"Montes dans ta chambre quelques instants, Bessie," said the voice of madame. And then with a gentle, decorous dignity she entered the salon.
When madame entered the salon, Mr. Cecil Burleigh was standing at one of the windows that gave upon the court. He witnessed the departure of Harry Musgrave, and did not fail to recognize an Englishman in the best made of English clothes. The reader will probably recognize him as one of the guests at the Fairfield wedding, who had shown some attention to Bessie Fairfax on her grandfather's introduction of him as a neighbor of his in Woldshire. He was now at Bayeux by leave of Mr. Fairfax, to see the young lady and take the sense of her opinions as to whether she would prefer to remain another year at school, or to go back to England in ten days under his escort. The interval he was on his way to spend in Paris—on a private errand for the government, to a highly honorable member of which he was private secretary.
Mr. Fairfax's letter to madame announced in simple terms the object of Mr. Cecil Burleigh's mission to Bayeux, and as the gentleman recited it by word of mouth she grew freezingly formal. To lose Bessie would be a loss that she had been treating as deferred. Certainly, also, the ways of the English are odd! To send the young lady on a two days' journey with this strange gentleman, who was no relative, was impossible. So well brought up as Bessie had been since she came to Caen, she would surely refuse the alternative, and decide to remain at school. Madame replied to the announcement that Miss Fairfax would appear in a few minutes, and would of course speak for herself. But Bessie was in no haste to meet the envoy from Kirkham after parting with her beloved Harry, and when a quarter of an hour had elapsed, and there was still no sign of her coming, Babette was despatched to the top of the house to bring her down to the interview.
Mr. Cecil Burleigh had taken a chair opposite the door, and he watched for its reopening with a visible and vivid interest. It opened, and Bessie walked in with that stately erectness of gait which was characteristic of the women of her race. "As upright as a Fairfax," was said of them in more senses than one. She was blushing, and her large dark blue eyes had the softness of recent tears. She curtseyed, school-girl fashion, to her grandfather's envoy, and her graceful proud humility set him instantly at a distance. His programme was to be lordly, affable, tenderly patronizing, but his dark cheek flushed, and self-possessed as he was, both by nature and habit, he was suddenly at a loss how to address this stiff princess about whom he had expected to find some rags of Cophetua still hanging. But the rags were all gone, and the little gypsy of the Forest was become a lady.
Madame intervened with needful explanations. Bessie comprehended the gist of the embassage very readily. She must take heart for an immediate encounter with her grandfather and all her other difficulties, or she must resign herself to a fourth year of exile and of school. Her mind was at once made up. Since the morning—how long ago it seemed!—an ardent wish to return to England had begun to glow in her imagination. She wanted her real life to begin. These dull, monotonous school-days were only a prelude which had gone on long enough. Therefore she said, with brief consideration, that her choice would be to return home.
"To Kirkham understand, ma chérie, not to Beechhurst," said madame softly, warningly.
"To Kirkham, so be it! Sooner or later I must go there," answered Bessie with brave resignation.
Mr. Cecil Burleigh was apparently gratified by the young lady's consent, abrupt though it was. But madame's countenance fell. She was deeply disappointed at this issue. Apart from her pecuniary interest in Bessie, which was not inconsiderable, Bessie had become a source of religious concern to influential persons. And there was a favorite nephew of madame's, domiciled in Paris, about whom visionary schemes had been indulged, which now all in a moment vanished. This young nephew was to have come with his mother to Étretât only a week hence, and there the canon and Madame Fournier were to have joined them, with the beautiful English girl committed to their charge. It was now good-bye to all such plots and plans.
Bessie perceived from her face that madame was distressed, but she did not know all the reasons why. Madame had been very good to her, and Bessie felt sorry; but to leave school for home was such a natural, inevitable episode in the course of life in the Rue St. Jean that, beyond a momentary regret, she had no compunction. Mr. Cecil Burleigh proceeded to lay open his arrangements. He was on his road to Paris, where he might be detained from ten to fifteen days, but madame should receive a letter from him when the precise time of his return was fixed. After he had spoken to this effect he rose to take leave, and Bessie, blushing as she heard her own voice, originated her first remark, her first question:
"My grandfather hardly knows me. Does he expect my arrival at Kirkham with pleasure, or would he rather put it off for another year?" Madame thought she was already wavering in her determination.