Bessy Rane: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

And Bessy rose when she heard the street-door closed.

Taking a duster from the drawer, she carefully passed it over the keys before closing her piano for the night. Very much did Bessy cherish her drawing-room and its furniture. They did not use it very much: not from fear of spoiling it, but because the other room with its large bay window seemed the more cheerful; and people feel more at ease in the room they usually sit in. Bessy took as much pride in her house as though it had been one of the grandest in all Dallory: happy as a queen in it, felt she. Stepping lightly over the drawing-room carpet--fresh as the day when it came out of Turtle's warehouse--touching, with a gentle finger, some pretty thing or other on the tables as she passed, she opened the door and called to the servant.

"Molly, it is time these shutters were shut."

Molly Green, in an apology of a cap tilted on her hair, and a white muslin apron, came out of the kitchen. Molly liked to be as smart as the best of them, although she had all the work to do. Which all was not very much when aided by her mistress's good management.

"You had better light the hall-lamp," added Mrs. Rane, as she went upstairs.

It was tolerably light still. Bessy often did what she was about to do--namely, draw down the window-blinds; it saved Molly trouble. The wide landing was less bare than it used to be; at the time of Dr. Rane's marriage he had covered it with some green drugget, and put a chair and a book-shelf there. It still looked too large, still presented a contrast to the luxuriously furnished landing of Mrs. Cumberland's opposite, especially when the two wide windows happened to be open; but Bessy thought her own quite good enough. Of the two back-rooms, one had been furnished as a spare bedchamber; the other had not much in it besides Bessy's boxes that had come from the Hall. Richard had spoken kindly to her about this last chamber. "Should any contingency arise; sickness, or other; that you should require its use, Bessy," he said, "and Rane does not find it quite convenient to spare money for furniture, let me know, and I'll do it for you." She had thanked him gratefully: but the contingency had not come yet.

Into this back-room first went Bessy, passed by her boxes, closed the window, and drew the white blind down. From thence into the next chamber--a pretty room with chintz curtains to the window and the Arabian bed. Dr. Rane was very particular about having plenty of air in his house, and would have every window open all day long. Next, Bessy crossed the landing again to her own chamber. She had to pass through the drab room (as may be remembered) to get to it. The drab room was in just the same state that it used to be; Dr. Rane's glass jars and other articles used in chemistry lying on one side its bare floor. Formerly they were strewed about anywhere: under Bessy's neat rule they were gathered into a small space. Sometimes Bessy thought she should like to make this her own sitting and work-room: its window looked towards the fields beyond Dallory Ham. Often, when she first came to the house, she would softly say to her heart, "What a nice day-nursery it would make!" She had left off saying it now.

Taking some work from a drawer in her own room, which was what she went up for--for she knew that Oliver would tell her to leave off if she attempted to stitch the wristbands by candle-light--she stood for a minute at the window and saw some gentleman, whom she did not recognize, turn out of Mr. Seeley's, and go towards Dallory.

"A fresh patient," she thought to herself, with a sigh very like envy. "He gets them all. I wish a few would come to Oliver."

As she watched the stranger up the road, something in his height and make put her in mind of her dead brother, Edmund. All her thoughts went back to the unhappy time of his death, and to the letter that had led to it.