Béziers

“ Elections are no more the saturnalia they used to be in the good old times. Bessie was reminded of Bayeux and its sultry drowsiness as they passed into the green purlieus of the minster and under a low-browed archway into a spacious paved court, where the sun slept on the red-brick backs of the old houses. Mr. Laurence Fairfax's door was in the most remote corner, up a semi-circular flight of steps, guarded on either side by an iron railing. ”

“ The wave of color passed from Bessie's face. "Dear grandpapa, don't talk of such remote events; it is time enough to think of changes and decide when the time comes," said she.
"That is no answer, Elizabeth. Prudent people make their arrangements in anticipation of changes, and their will in anticipation of death. Speak plainly: do you like the lodge as a residence, or the vicinity of Norminster?"
"Dear grandpapa, if you were no longer here I should go home to the Forest," Bessie said, and grew very pale.
The old squire neither moved nor spoke for several minutes. ”

“ Bessie always called it the bay, but in reality it resembled a lake, it was so landlocked, so closed in by the opposite shore, except in one part; but the smooth expanse of water, shining in the sunlight, lacked the freedom and wild freshness of the open sea, though Bessie would look intently to a distant part, where nothing, as she knew, came between her and the Atlantic. “If we only went far enough, we should reach America; that gives one the idea of freedom and vastness,” she thought. ”

“ Fairfax and Bessie, lunched at Abbotsmead, and lounged about the garden afterward. This was an institution. Sunday is long in country houses, and good neighbors help one another to get rid of it. The Stokes's boys came in the afternoon, to Bessie's great joy; they made a noisy playground of the garden, and behaved just like Jack and Tom and Willie Carnegie, kicking up their heels and laughing at nothing. ”

“ Yet ever they honoured pretty Bessee.
Now one of them was a gallant young knight,
And he came unto her disguised in the night;
The second, a gentleman of high degree,
Who wooed and sued for prétty Bessee.
A merchant of London, whose wealth was not small,
Was then the third suitor, and proper withal;
Her master's own son the fourth man must be,
Who swore he would die for pretty Bessee.
"If that thou wilt marry with me," quoth the knight,
"Ill make thee a lady with joy and delight;
My heart is enthralled in thy fair beauty,
Then grant me thy favour, my pretty Bessee." ”

“ Every way out of the scattered forest-town is still through beautiful forest-roads—roads that cleave grand avenues, traverse black barren heaths, ford shallow rivers, and climb over ferny knolls whence the sea is visible. The church is unrestored, the parsonage is unimproved, the long low house opposite is still the residence of Mr. Carnegie, the local doctor, and looks this splendid summer morning precisely as it looked in the splendid summer mornings long ago, when Bessie Fairfax was a little girl, and lived there, and was very happy. ”

“ He was no prince in disguise as it would have been so pleasant to discover him to be—this short, thickly-made, middle-aged man, with the prominent, bright, dark eyes, the large dark head, the knobbly red forehead, whose parents had kept a small draper's shop in a small market-town in the county.
What could a man so born and nurtured have to give Bessie in return for the stories of the high life to which she had been accustomed? ”

“ Human habitations were too wide-scattered, and the trees—there were no very great trees, nor any blue glimpses of the sea. Nevertheless, when the carriage turned into the domain at a pretty rustic lodge, the overarching gloom of an avenue of limes won Bessie's admiration, and a few fir trees standing in single grace near the ruins of the abbey, which they had to pass on their way to the house, she found almost worthy to be compared with the centenarians of the Forest. ”

“ Bessie dressed for the world, not for herself, certainly not for Bellair. Without, in the world—streets, restaurants, theatres—there existed an abstraction which must be satisfied. She had not yet entered upon that perilous adventure of dressing for the eyes of one man. She did not think of Bellair as she lifted her arms to her hair. On no other morning could she have been so far from the sense of him in her room. Empires have fallen because a woman has lifted her naked arms to her hair with a man in the room. ”

“ Bessie King, her eyes open with admiration and wonder, asked her chum the question in a room in the home of Eleanor Mercer, Guardian of the Manasquan Camp Fire, of the Camp Fire Girls. Both the girls were new members of the organization, and Bessie, who had lived all her life in the country, and had known nothing of the luxuries and comforts that girls in the city, or the luckier ones of them, at least, take almost as a matter of course, had found something new to astonish her in almost every hour since they had come to the city. ”

“ Even someone far better used to the bustle and confusion of the city might well have been at a loss. It was the luncheon hour, and from all the buildings hundreds of people were pouring out, making the streets seem fuller than ever. And it was not long before Bessie decided with a sigh that she must give up, and find her way home. She was afraid Eleanor Mercer would be worried and alarmed by her absence, and she determined to return as she had come, and as fast as she could. ”

“ Fairfax was pleased to welcome his granddaughter home again, and especially pleased to see no sadness in her return. The Forest was ever so much nearer now—not out of her world at all. Bessie had travelled that road once, and would travel it again. Every experience shortens such roads, lessens such difficulties between true friends. Bessie's acquaintances came to call upon her, and she talked of the pleasure it had been to her to revisit the scenes of her childhood, of the few changes that had happened there since she came away, and of the hospitality of Lady Latimer. ”

“ A book could be filled in telling all the children did in this charming place, of the drives they took in the great rockaway, of their rows upon the lake, of their walks in the lovely woods and glens, and even of one or two wild clambers over the higher rocks where the little girls had to be helped up and down, and Bessie often to be carried in the arms of papa or Uncle Ruthven. Sometimes, however, the grown people and boys went on expeditions which Mrs. Bradford thought too fatiguing, or hard, for her little girls, and they staid at home with grandmamma and Colonel and Mrs. Rush ”

“ And yet Bessie's life was a comparatively happy one, for she had her father, and she had Neil, her cousin, the handsome and spirited boy from Eton, and later the dashing student from Oxford, who came sometimes to Stoneleigh and made the place like heaven to the young girl blooming there unseen and unknown to the great world outside, and Bessie hoped to see him soon, for she was going with her father to London, where she had never been since she was a child, and of which she did not remember much. ”

“ Mrs. Rush looked out of the window by which she sat, and seemed to be watching the sea; and Bessie stood, softly patting the colonel's knee with her hand, while for a moment or two no one spoke. Suddenly Bessie looked up in the colonel's face.
"Colonel Yush," she said, "don't you have a great deal of faith?"
"In some people, Bessie," he answered. "I have a great deal of faith in my little wife, and a great deal in my pet Bessie, and some few others." ”

“ Bessie felt rather than saw the questioning eyes which her aunt flashed upon her, and her face was scarlet as she answered:
"Yes, I saw Miss Grey. She was very kind to me when I was sick. She did go directly to Boston."
"What is the matter with Mrs. Jerrold?" Miss Betsey asked, and Mrs. Browne replied:
"The land only knows. Heart complaint, the last report, I believe. I saw Hannah at the depot this morning; she'd been sent for, too. Geraldine always wants her when she's sick; but the minit she is better, the old maid sister is in the way, and not good enough for my lady's fine friends. ”

“ That will please Bessie, for she is great on missions, both at home and abroad, and her kitchen is a regular soup-house in the winter, for every beggar in Boston knows Mrs. Grey Jerrold. Jack, you don't know what a lovely woman Bessie is. Sweeter and prettier even than when she was a girl and you and I were both in love with her. And Grey—well, you ought to see how he worships her! Why, she is never within his reach that he does not put his hands upon her, and if he thinks no one is looking on he always kisses her, and by Jove, she kisses him back as if she liked it! ”

“ It would have enhanced Bessie's pleasure, though not her happiness perhaps, if she could have betaken herself to building castles in the Woldshire air, but the moment she began to indulge in reverie her thoughts flew to the Forest. No glamour of pride, enthusiasm, or any sort of delightful hope mistified her imagination as to her real indifference towards Abbotsmead. When she reached the garden she sat down amongst the roses, and gazed at the beautiful old flower-woven walls that she had admired yesterday, and felt like a visitor growing weary of the place. ”

“ His qualities developing themselves as he rose, proved him always equal to his fortune. Bessieres was always kind, humane, and generous, of antique loyalty and integrity, and, whether considered as a citizen or as a soldier, a honest worthy man. He often made use of the high favour in which he stood to do extraordinary services and acts of kindness even to people of very different ways of thinking from his. I know some who, if they have a spark of gratitude in them, will confirm my assertion, and can bear testimony to his noble elevated sentiments. ”

“ Then welcome unto me, my pretty Bessee.
With thee to thy father forthwith I will go.
Nay soft, quoth his kinsmen, it must not be so;
A poor beggar's daughter no lady shall be,
Then take thy adieu of pretty Bessee.
But soon after this, by break of the day
The knight had from Rumford stole Bessy away.
The young men of Rumford, as thick as might be,
Rode after to fetch again pretty Bessee.
As swift as the wind to ryde they were seen,
Until they came near unto Bednall-green;
And as the knight lighted most courteouslie,
They all fought against him for pretty Bessee. ”

“ King Charles—"
"Down with the Quakers!" shouted a hoarse voice close to their hiding-place, and Bessie, who was holding the string of the cellar door, felt her whole body shake with terror, for if the mob should find them there was no telling what they might do. So with the cellar door string in one hand, she held the frightened children close to her with the other, as they sat cowering in the dark, and listening to the angry threats of their rude neighbours, whom her father had so often warned to flee from the wrath to come. ”

“ Oh, for the moist glades of the Forest, for the soft turf under foot and the thick verdure overhead! Bessie longed for them with all her heart as she passed upon the sun-baked stones to the great door of the cathedral. The dusk of its vaulted roof was not cool and sweet like the arching of green branches, but chill with damp odors of antiquity. She sat down in one of the arcades near the portal above the steps that descend into the nave. ”

“ Bessie was not a promising scholar; she liked to do any thing in the world but study. She would look longingly out of the window a dozen times in the course of a single lesson, and when her mother reproved her by rapping her rather smartly on the head with her thimble, Bessie would only laugh, and say she guessed her skull must be thick, for the lesson would not get through, and the thimble did not hurt a bit! ”

“ No, Maggie and Bessie said, they had not thought of it.
"But perhaps Mr. Porter will let us have it in one of his barns, as Mr. Jones used to do last summer," said Bessie.
"I have found a better place than that for you," said Colonel Rush; "that is, on a pleasant Sunday. When it rains, we must find cover within doors. See, here, what do you think of this for a Sunday-school room?" [Pg 110] And he guided them a little to one side, where a sloping path and four or five natural steps led down into a broad crevice or cleft among the rocks which surrounded the lake. ”

“ So I gave him one long, long kiss, and let him go; and as soon as he was out of sight, turned into the door of Poplar Farm.
Bessie was in the dining-room, where the dinner was already spread, surrounded by her batch of self-willed unruly children. As she came forward to meet me, I saw that she looked tired and worn out, and that her dress was untidy and neglected.
‘It is so good of you to come, Dolly,’ was her greeting, ‘for I am so worried I don’t know what I should have done without you.’
‘I am very glad to be of use, Bessie; but what worries you—the baby?’
‘Dear me! no. ”

“ People from the country have an air of greater freshness about them, that is all. You live at Cliffe, do you not? I was never there, but it is rather an interesting place, is it not?”
“I think it a dear place,” returned Bessie enthusiastically; “but then it is my home, so I am not unprejudiced. It is very unlike other places. The streets are so steep, and some of the houses are built in such high, out-of-the-way nooks, you look up and see steps winding up the hill, and there is a big house perched up among the trees, and then another. You wonder how people care to climb up so many steps ”

“ I am tempting Bessie with the promise of a place at Old Drury, where, as you know, I am not without influence. Stab me! with her eyes and rosy red cheeks she would need neither paint nor powder to make her an ornament to the boards. Like most clever women, she has ambitions of a histrionic nature. She will come to London, Brooking, and once there!--once there--she is mine, dear lad, she is mine. ”