They did just as little as they could, at least that portion of the family which was at Vichy when the news of Archie's death was received there. This portion comprised the Hon. John and Lady Jane, for Neil had already started for Moscow with Blanche and a few other young people.
"How very inconvenient that he should die just now when we are so far from Wales. It is quite impossible for you to undertake the long journey in this hot weather; and what good could you do if you were there? You could not pretend to be sorry, and we are not able to do much for the girl; Neil's trip will take all our spare cash," Lady Jane said, as she read the telegram received from Jack, and that decided her better-half at once.
If Lady Jane said he could not go, he could not, but something of his better nature prompted him to say that he would pay the funeral expenses. This, however, he kept from his wife, who, dismissing Stoneleigh from her mind, resumed her daily routine of duties—baths at seven, music in the park at eight, breakfast at ten, gossip till one, sleeping till three, driving at four, dressing for dinner, dining at six, and going to the casino in the evening. This was her life, while the Hon. John bathed, and smoked, and read the newspapers, and called it all a confounded bore, and wished himself at home, and thought not unfrequently of Stoneleigh and what was to become of Bessie.
Meantime Neil was enjoying himself immensely. His mother had given him plenty of money, and his companions and surroundings were most agreeable to him. And still, he never for a moment swerved in his heart from Bessie; that is, he never harbored the thought that she would not one day be his wife, and he still hugged the delusion that he preferred poverty with her to riches with any other woman in all the world. But until the time arrived when he must take her and poverty, he surely might enjoy himself, and he was doing so to the best of his ability when Jack's letter came, informing him of Archie's death and of his intention to make Bessie his wife if she would have him.
Then Neil roused himself, and, telling his party what had happened, said he must start for Stoneleigh at once. Mr. McPherson was dead, and his Cousin Bessie was alone, and it was his duty to go to her; and in spite of Blanche's entreaties and his friends' protestations against it, he started immediately, and, travelling day and night, reached Stoneleigh on the afternoon of the day of Jack's departure.
With a cry of glad surprise, Bessie threw herself into his arms, and wept as she had not done since her father died.
"Oh, Neil," she sobbed, "I am so glad, I have wanted you so much, and been so wretched because you neither wrote nor came."
"But I did write you, darling, before I left Vichy, and the letter must have gone astray," he said, "and then the moment I got Jack's letter I started and came to you. Don't cry, Bessie; it hurts me to see you feel so badly. Try and be quiet, and tell me all about it, and what Grey Jerrold and Jack did and said. They were both here, I understand, and both in love with you."
Neil spoke a little sharply now, and Bessie looked inquiringly at him, as, drawing her to a seat, he sat down beside her, and with his arm around her and her head upon his breast he went on:
"Jack wrote me all about it—that he believed Grey pretty far gone, but that he should get the start and ask you to be Lady Trevellian, and I believe he will do it, too; and if he does I hope you will put him down effectually, but don't for Heaven's sake, tell him of our engagement. That must be our secret awhile longer. I cannot meet mother's disapproval just yet. Do you believe, that horrid old aunt in America wrote asking me to come out there and oversee the hands in a cotton mill. Niggers, I dare say, as I believe they are mostly that in Massachusetts, are they not?"
Bessie did not reply to this, but said to him, quietly:
"Mr. Trevellian asked me to be his wife—here—this morning, and I told him no, and that I was plighted to you."
"Oh, Bessie, how could you have been so indiscreet. Now the news must reach mother, and my life will be a burden to me," Neil exclaimed, with so much severity in his tone that Bessie shrank a little from him as she replied:
"I had to tell him, Neil. There was no other way to make him believe I meant it, he was so much in earnest. He will not repeat it. He has too much honor in his nature for that. He is one of the best and noblest men I ever knew."
Bessie was very earnest in her defense of Jack, and Neil grew angry at once.
"Maybe you prefer him to me?" he said. "By Jove, I do not blame you if it is so. You'd better be Lady Trevellian, with plenty of money, than plain Mrs. Neil McPherson, not knowing where I the next meal is to come from. Say the word and I will set you free, though it breaks my heart to do it."
No wonder if Bessie felt that Neil's presence was productive of more pain than pleasure, or if for a moment she felt keenly the contrast between his manner and Jack's. But Neil's mood soon changed, and winding his arm around her, and kissing her fondly, he called himself a brute and a savage to wound her so, and talked of their future, when he could be always with her, and worked himself up to the point of proposing marriage at once—a private marriage, of course, which must be kept secret for an indefinite length of time, during which she would live at Stoneleigh, and he would visit her often. But Bessie shrank from this proposal, and when Neil asked what she was to do there alone, she answered that she could do very well until her mother came, and then they would manage together somehow on the little there was left, and if nothing better offered she could go out as governess to small children. But this plan Neil repudiated with scorn. His wife must never be a governess, never earn her own bread! The idea was preposterous; and then he talked of the bright future before them if they waited patiently, and how happy he would make her; and in the morning he left her and went back to London, and she was alone again, and looking anxiously forward to news from her mother, and the day after Neil left a letter came from Daisy with the blackest and deepest of borders, and Bessie opened it eagerly to learn where she was, and when she was coming home.