"The more need, then, that some one else should care for you," replied Mr. John Short.
Inquirers daily besieged Abbotsmead for news of the squire. Mr. Laurence Fairfax came over, and Mr. John Short stayed on, expecting his opportunity, while slowly the old man recovered up to a certain point. But his constitution was permanently weakened and his speech indistinct. Jonquil, Macky, and Mrs. Betts were his nurses, and the first person that he was understood to ask for was Elizabeth. Bessie was so glad of his recollection that she went to him with a bright face—the first bright face that had come about his bed yet—and he was evidently pleased. She took up one of his hands and stroked and kissed it, and knelt down to bring herself nearer to him, all with that affectionate kindness that his life had missed ever since his sister Dorothy died.
"You are better, grandpapa; you will soon be up and out of doors again," said she cheerfully.
He gave her no answer, but lay composed with his eyes resting upon her. It was doubtful whether the cause of his illness had recurred to his weakened memory, for he had not attempted to speak of it. She went on to tell him what friends and neighbors had been to ask after his health—Mr. Chiverton, Sir Edward Lucas, Mr. Oliver Smith—and what letters to the same purport she had received from Lady Latimer, Lady Angleby, Mr. Cecil Burleigh, and others, to which she had replied. He acknowledged each item of her information with a glance, but he made no return inquiries.
Mr. Chiverton had called that day, and the form in which he carried intelligence home to his wife was, "Poor Fairfax will not die of this bout, but he has got his first warning."
Mrs. Chiverton was sorry, but she did not refrain from speculating on how Miss Fairfax would be influenced in her fortunes by the triple catastrophe of her uncle Laurence's marriage, her uncle Frederick's death, and her grandfather's impending demise. "I suppose if Mr. Laurence were unmarried, as all the world believed him to be, she would stand now as the greatest prospective heiress in this part of the county. If it was her fortune Mr. Cecil Burleigh wanted, he has had a deliverance."
"I am far from sure that Burleigh thinks so," returned Mr. Chiverton significantly.
"Oh, I imagined that projected marriage was one of convenience, a family compact."
"In the first instance so it was. But the young lady's rosy simplicity caught Burleigh's fancy, and it is still in the power of Mr. Fairfax to make his granddaughter rich."
Whether Mr. Fairfax would make his granddaughter rich was debated in circles where it was not a personal interest, but of course it was discussed with much livelier vivacity where it was. Lady Angleby expressed a confident expectation that as Miss Fairfax had been latterly brought up in anticipation of heiress-ship, her grandfather would endow her with a noble fortune, and Miss Burleigh, with ulterior views for her brother, ventured to hope the same. But Mr. Fairfax was in no haste to set his house in order. He saw his son Laurence for a few minutes twice, but gave him no encouragement to linger at Abbotsmead, and his reply to Mr. John Short on the only occasion when he openly approached the subject of will-making was, "There is time enough yet."