Bessie made a very unsentimental reply: "Poor Mrs. Chiverton, indeed! Oh, but she does not want our pity! That old man is a slave to her, just as the girls were at school. She adores power, and if she is allowed to help and patronize people, she will be perfectly happy in her way. Everybody does not care, first and last, to love and be loved. I have been so long away from everybody who loves me that I am learning to do without it."
"Oh, my dear, don't fancy that," said Miss Burleigh, and she stroked Bessie's face and kissed her. "Some of us here are longing to love you quite as tenderly as any friends you have in the Forest." And then she bade her good-night and left her to her ruminations.
Miss Burleigh's kiss brought a blush to Bessie's face that was slow to fade even though she was alone. She sat thinking, her hands clasped, her eyes dreamily fixed on the flame of the candle. Some incidents on board the Foam recurred to her mind, and the blush burnt more hotly. Then, with a sigh, she said to herself, "It is pleasant here, everybody is good to me, but I wish I could wake up at Beechhurst to-morrow morning, and have a ride with my father, and mend socks with my mother in the afternoon. There one felt safe."
There was a knock at the door, and Mrs. Betts entered, complacent with the flattering things that had been said of her young lady in the steward's room, and willing to repeat them on the smallest encouragement: "Miss Jocund is really cleverer than could have been supposed, miss. Your white silk fits most beautiful," she began.
"I was not conscious of being newly dressed to-night, so her work must be successful," replied Bessie, untying the black velvet round her fair throat. Mrs. Betts took occasion to suggest that a few more ornaments would not be amiss. "I don't care for ornaments—I am fond of my old cross," Bessie said, laying it in the rosy palm of her hand. Then looking up with a melancholy, reflective smile, she said, "All the shining stones in the world would not tempt me to sacrifice my liberty." Mrs. Chiverton was in her thoughts, and Lady Latimer.
Mrs. Betts had a shrewd discernment, and she was beginning to understand her young lady's character, and to respect it. She had herself a vein of feeling deeper than the surface; she had seen those she loved suffer, and she spoke in reply to Miss Fairfax with heartfelt solemnity: "It is a true thing, miss, and nobody has better cause than me to know it, that happiness does not belong to rank and riches. It belongs nowhere for certain, but them that are good have most of it. For let the course of their lives run ever so contrary, they have a peace within, given by One above, that the proud and craving never have. Mr. Frederick's wife—she bears the curse that has been in her family for generations, but she had a pious bringing-up, and, poor lady! though her wits forsook her, her best comfort never did."
"Some day, Mrs. Betts, I shall ask you to tell me her story," Bessie said.
"There is not much to tell, miss. She was the second Miss Lovel (her sister and she were co-heiresses)—not to say a beauty, but a sweet young lady, and there was a true attachment between her and Mr. Frederick. It was in this very house they met—in this very house he slept after that ball where he asked her to marry him. It is not telling secrets to tell how happy she was. Your grandfather, the old squire, would have been better pleased had it been some other lady, because of what was in the blood, but he did not offer to stop it, and they lived at Abbotsmead after they were married. The house was all new done-up to welcome her; that octagon parlor was her design. She brought Mr. Frederick a great fortune, and they loved one another dearly, but it did not last long. She had a baby, and lost it, and was never quite herself after. Poor thing! poor thing!"
"And my uncle Laurence's wife," said Bessie, not to dwell on that tragedy of which she knew the issue.
"Oh! Mr. Laurence's wife!" said Mrs. Betts in a quite changed tone. "I never pitied a gentleman more. Folks who don't know ladies fancy they speak and behave pretty always, but that lady would grind her teeth in her rages, and make us fly before her—him too. She would throw whatever was in her reach. She was a deal madder and more dangerous in her fits of passion than poor Mrs. Frederick: she, poor dear! had a delusion that she was quite destitute and dependent on charity, and when she could get out she would go to the cottages and beg a bit of bread. A curious delusion, miss, but it did not distress her, for she called herself one of God's poor, and was persuaded He would take care of her. But it was very distressing to those she belonged to. Twice she was lost. She wandered away so far once that it was a month and over before we got her back. She was found in Edinburgh. After that Mr. Frederick consented to her being taken care of: he never would before."