely!" Blanche replied, with an upward turn of her nose. "Suppose you get out and join them; there is room for you by Jack."
"I wish I could," Neil growled, and then he relapsed into silence and scarcely spoke again until they returned to Grosvenor Square.
As soon as dinner was over he started for Abingdon road, and was told by Mrs. Buncher, who received him with a slight increase of dignity in her manner, as became one before whose door carriages and servants in livery had stood twice in one day, that Mr. McPherson and the young lady had gone to see "Pinafore" with the gentleman who took them to drive.
"The deuce they have!" Neil muttered and hailing a cab he too drove to the theater, and securing the best seat he could at that late hour, looked over the house till he found the party he was searching for, Archie, in his threadbare coat, and high, standing collar, looking a little bored for himself, but pleased for Bessie, whose face was radiant as she watched the progress of the play.
For once Neil forgot the puffs and the linen gown, and thought only of the exquisitely beautiful face and rippling golden hair, for Bessie"s head was uncovered, and Neil saw that she received quite as much admiration from the fashionable crowd as did Little b.u.t.tercup or the Captain"s daughter, and that Jack looked supremely happy and nodded to his friends here and there as if to call their attention to the girl beside him.
"Confound him!" Neil thought. "What business has he to take charge of Bessie in this way? I"ll not allow it!"
But Jack had the inside track and kept it, in spite of Neil; and during the ten days Bessie remained in London he took her everywhere, and when she left he knew much more of some parts of the city than he did before.
Never in his life had he visited the Tower, which he looked upon as a place frequented only by Americans or country people; but as, after the park, this was the spot of all others which Bessie wished to see, he went there with her, and joining the party waiting for their ranks to be full, followed the pompous beefeater up stairs and down stairs, and into the lady"s chamber, and saw the steps by the water-gate where Elizabeth sat down when she landed there a prisoner to her sister, and saw the thumb-screws and other instruments of torture, and more fire-arms and bayonets grouped in the shape of sunflowers and roses than he had supposed were in the world, and climbed to the little room where Guilford Dudley was imprisoned, and stared stupidly at the name of Jane cut upon the wall, and looked down the staircase under which it was said the murdered princes were thrown, and horrified Bessie by asking who all these people were he had been hearing about.
"Of course I knew once," he said. "Such things were thrashed into me at school, but hanged if I have them and their history at my tongue"s end, as you have. Are you not tired to death?" he asked, pantingly, and fanning himself with his soft hat as they left the gloomy building, and, after looking at the spot where Ann Boleyn and Lady Jane Grey were beheaded, went back to the office where they dismissed their guide.
It was a scorchingly hot day, and Jack was perspiring at every pore, but Bessie was fresh and bright as ever, and eager to go to the Abbey and the Parliament House, and possibly _somewhere else_, and Jack obeyed her with an inward groan, and went where she wished to go, and marveled at her knowledge of and interest in everything pertaining to Westminster and its surroundings. Never in his life had Jack Trevellian been as tired as he was that night, with a back which ached so hard that he actually bought a plaster for it next morning, and, thus strengthened and fortified, started again on his mission. Kensington Museum, the British Museum, the National Gallery, Crystal Palace, Hampton Court, and the Queen"s Stables were all visited by turn, and then they went for a day to Alexandra Palace, and saw an opera, a play, a ballot, two circuses, and rope-walking, all for a shilling, which to Bessie"s frugal mind was best of all.
That night Jack was more worn out than ever, and his back ached worse than after the Tower, and though Bessie was to leave the next day for home, he did not go to Abingdon Road in the evening, but went to bed instead, and deferred his good-by until the morrow. So Neil had the field to himself, and made good use of his opportunity. Together he and Bessie walked in the Kensington gardens until they were tired, and then they sat side by side on one of the many seats in a retired part of the grounds, and Neil told her how sorry he was that she was going home, and how lonely he should be without her.
"Ye-es," Bessie said, doubtfully. "I think you will survive;" and then he burst out, impulsively; "I say, Bessie, I don"t want you to think me a cad and a sneak, when you go back to Stoneleigh. Don"t you suppose I"d like to have taken you round just as well--yes, better than Jack, confound him?"
"Why didn"t you then? I would rather have gone with you," Bessie said, beginning to relent at once toward the handsome, good-for-nothing Neil, who had his arm around her, and was looking into her face with his dark, expressive eyes.
"Why didn"t I?" he answered. "I am going to tell you why I didn"t, and why Jack did. He is his own master, with money to do as he likes, and no one to question or nag him at home; while I am _not_ my own master at all, and have no money except what mother chooses to give me, and that is not much. Father, you know, is poor, and mother holds the purse, which is not a large one, and keeps me awful short at times, especially after paying my Oxford bills and a few debts I contracted the last year.
There would have been no end of a row if I had asked her for money to spend on you and your father."
"Does she then hate us so much?" Bessie asked, and Neil replied:
"She cannot hate you, as she does not know you; but, you see, she is prejudiced against your mother and visits her anger upon your innocent head. I wanted her to call upon you and invite you to our house, and I wanted to take you to drive in the park, but I could not; my hands were tied. Do you suppose it was pleasant for me to see Jack Trevellian doing what I ought to have done?"
"No," Bessie replied, beginning to feel a great pity for Neil, who had suffered so much. "No, and I am glad you have told me, for I thought--I feared you were ashamed of us, and it hurt me a little."
There was a tremor in her voice which made Neil tighten the clasp of his arm around her, while he bent his head so low that his hair touched her forehead, as he exclaimed:
"Ashamed of you, Bessie! Never! How could I be ashamed of the dearest, sweetest little cousin a man ever had? I tell you I am the victim of circ.u.mstances!"
And bending his head still lower, "the victim of circ.u.mstances" kissed the girlish lips, which kissed him back again in token of reconciliation, and restored faith in him.
Poor, tired Jack, dreaming that night that he was a circus-rider and jumping through a hoop for Bessie"s pleasure, would have felt that all his fatigue and back ache, and the plaster which caused him so much discomfort, might have been spared, or at least were wasted on the girl with whom the kiss given in the deepening twilight was more powerful than all he had done for her, could he have known of that scene in the gardens. But he did not know of it, and at a comparatively early hour next morning he was at Mrs. Buncher"s, where Bessie greeted him with her sweetest smile and thanked him again for all he had done for them.
"Don"t speak of it, I beg; it is so very little, I only wish there was really something I could do to prove my willingness to serve you," he said.
They were standing alone by the window looking into the street, and as Jack said this there came a troubled look on Bessie"s face, find after waiting a moment, she said:
"There is something you can do, if you will: something which will please me very much, and prove you the good man I believe you to be."
"Command me, and it is done," Jack said; and Bessie continued:
"If you ever meet mother again at Monte Carlo, or anywhere, don"t play with her for money; promise me this."
"I promise," Jack answered, unhesitatingly; and, emboldened by his promptness, Bessie went on:
"And, oh, Mr. Trevellian, if you would never again play with any one for money, even the smallest sum. It is gambling just the same; it is wicked; it leads to so much that is bad. It was my grandfather"s ruin, and he knew it and repented bitterly, for it left his son nothing but poverty, and that is why we are so poor, father and I; gambling did it all."
There were tears in Bessie"s eyes, and they went straight to Jack"s heart. He was not an inveterate gambler, though he had lost and won large sums at Monte Carlo and Baden Baden, when the tables were open there, and, like most Englishmen, he never played whist that something was not staked; it gave zest to the game, which to him would be very insipid without it: but Bessie"s eyes could have made him face the cannon"s mouth, if need be, and he said to her at once:
"I promise that, too. I will never play again for money with anyone, but for my reward you must let me visit you at Stoneleigh sometime."
"Oh, yes, you may," she answered, "but I warn you it is a poor place to come to, with only old Anthony and Dorothy to do anything. I have to work, and you may have to work, too, and do other things than mending father"s coat."
She spoke playfully, and Jack declared his readiness to sift cinders, or scour knives, or do anything, if she would let him come. Just then Neil arrived, not altogether pleased to find Jack there before him, standing close to Bessie, who was looking very happy. The two young men went with her to the station, where they vied with each other in showing her attention. Jack held her traveling-bag, and her parasol and fan, and band-box containing the white chip hat, and Neil held her shawl, and umbrella, and paper bag of biscuits and seed cakes which Mrs. Buncher had given her to eat upon the road, and when at last she was gone, and they walked out of the station into the noisy street, each felt that the brightness of the summer day had changed, and that something inexpressibly sweet had been taken from them.