The coachman had slackened speed, and now stopped. A gentleman was hastening down the drive—Mr. Forbes, as it turned out on his nearer approach. The very person she was anxious to see! Mrs. Chiverton exclaimed; and they entered on a discussion of some plan proposed between them for the abolition of Morte.
"I can answer for Mr. Chiverton's consent. Mr. Gifford is the impracticable person. And of course it is Blagg's interest to oppose us. Can we buy Blagg out?" said the lady.
"No, no; that would be the triumph of iniquity. We must starve him out," said the clergyman.
More slowly there had followed a lady—Miss Burleigh, as Bessie now perceived. She came through the gate, and shook hands with Mrs. Chiverton before she saw who her companion in the carriage was, but when she recognized Bessie she came round and spoke to her very pleasantly: "Lady Augleby has gone to Scarcliffe to meet one of her daughters, and I have a fortnight's holiday, which I am spending at home. You have not been to Carisfort: it is such a pretty, dear old place! I hope you will come some day. I am never so happy anywhere as at Carisfort;" and she allowed Bessie to see that she included Mr. Forbes in the elements of her happiness there. Bessie was quite glad to be greeted in this friendly tone by Mr. Cecil Burleigh's sister; it was ever a distress to her to feel that she had hurt or vexed anybody. She returned to Castlemount in charming spirits.
On entering the drawing-room before dinner there was a new arrival—a slender little gentleman who knelt with one knee on the centre ottoman and turned over a volume of choice etchings. He moved his head, and Bessie saw a visage familiar in its strangeness. He laid the book down, advanced a step or two with a look of pleased intelligence, bowed and said, "Miss Fairfax!" Bessie had already recognized him. "Mr. Christie!" said she, and they shook hands with the utmost cordiality. The world is small and full of such surprises.
"Then you two are old acquaintances? Mr. Christie is here to paint my portrait," said Mrs. Chiverton.
The meeting was an agreeable episode in their visit. At dinner the young artist talked with his host of art, and Bessie learnt that he had seen Italy, Spain, Greece, that he had friends and patrons of distinction, and that he had earned success enough to set him above daily cares. Mr. Chiverton had a great opinion of his future, and there was no better judge in the circle of art-connoisseurs.
"Mr. Christie has an exquisite taste and refinement—feelings that are born in a man, and that no labor or pains can enable him to acquire," her host informed Bessie. It was these gifts that won him a commission for a portrait of the beautiful Mrs. Chiverton, though he was not professedly a painter of portraits.
After dinner, Miss Fairfax and he had a good talk of Beechhurst, of Harry Musgrave, and other places and persons interesting to both. Bessie asked after that drop-scene, at the Hampton theatre, and Mr. Christie, in nowise shy of early reminiscences, gave her an amusing account of how he worked at it. Then he spoke of Lady Latimer as a generous soul who had first given him a lift, and of Mr. Carnegie as another effectual helper. "He lent me a little money—I have long since paid it back," he whispered to Bessie. He was still plain, but his countenance was full of intelligence, and his air and manner were those of a perfectly simple, cultivated, travelled gentleman. He did salaam to nobody now, for in his brief commerce with the world he had learnt that genius has a rank of its own to which the noblest bow, and ambition he had none beyond excelling in his beloved art. Harry Musgrave was again, after long separation, his comrade in London. He said that he was very fond of Harry.
"He is my constant Sunday afternoon visitor," he told Bessie. "My painting-room looks to the river, and he enjoys the sunshine and the boats on the water. His own chambers are one degree less dismal than looking down a well."