"Yes, Neil; there was no other comfortable place for him; the north room is so large and the chimney smokes so we could never get it warm,"
Bessie said, and Neil continued:
"And so you are to sleep there and catch your death-cold?"
"Not a bit of it," Bessie replied. "Dorothy will warm the bed with her big warming-pan and I shall not mind it in the least. I am never cold."
"Well, I think it a shame!" Neil said, feeling more annoyed that Grey was to sleep in Bessie"s room, than that Bessie was to pa.s.s the night in the great, cheerless north chamber with only old Dorothy"s warming-pan for comfort.
But it never occurred to him that he could give Grey his room and himself take the cold and the dreariness of the north room, nor yet that he could share his bed with Grey. He never thought for others when the thinking conflicted with himself, and returning to the dining-room he sat down by the fire with anything but a happy expression on his face, as he wished that he had not invited Grey to Stoneleigh.
Something in the expression of Bessie"s and Grey"s faces as they looked at each other had disturbed him, for he had read undisguised admiration in the one, and confidence and trust in the other, and knew that there were already sympathy and accord between them, and that they were sure to be fast friends at least, just as he had told himself he wished them to be.
Meanwhile Grey was thinking, as he made his toilet for supper, and as a result of his thoughts he at last rang the bell which brought old Dorothy to him.
"My good woman," he said, flashing upon her the smile which always won those on whom it fell, and drawing her inside the door which he shut cautiously, "My good woman, I do not wish to be particular or troublesome, but really I should like a room without a fire, the colder the better. One to the north will suit me, if there is such a one. No matter for the furniture; a bed and wash-stand are all I require. You see, I have so much health and superfluous heat that I like to be cool; and then I have the--" he stopped short here, for he could not quite deviate from the truth so far as to say he actually had the asthma, so he added, in an undertone, "If I had the asthma I could not breathe, you know, in this small room, pretty as it is, and upon my word it is lovely. Have you no larger chamber which I can take?"
"Ye-es," Dorothy said, slowly, with a throb of joy, as she reflected that her young mistress might not be deprived of her comfortable quarters after all. "There is a big chamber to the north, cold enough for anybody, but Miss Bessie got this ready for you. She will not like you to change. Do you have the _tisick_ very bad?"
Grey did not answer this question, but began to gather up his brushes and his combs, and putting them into his valise, he said, "I want that north room; take me there, please, and say nothing to your mistress."
Dorothy knew this last was impossible; she should be obliged to tell Bessie; but she did not oppose the young man whose manner was so masterful, and whom she led to the great, cheerless room with its smoky chimney down which the winter wind was roaring with a dismal sound, while across the hearth a huge rat ran as they entered it.
""Tis a sorry place, and you"ll be very cold, but I"ll warm your bed and give you plenty of blankets and hot water in the morning," Dorothy said, as she hastily gathered up the few articles belonging to Bessie, who had transferred them from her own room to this.
"I shall sleep like a top," Grey replied. "Much better than by the fire.
This suits me perfectly, and the cold is nothing to what America can do."
He was very rea.s.suring; and wholly deceived by his manner, Dorothy departed and left him to himself.
"Whew!" he said, as a gust of wind stronger than usual struck the windows and puffed down the chimney, almost knocking over the fire-board. "This is a clipper and no mistake. And what an old stable of a room it is, and what a place for that dainty little Bessie to be in.
She would be frozen solid before morning. I guess I shall sleep in my overcoat and boots. What a lovely face she has, and how it reminds me of somebody--I don"t know whom, unless it is Aunt Hannah, whose face I seemed to see right side by side with Bessie. They must be awfully poor, and I wish I had brought her something better for a Christmas present than this jim-crack," and opening his valise he took out a pretty little inlaid work-box fitted up with all the necessary appliances, even to a gold thimble.
Remembering the Christmas at home when a present was as much a part of that day as his breakfast, Grey had bought the box in London as a gift to Bessie, and when he caught a glimpse, as he did, of the worn basket, with its spools and scissors and colored yarns for darning, which Dorothy gathered up among other articles belonging to Bessie, he was glad he had made the choice he did. But now, as he surveyed the apartment and felt how very poor his host and daughter must be, he wished that he could give them something better than this fanciful box, which could neither feed nor keep them warm.
As he had finished his toilet in Bessie"s room there was nothing now for him to do except to give an extra twist to his cravat, run his fingers through his brown hair and then he was ready for the dining-room, where he found Bessie alone. As a matter of course, Dorothy had gone to Bessie and told her of the exchange, which delighted her far more than it did her mistress.
"Mr. Jerrold in that cold, dreary room!" Bessie exclaimed. "Oh, Dorothy, why did you allow it, and what must he think of us?"
"I could not help myself, darling, for he would have his way," Dorothy replied. "He was that set on the cold room that you couldn"t move him a jot. His breathing apparatus is out of killer; he has the _tisick_ awful and can"t breathe in a warm room. I shall give him some _cubebs_ to smoke to-morrow. And don"t you worry; he won"t freeze. I"ll put a bag of hot water in the bed. He is a very nice young gentleman, if he is an American."
Bessie knew she could not help herself, but there was a troubled look on her face when Grey came in, and, approaching her as she stood by the fire, made some casual remark about the unusual severity of the weather for the season.
"Yes, it is very cold," she said, adding quickly, as she looked up at him: "Oh, Mr. Jerrold, Dorothy has told me, and I am so sorry. You do not know how cold that north chamber is, and we cannot warm it if we try, the chimney smokes so badly. You will be so uncomfortable there.
You might let the fire go down in m--, in the other room, if the heat affects you. Dorothy says you suffer greatly with asthma."
"Yes--no," Grey replied, confusedly, scarcely willing to commit himself again to the asthma. "I shall not mind the cold at all. I am accustomed to it. You must remember I come from the land of ice and snow. You have no idea what blizzards America is capable of getting up, and ought to hear how the wind can howl and the snow drift about an old farm-house in a rocky pasture land, which I would give much to see to-night."
There was a tone of regret in his rich, musical voice, and forgetting that Neil had said he was from Boston. Bessie said to him:
"Is that farm-house your home?"
"Oh, no; my home proper is in Boston," he answered her, "but I have spent some of my happiest days in that house, and the memory of it and the dear woman who lives there is the sweetest of my life, and the saddest, too," he added, slowly; for, right in Bessie"s blue eyes, looking at him so steadily, he seemed to see the hidden grave, and for a moment all the old bitter shame and humiliation which had once weighed him down so heavily, and which, naturally, the lapse of years had tended to lighten, came back to him in the presence of this young girl who seemed so inextricably mixed up with everything pertaining to his past.
It was like some new place which we sometimes come suddenly upon, with a strange feeling that we have seen it before, though when we cannot tell; so Bessie impressed Grey as a part of the tragedy enacted in the old New England house many, many years ago, and covered up so long. He almost felt that she had been there with him and that now she was standing by the hidden grave and stretching her hand to him across it with an offer of help and sympathy. And so strong was this impression that he actually lifted his right hand an instant to take in it the slender one resting on the mantel, as Bessie talked to him.
"What would she say if she knew?" he thought, feeling that it would be easy to tell her about it,--feeling that she was one to trust even unto death.
Bessie was interested in Grey, and already felt the wonderful mesmeric influence he exercised over all who came in contact with him. In the _salons_ of fashion, in the halls of Eaton and Oxford, in the railway car, or in the privacy of domestic life, Grey"s presence was an all-pervading power, or as an old woman whom he had once befriended expressed it:
"He was like a great warm stove in a cold room."
And Bessie felt the warmth, and was glad he was there, and said to him:
"I wish you would tell me about that house among the rocks and the woman who lives there, I am sure I should like her, and I know so little of America or the American people. You are almost the first I have ever seen."
Before Grey could answer her Neil came in, and as supper was soon after served, no further allusion was made to America until the table was cleared away, and the party of four were sitting around the fire, Archie in his accustomed corner with Bessie at his side, her hand on the arm of his chair and her head occasionally resting lovingly against his shoulder. Neil was opposite, while Grey sat before the fire, with now and then a shiver running down his back as the rising wind crept into the room, even through the thick curtains which draped the rattling windows behind him. But Grey did not care for the cold. His thoughts were across the sea, in the house among the rocks, and he was wondering if his Aunt Hannah was alone that Christmas Eve, and was thinking just how dark, and ghostly and cold was the interior of that bedroom, whose door was seldom opened, and where no one had ever been since his grandfather"s death except his Aunt Hannah and himself. As if divining his thoughts, Bessie said to him: "I wish you would tell us about that house among the rocks. Is it very old?"
"Yes, one of the oldest in Allington," Grey replied, and instantly Archie roused from his usual apathetic State and repeated:
"Allington? Did you say Allington, in Ma.s.sachusetts?"
"Yes," Grey replied. "Allington, in Ma.s.sachusetts; about forty miles or so from Boston. Do you know the place?"
"My aunt lives there--the woman for whom Bessie was named, Miss Betsey McPherson. Do you know her?"
"Yes, I used to know her well when I was so often in Allington before my grandfather died," Grey replied, and Neil said to him:
"What manner of woman is she? Something of a shrew, I fancy. I saw her once when I was a boy, and she boxed my ears because I called her old Bet b.u.t.termilk, and she said that I and all the English were fools, because I asked her if there were any wildcats in the woods behind her house."
"Served you right," Grey said, laughingly, and then continued; "She is rather eccentric, I believe, but highly respected in town. My Aunt Lucy is very fond of her. Did you ever see her?" and he turned to Bessie, who replied:
"I saw her once at Aberystwyth, when I was a child; and she afterwards sent me this turquois ring, the only bit of jewelry I own," and Bessie held to the light her hand on which shone the ring Daisy had unwillingly given up to her on the occasion of her last visit to Stoneleigh.
For a long time they sat before the fire talking of America and the places Grey had visited in Europe, and it was rather late when the party finally retired for the night, Neil going to his warm, comfortable room facing the south, and Grey to his cheerless one facing the north, with only the cold and the damp, and the rats for his companions, if we except the bag of hot water he found in his bed, on which Dorothy had put woolen sheets and which she had warmed thoroughly with her big warming-pan.
"This is not very jolly, but I am glad I am here instead of Bessie,"
Grey thought, and undressing himself more quickly than he had ever undressed before, he plunged into the bed which was really warm and comfortable, and was soon wrapped in the deep sleep which comes to perfect health and a good conscience.
CHAPTER XI.
CHRISTMAS DAY.
When Grey awoke the next morning there was a little pile of snow on the foot of his bed, which stood near a window, and more on the hearth, which had sifted down the chimney, while the wind was, if possible, blowing harder than on the previous night.
"Whew!" Grey said, as he rubbed his cold nose, "I believe this beats Allington! How shall I ever get myself together?"