Bessie was informed of the terms of her grandfather's will in the first shock of surprise; afterward her uncle Laurence reflected that it would have been wise to keep them from her, but the deed was done. She received the news without emotion: she blushed, put up her eyebrows, and smiled as she said, "Then I am a poor young woman again." She saw at once what was absurd, pathetic, vexatious in her descent from the dignity of riches, but she was not angry. She never uttered a word of blame or reproach against her grandfather, and when it was indignantly recalled to her that Mr. Cecil Burleigh was put into possession of what ought to have been hers, she answered, "There is no ought in the matter. Grandpapa had a lively interest in Mr. Cecil Burleigh's career, for the sake of the country as well as for his own sake, and if you ask me my sentiments I must confess that I feel the money grandpapa has left him is well bestowed. It would be a shame that such a man should be hampered by mean cares and insufficient fortune."
"Oh, if you are satisfied that is enough," was the significant rejoinder, and Lady Angleby's hopes had a wider echo.
To Mr. Cecil Burleigh his old friend's bequest was a boon to be thankful for, and he was profoundly thankful. It set him above troublesome anxieties and lifted his private life into the sphere of comfort. But his first visit to Abbotsmead and first meeting with Miss Fairfax after it was communicated to him tried his courage not a little. The intimacy that had been kept up, and even improved during Mr. Fairfax's decline, had given him no grounds for hoping better success with Elizabeth as a lover than before, and yet he was convinced that in leaving him this fine fortune the squire had continued to indulge his expectations of their ultimate union. That Elizabeth would be inclined towards him in the slightest degree by the fact of his gaining the inheritance that she had forfeited, he never for one moment dreamed; the contrary might be possible, but not that. Amongst the many and important duties and interests that engaged him now he had neither leisure nor desire for sentimental philandering. He was a very busy man of the world, and wished for the rest of a home. Insensibly his best thoughts reverted to his dear Julia, never married, still his very good friend. He approved the sweet rosy face of Elizabeth Fairfax, her bright spirit and loving, unselfish disposition, but he found it impossible to flatter himself that she would ever willingly become his wife. Lady Angleby insisted that honor demanded a renewal of his offer, but Elizabeth never gave him an opportunity; and there was an end of his uncertainties when she said one day to his sister (after receiving an announcement of her own approaching marriage to Mr. Forbes), "And there is nothing now to stand between your brother and Miss Julia Gardiner. I am truly glad grandpapa left him an independence, they have been so faithful to each other."
Miss Burleigh looked up surprised, as if she thought Bessie must be laughing at them. And Bessie was laughing. "Not quite constant perhaps, but certainly faithful," she persisted. But Mr. Cecil Burleigh had probably appreciated her blossoming youth more kindly than his dear Julia had appreciated her autumnal widower. Bessie meant to convey that neither had any right to complain of the other, and that was true. Miss Burleigh carried Miss Fairfax's remarks to her brother, and after that they were privately agreed that it would be poor Julia after all.
Mr. Laurence Fairfax insisted that his niece should live at Abbotsmead, and continue in possession of the white suite until she was of age. He was her guardian, and would take no denial.
"It wants but three months to that date," she told him.
"Your home is here until you marry, Elizabeth," he rejoined in a tone that forbade contradiction. "You shall visit Lady Latimer, but subject to permission. Remember you are a Fairfax. Though you may go back to the Forest, it is a delusion to imagine that you can live comfortably in the crowded household where you were happy as a child. You have been six years absent; three of them you have spent in the luxurious ease of Abbotsmead. You have acquired the tastes and habits of your own class—a very different class. You must look to me now: your pittance is not enough for the common necessaries of life."
"Not so very different a class, Uncle Laurence, and fortunately I am not in bondage to luxurious ease," Bessie said. "But I will not be perverse. Changes come without seeking, and I am of an adaptable disposition. The other day I was supposed to be a great heiress—to-day I have no more than a bare competence."
"Not even that, but if you marry suitably you may be sure that I shall make you a suitable settlement," rejoined her kinsman. Bessie speculated in silence and many times again what her uncle Laurence might mean by "suitably," but they had no explanation, and the occasion passed.
Bessie's little fortune was vested in the hands of trustees, and settled absolutely to her own use. She could not anticipate her income nor make away with it, which Mr. Carnegie said was a very good thing. Beyond that remark, and a generous reminder that her old nest under the thatch was ready for her whenever she liked to return and take possession, nothing was said in the letters from Beechhurst about her grandfather's will or her new vicissitude. She had some difficulty in writing to announce her latest change to Harry Musgrave, but he wrote back promptly and decisively to set her heart at rest, telling her that to his notions her fortune was a very pretty fortune, and avowing a prejudice against being maintained by his wife: he would greatly prefer that she should be dependent upon him. Bessie, who was a loving woman far more than a proud or ambitious one, was pleased by his assurance, and in answering him again she confessed that would have been her choice too. Nevertheless, she became rather impatient to see him and talk the matter over—the more so because Harry manifested little curiosity to learn anything of her family affairs unless they immediately affected herself. He told her that he should be able to go down to Brook at the end of August, and he begged her to meet him there. This she promised, and it was understood between them that if she was not invited to Fairfield she would go to the doctor's house, even though the boys might be at home for their holidays.