A Terrible Temptation: A Story of To-Day
“And that was all you said--on your oath?”
“All I can recollect.” With this the strong man, cowed, terrified,
expecting his letter to Somerset to be produced, and so the iron chain
of evidence completed, gasped out, “Man, you tear open all my wounds at
once!” and with this burst out sobbing, and lamenting aloud that he had
ever been born.
Counsel waited calmly till he should be in a condition to receive
another dose.
“Oh, will nobody stop this cruel trial?” said Lady Bassett, with the
tears trickling down her face.
The judge heard this remark without seeming to do so.
He said to defendant's counsel, “Whatever the truth may be, you have
proved enough to show Sir Charles Bassett might well have an honest
conviction that Mr. Bassett had done a dastardly act. Whether a jury
would ever agree on a question of handwriting must always be doubtful.
Looking at the relationship of the parties, is it advisable to carry
this matter further? If I might advise the gentlemen, they would each
consent to withdraw a juror.”
Upon this suggestion the counsel for both parties put their heads
together in animated whispers; and during this the judge made a remark
to the jury, intended for the public: “Since Lady Bassett's name has
been drawn into this, I must say that I have read her letters to Mr.
Bassett, and they are such as she could write without in the least
compromising her husband. Indeed, now the defense is disclosed, they
appear to me to be wise and kindly letters, such as only a good wife, a
high-bred lady, and a true Christian could write in so delicate a
matter.”
_Plaintiff's Counsel._--My lord, we are agreed to withdraw a juror.
_Defendant's Counsel._--Out of respect for your lordship's advice, and
not from any doubt of the result on _our_ part.
_The Crier._--WACE _v._ HALIBURTON!
And so the car of justice rolled on till it came to Wheeler v. Bassett.
This case was soon disposed of.
Sir Charles Bassett was dignified and calm in the witness-box, and
treated the whole matter with high-bred nonchalance, as one unworthy of
the attention the Court was good enough to bestow on it. The judge
disapproved the assault, but said the plaintiff had drawn it on himself
by unprofessional conduct, and by threatening a gentleman in his own
house. Verdict for the plaintiff--40s. The judge refused to certify
for costs.
Lady Bassett, her throat parched with excitement, drove home, and
awaited her husband's return with no little anxiety. As soon as she
heard him in his dressing-room she glided in and went down on her knees
to him. “Pray, pray don't scold me; I couldn't bear you to be defeated,
Charles.”
Sir Charles raised her, but did not kiss her.
“You think only of me,” said he, rather sadly. “It is a sorry victory,
too dearly bought.”
Then she began to cry.
Sir Charles begged her not to cry; but still he did not kiss her, nor
conceal his mortification: he hardly spoke to her for several days.
She accepted her disgrace pensively and patiently. She thought it all
over, and felt her husband was right, and loved her like a man. But she
thought, also, that she was not very wrong to love him in her way.
Wrong or not, she felt she could not sit idle and see his enemy defeat
him.
The coolness died away by degrees, with so much humility on one side
and so much love on both: but the subject was interdicted forever.
A week after the trial Lady Bassett wrote to Mrs. Marsh, under cover to
Mr. Oldfield, and told her how the trial had gone, and, with many
expressions of gratitude, invited her and her husband to Huntercombe
Hall. She told Sir Charles what she had done, and he wore a very
strange look. “Might I suggest that we have them alone?” said he dryly.
“By all means,” said Lady Bassett. “I don't want to share my paragon
with anybody.”
In due course a reply came; Mr. and Mrs. Marsh would avail themselves
some day of Lady Bassett's kindness: at present they were going abroad.
The letter was written by a man's hand.
About this time Oldfield sent Sir Charles Miss Somerset's deed,
canceled, and told him she had married a man of fortune, who was
devoted to her, and preferred to take her without any dowry.
Bassett and Wheeler went home, crestfallen, and dined together. They
discussed the two trials, and each blamed the other. They quarreled and
parted: and Wheeler sent in an enormous bill, extending over five
years. Eighty-five items began thus: “Attending you at your house for
several hours, on which occasion you asked my advice as to whether--”
etc.
Now as a great many of these attendances had been really to shoot game
and dine on rabbits at Bassett's expense, he thought it hard the
conversation should be charged and the rabbits not.
Disgusted with his defeat, and resolved to evade this bill, he
discharged his servant, and put a retired soldier into his house, armed
him with a blunderbuss, and ordered him to keep all doors closed, and
present the weapon aforesaid at all rate collectors, tax collectors,
debt collectors, and applicants for money to build churches or convert
the heathen; but not to _fire_ at anybody except his friend Wheeler,
nor at him unless he should try to shove a writ in at some chink of the
building.
This done, he went on his travels, third-class, with his eyes always
open, and his heart full of bitterness.
Nothing happened to Richard Bassett on his travels that I need relate
until one evening when he alighted at a small commercial inn in the
city of York, and there met a person whose influence on the events I am
about to relate seems at this moment incredible to me, though it is
simple fact.
He found the commercial room empty, and rang the bell. In came the
waiter, a strapping girl, with coal-black eyes and brows to match, and
a brown skin, but glowing cheeks.
They both started at sight of each other. It was Polly Somerset.
“Why, Polly! How d'ye do? How do you come here?”
“It's along of you I'm here, young man,” said Polly, and began to
whimper. She told him her sister had found out from the page she had
been colloguing with him, and had never treated her like a sister after
that. “And when she married a gentleman she wouldn't have me aside her
for all I could say, but she did pack me off into service, and here I
be.”
The girl was handsome, and had a liking for him. Bassett was idle, and
time hung heavy on his hands: he stayed at the inn a fortnight, more
for Polly's company than anything: and at last offered to put her into
a vacant cottage on his own little estate of Highmore. But the girl was
shrewd, and had seen a great deal of life this last three years; she
liked Richard in her way, but she saw he was all self, and she would
not trust him. “Nay,” said she, “I'll not break with Rhoda for any
young man in Britain. If I leave service she will never own me at all:
she is as hard as iron.”
“Well, but you might come and take service near me, and then we could
often get a word together.”
“Oh, I'm agreeable to that: you find me a good place. I like an inn
best; one sees fresh faces.”
Bassett promised to manage that for her. On reaching home he found a
conciliatory letter from Wheeler, coupled with his permission to tax
the bill according to his own notion of justice. This and other letters
were in an outhouse; the old soldier had not permitted them to
penetrate the fortress. He had entered into the spirit of his
instructions, and to him a letter was a probable hand-grenade.
Bassett sent for Wheeler; the bill was reduced, and a small payment
made; the rest postponed till better times. Wheeler was then consulted
about Polly, and he told his client the landlady of the “Lamb” wanted a
good active waitress; he thought he could arrange that little affair.
In due course, thanks to this artist, Mary Wells, hitherto known as
Polly Somerset, landed with her boxes at the “Lamb “; and with her
quick foot, her black eyes, and ready tongue soon added to the
popularity of the inn. Richard Bassett, Esq., for one, used to sup
there now and then with his friend Wheeler, and even sleep there after
supper.
By-and-by the vicar of Huntercombe wanted a servant, and offered to
engage Mary Wells.
She thought twice about that. She could neither write nor read, and
therefore was dreadfully dull without company; the bustle of an inn,
and people coming and going, amused her. However, it was a temptation
to be near Richard Bassett; so she accepted at last. Unable to write,
she could not consult him; and she made sure he would be delighted.
But when she got into the village the prudent Mr. Bassett drew in his
horns, and avoided her. She was mortified and very angry. She revenged
herself on her employer; broke double her wages. The vicar had never
been able to convert a smasher; so he parted with her very readily to
Lady Bassett, with a hint that she was rather unfortunate in glass and
china.
In that large house her spirits rose, and, having a hearty manner and a
clapper tongue, she became a general favorite.
One day she met Mr. Bassett in the village, and he seemed delighted at
the sight of her, and begged her to meet him that night at a certain
place where Sir Charles's garden was divided from his own by a ha-ha.
It was a very secluded spot, shut out from view, even in daylight, by
the trees and shrubs and the winding nature of the walk that led to it;
yet it was scarcely a hundred yards from Huntercombe Hall.
Mary Wells came to the tryst, but in no amorous mood. She came merely
to tell Mr. Bassett her mind, viz., that he was a shabby fellow, and
she had had her cry, and didn't care a straw for him now. And she did
tell him so, in a loud voice, and with a flushed cheek.
But he set to work, humbly and patiently, to pacify her; he represented
that, in a small house like the vicarage, every thing is known; he
should have ruined her character if he had not held aloof. “But it is
different now,” said he. “You can run out of Huntercombe House, and
meet me here, and nobody be the wiser.”
“Not I,” said Mary Wells, with a toss. “The worse thing a girl can do
is to keep company with a gentleman. She must meet him in holes and
corners, and be flung off, like an old glove, when she has served his
turn.”
“That will never happen to you, Polly dear. We must be prudent for the
present; but I shall be more my own master some day, and then you will
see how I love you.”
“Seeing is believing,” said the girl, sullenly. “You be too fond of
yourself to love the likes o' me.”
Such was the warning her natural shrewdness gave her. But perseverance
undermined it. Bassett so often threw out hints of what he would do
some day, mixed with warm protestations of love, that she began almost
to hope he would marry her. She really liked him; his fine figure and
his color pleased her eye, and he had a plausible tongue to boot.
As for him, her rustic beauty and health pleased his senses; but, for
his heart, she had little place in that. What he courted her for just
now was to keep him informed of all that passed in Huntercombe Hall.
His morbid soul hung about that place, and he listened greedily to Mary
Wells's gossip. He had counted on her volubility; it did not disappoint
him. She never met him without a budget, one-half of it lies or
exaggerations. She was a born liar. One night she came in high spirits,
and greeted him thus: “What d'ye think? I'm riz! Mrs. Eden, that
dresses my lady's hair, she took ill yesterday, and I told the
housekeeper I was used to dress hair, and she told my lady. If you
didn't please our Rhoda at that, 'twas as much as your life was worth.
You mustn't be thinking of your young man with her hair in your hand,
or she'd rouse you with a good crack on the crown with a hair-brush. So