When Bessie Fairfax returned from Castlemount she learnt for a first piece of news that Mr. Cecil Burleigh had spent two days of her absence at Abbotsmead, and that he had only left in the morning. To this information her grandfather added that he had seen in his time unsuccessful lovers, more dejected. Bessie laughed and blushed, and said she was glad to hear he was in good spirits; and this was their first and last allusion to the crowning episode of her visit to Brentwood. The squire gave her one searching look, and thought it wisdom to be silent.
The green rides of the woods and glades of the park were all encumbered with fallen leaves. The last days of autumn were flown, and winter was come. The sound of the huntsman's horn was heard in the fields, and the squire came out in his weather-stained scarlet coat to enjoy the sport which was the greatest pleasure life had left for him. One fine soft morning at the end of November the meet was at Kirkham turnpike, and Abbotsmead entertained the gentlemen of the hunt at breakfast.
Bessie rode a little way with her grandfather, and would have ridden farther, but he sent her back with Ranby. Mr. Cecil Burleigh had once expressed a prejudice against foxhunting ladies, and when Mr. Fairfax saw his granddaughter the admiration of the miscellaneous gathering, and her acquaintance claimed by even Mr. Gifford, he adopted it. Bessie was disappointed. She liked the exercise, the vivacity of the sport, and Janey went so beautifully; but when her grandfather spoke she quietly submitted. Sir Edward Lucas, though he was charmed with her figure on horseback, was still more charmed by her obedience.
The burden of Bessie's present life threatened to be the tedium of nothing to do. She could not read, practise her songs, and learn poetry by heart all the hours of the day: less than three sufficed her often. If she had been bred in a country-house, she would have possessed numerous interests that she inevitably lacked. She was a stranger amongst the villagers—neither old nor young knew her. There was little suffering to engage her sympathy or poverty to invite her help. At Kirkham there were no long-accumulated neglects to reform as there was at Morte, and to Morte Mr. Fairfax forbade her to go. She had a liberal allowance, and not half ways enough to spend it, so she doubled her allowance to Miss Hague on behalf of her former pupils, Geoffry and Frederick; Laurence paid his own.
She was not a girl of many wants, and her taste did not incline to idle expenditure. She had seen thrift and the need of thrift in her early home, and thought money much too valuable to be wasted in buying things she did not require. Where she saw a necessity she was the freest of givers, but she had experience, gained in her rides with Mr. Carnegie, against manufacturing objects of sentimental charity.
Her resource for a little while was the study of the house and neighborhood she lived in. There was a good deal of history connected with Kirkham. But it was all contained in the county gazetteer; and when Macky had instructed her in the romance of the family, and the legends attached to the ruins by the river and the older portions of the mansion, all was learnt that there was to know, and the sum of her reflections announced aloud was, that Abbotsmead was a very big house for a small family. Macky shook her head in melancholy acquiescence.
The December days were very long, and the weather wild and stormy both by land and sea. Bessie conjectured sometimes when her uncle Frederick would come home, but it appeared presently that he was not coming. He wrote that he had laid up the Foam in one of the Danish ports to be ready for the breaking up of the winter and a further exploration of the Baltic coasts, and that he was just starting on a journey into Russia—judging that the beauty of the North is in perfection during the season of ice and snow.
"Just like one of Fred's whims!" said his father discontentedly. "As if he could not have come into Woldshire and have enjoyed the hunting! Nobody enjoyed it more than he did formerly."
He did not come, however, and Bessie was not astonished. Under other circumstances Abbotsmead might have been a cheerful house, but it seemed as if no one cared to make it cheerful now: if the days got over tranquilly, that was enough. The squire and his granddaughter dined alone day after day, Mr. Forbes relieved their monotony on Sundays, and occasionally Mr. Oliver Smith came for a night. Society was a toil to Mr. Fairfax. He did not find his house dull, and would have been surprised to know that Elizabeth did. What could she want that she had not? She had Janey to ride, and Joss, a companionable dog, to walk with; she had her carriage, and could drive to Hartwell as often as she pleased; and at her gates she had bright little Mrs. Stokes for company and excellent Mrs. Forbes for counsel. Still, Bessie felt life stagnant around her. She could not be interested in anything here without an effort. The secret of it was her hankering after the Forest, and partly also her longing for those children. To have those dear little boys over from Norminster would cheer her for the whole winter; but how to compass it? Once she thought she would bring them over without leave asked, but when she consulted Mrs. Stokes, she was assured that it would be a liberty the squire would never forgive.
"I am not afraid of being never forgiven," rejoined Bessie. "I shall do some desperate act one of these days if I am kept idle. Think of the echoes in this vast house answering only the slamming of a door! and think of what they would have to answer if dear little unruly Justus were in the old nursery!"