Our Bessie

by Rosa Nouchette Carey

She thought she and the thrushes and blackbirds had it to themselves, but she was mistaken, for in turning into a shrubbery walk, skirting the meadow, she was surprised to see Richard Sefton sitting on a low bench, with Mac’s head between his knees, evidently in a brown study. Bessie was sorry to disturb him, but it was too late to draw back, for Mac had already seen her, and had roused his master by his uneasy efforts to get free, and Mr. Sefton rose, with the awkward abruptness that seemed natural to him, and lifted his cap.

“Good morning, Miss Lambert. You are an early riser. My mother and Edna are hardly awake yet.”

“Oh, I am always up long before this,” returned Bessie, smiling at his evident astonishment, as she stooped to caress Mac, who was fawning on her.

“Mac seems to know you,” he observed, noticing the dog’s friendly greeting.

“It is very strange, but he seems to have taken a fancy to me,” replied Bessie, and she narrated to Mac’s master how the hound had pleaded for admission to her room, and had lain under her table watching her unpack.

“That is very odd,” observed Richard. “Mac has never bestowed a similar mark of attention on any one but a certain homely old lady that my mother had here for a time, as a sort of charity; she had been a governess, and was very poor. Well, Mac was devoted to the old lady, and she certainly was an estimable sort of woman, but he will have nothing to say to any of Edna’s fine friends, and generally keeps out of the way when they come.”

“An animal’s likes and dislikes are very singular,” remarked Bessie, looking thoughtfully into Mac’s brown eyes. “I believe Mac knows that I am a lover of dogs.”

“Are you indeed, Miss Lambert? Would you like to see mine?” returned Richard quickly; and his face lighted up as he spoke. He looked younger and better than he did the previous night. His powerful, muscular figure, more conspicuous for strength than grace, showed to advantage in his tweed shooting-coat and knickerbockers, his ordinary morning costume. The look of sullen discomfort had gone, and his face looked less heavy. Bessie thought he hardly seemed his age—nine-and-twenty—and, in spite of his natural awkwardness, he had a boyish frankness of manner that pleased her.

Bessie was a shrewd little person in her way, and she already surmised that Richard Sefton was not at ease in his stepmother’s presence. She found out afterward that this was the case; that in spite of his strength and manhood, he was morbidly sensitive of her opinion, and was never so conscious of his defects as when he was presiding at his own table, or playing the part of host in her drawing-room, under her critical eye. And yet Richard Sefton loved his stepmother; he had an affectionate nature, but in his heart he knew he had no cause to be grateful to her. She had made him, the lonely, motherless boy, the scapegoat of his father’s deceit and wrongdoing. He had been allowed to live at The Grange on sufferance, barely tolerated by the proud girl who had been ignorant of his existence. If he had been an engaging child, with winning ways, she would soon have become interested in him, but even then Richard had been plain and awkward, with a shy, reserved nature, and a hidden strength of affection that no one, not even his father, guessed. Mrs. Sefton had first disliked, and then neglected him, until her husband died, and the power had come into Richard’s hands. Since then she had altered her behavior; her interests lay in conciliating her stepson. She began by recognizing him outwardly as master, and secretly trying to dominate and guide him. But she soon found her mistake. Richard was accessible to kindness, and Mrs. Sefton could have easily ruled him by love, but he was firm against a cold, aggressive policy. Secretly he shrunk from his stepmother’s sarcastic speeches and severe looks; his heart was wounded by persistent coldness and misunderstanding, but he had sufficient manliness to prove himself master, and Mrs. Sefton could not forgive this independence. Richard took her hard speeches silently, but he brooded over them in a morbid manner that resembled sullenness. Yet he would have forgiven them generously in return for one kind look or word. His stepmother had fascinated and subjugated him in his boyhood, and even in his manhood it gave him a pang to differ from her; but the truth that was in him, the real inward manhood, strengthened him for the daily conflicts of wills.

Poor Richard Sefton! But after all he was less to be pitied than the woman who found it so difficult to forgive a past wrong, and who could wreak her displeasure on the innocent.