A Terrible Temptation: A Story of To-Day
right man--young Drake?”
He then told her he had had her watched, and she must not think to make
a fool of him. She was as intimate with the young farmer as with him,
and was in his company every day.
Mary Wells admitted that Drake was courting her, but said he was a
civil, respectful young man, who desired to make her his wife. “You
have lost me that,” said she, bursting into tears; “and so, for God's
sake, show yourself a man for once, and see me through my trouble.”
The egotist disbelieved, or affected not to believe her, and said,
“When there are two it is always the gentleman you girls deceive. But
you can't make a fool of me, Mrs. Drake. Marry the farmer, and I'll
give you a wedding present; that is all I can do for any other man's
sweetheart. I have got my own family to provide for, and it is all I
can contrive to make both ends meet.”
He was cold and inflexible to her prayers. Then she tried threats. He
laughed at them. Said he, “The time is gone by for that: if you wanted
to sue me for breach of promise, you should have done it at once; not
waited eighteen months and taken another sweetheart first. Come, come;
you played your little game. You made me come here week after week and
bleed a sovereign. A woman that loved a man would never have been so
hard on him as you were on me. I grinned and bore it; but when you ask
me to own another man's child, a man of your own sort that you are in
love with--you hate me--that is a little too much: no, Mrs. Drake; if
that is your game we will fight it out--before the public if you like.”
And, having delivered this with a tone of harsh and loud defiance, he
left her--left her forever. She sat down upon the cold ground and
rocked herself. Despair was cold at her heart.
She sat in that forlorn state for more than an hour. Then she got up
and went to her mistress's room and sat by the fire, for her limbs were
cold as well as her heart.
She sat there, gazing at the fire and sighing heavily, till Lady
Bassett came up to bed. She then went through her work like an
automaton, and every now and then a deep sigh came from her breast.
Lady Bassett heard her sigh, and looked at her. Her face was altered; a
sort of sullen misery was written on it. Lady Bassett was quick at
reading faces, and this look alarmed her. “Mary,” said she, kindly, “is
there anything the matter?”
No reply.
“Are you unwell?”
“No.”
“Are you in trouble?”
“Ay!” with a burst of tears.
Lady Bassett let her cry, thinking it would relieve her, and then spoke
to her again with the languid pensiveness of a woman who has also her
trouble. “You have been very attentive to Sir Charles, and a kind good
servant to me, Mary.”
“You are mocking me, my lady,” said Mary, bitterly. “You wouldn't have
turned me off for a word if I had been a good servant.”
Lady Bassett colored high, and was silenced for a moment. At last she
said, “I feel it must seem harsh to you. You don't know how wicked it
was to tempt me. But it is not as if you had _done_ anything wrong. I
do not feel bound to mention mere words: I shall give you an excellent
character, Mary--indeed I _have._ I think I have got a good place for
you. I shall know to-morrow, and when it is settled we will look over
my wardrobe together.”
This proposal implied a boxful of presents, and would have made Mary's
dark eyes flash with delight at another time; but she was past all that
now. She interrupted Lady Bassett with this strange speech: “You are
very kind, my lady; will you lend me the key of your medicine chest?”
Lady Bassett looked surprised, but said, “Certainly, Mary,” and held
out the keys.
But, before Mary could take them, she considered a moment, and asked
her what medicine she required.
“Only a little laudanum.”
“No, Mary; not while you look like that, and refuse to tell me your
trouble. I am your mistress, and must exert my authority for your good.
Tell me at once what is the matter.”
“I'd bite my tongue off sooner.”
“You are wrong, Mary. I am sure I should be your best friend. I feel
much indebted to you for the attention and the affection you have shown
me, and I am grieved to see you so despondent. Make a friend of me.
There--think it over, and talk to me again to-morrow.”
Mary Wells took the true servant's view of Lady Bassett's kindness. She
looked at it as a trap; not, indeed, set with malice prepense, but
still a trap. She saw that Lady Bassett meant kindly at present; but,
for all that, she was sure that if she told the truth, her mistress
would turn against her, and say, “Oh! I had no idea your trouble arose
out of your own imprudence. I can do nothing for a vicious girl.”
She resolved therefore to say nothing, or else to tell some lie or
other quite wide of the mark.
Deplorable as this young woman's situation was, the duplicity and
coarseness of mind which had brought her into it would have somewhat
blunted the mental agony such a situation must inflict; but it was
aggravated by a special terror; she knew that if she was found out she
would lose the only sure friend she had in the world.
The fact is, Mary Wells had seen a great deal of life during the two
years she was out of the reader's sight. Rhoda had been very good to
her; had set her up in a lodging-house, at her earnest request. She
misconducted it, and failed: threw it up in disgust, and begged Rhoda
to put her in the public line. Rhoda complied. Mary made a mess of the
public-house. Then Rhoda showed her she was not fit to govern anything,
and drove her into service again; and in that condition, having no more
cares than a child, and plenty of work to do, and many a present from
Rhoda, she had been happy.
But Rhoda, though she forgave blunders, incapacity for business, and
waste of money, had always told her plainly there was one thing she
never would forgive.
Rhoda Marsh had become a good Christian in every respect but one. The
male rake reformed is rather tolerant; but the female rake reformed is,
as a rule, bitterly intolerant of female frailty; and Rhoda carried
this female characteristic to an extreme both in word and in deed. They
were only half-sisters, after all; and Mary knew that she would be cast
off forever if she deviated from virtue so far as to be found out.
Besides the general warning, there had been a special one. When she
read Mary's first letter from Huntercombe Hall Rhoda was rather taken
aback at first; but, on reflection, she wrote to Mary, saying she could
stay there on two conditions: she must be discreet, and never mention
her sister Rhoda in the house, and she must not be tempted to renew her
acquaintance with Richard Bassett. “Mind,” said she, “if ever you speak
to that villain I shall hear of it, and I shall never notice you
again.”
This was the galling present and the dark future which had made so
young and unsentimental a woman as Mary Wells think of suicide for a
moment or two; and it now deprived her of her rest, and next day kept
her thinking and brooding all the time her now leaden limbs were
carrying her through her menial duties.
The afternoon was sunny, and Sir Charles and Lady Bassett took their
usual walk.
Mary Wells went a little way with them, looking very miserable. Lady
Bassett observed, and said, kindly, “Mary, you can give me that shawl;
I will not keep you; go where you like till five o'clock.”
Mary never said so much as “Thank you.” She put the shawl round her
mistress, and then went slowly back. She sat down on the stone steps,
and glared stupidly at the scene, and felt very miserable and leaden.
She seemed to be stuck in a sort of slough of despond, and could not
move in any direction to get out of it.
While she sat in this somber reverie a gentleman walked up to the door,
and Mary Wells lifted her head and looked at him. Notwithstanding her
misery, her eyes rested on him with some admiration, for he was a model
of a man: six feet high, and built like an athlete. His face was oval,
and his skin dark but glowing; his hair, eyebrows, and long eyelashes
black as jet; his gray eyes large and tender. He was dressed in black,
with a white tie, and his clothes were well cut, and seemed
superlatively so, owing to the importance and symmetry of the figure
they covered. It was the new vicar, Mr. Angelo.
He smiled on Mary graciously, and asked her how Sir Charles was.
She said he was better.
Then Mr. Angelo asked, more timidly, was Lady Bassett at home.
“She is just gone out, sir.”
A look of deep disappointment crossed Mr. Angelo's face. It did not
escape Mary Wells. She looked at him full, and, lowering her voice a
little, said, “She is only in the grounds with Sir Charles. She will be
at home about five o'clock.”
Mr. Angelo hesitated, and then said he would call again at five. He
evidently preferred a duet to a trio. He then thanked Mary Wells with
more warmth than the occasion seemed to call for, and retired very
slowly: he had come very quickly.
Mary Wells looked after him, and asked herself wildly if she could not
make some use of him and his manifest infatuation.
But before her mind could fix on any idea, and, indeed, before the
young clergyman had taken twenty steps homeward, loud voices were heard
down the shrubbery.
These were followed by an agonized scream.
Mary Wells started up, and the young parson turned: they looked at each
other in amazement.
Then came wild and piercing cries for help--in a woman's voice.
The young clergyman cried out, _“Her_ voice! _her_ voice!” and dashed
into the shrubbery with a speed Mary Wells had never seen equaled. He
had won the 200-yard race at Oxford in his day.
The agonized screams were repeated, and Mary Wells screamed in response
as she ran toward the place.
CHAPTER XVI.
SIR CHARLES BASSETT was in high spirits this afternoon--indeed, a
little too high.
“Bella, my love,” said he, “now I'll tell you why I made you give me
your signature this morning. The money has all come in for the wood,
and this very day I sent Oldfield instructions to open an account for
you with a London banker.”
Lady Bassett looked at him with tears of tenderness in her eyes.
“Dearest,” said she, “I have plenty of money; but the love to which I
owe this present, that is my treasure of treasures. Well, I accept it,
Charles; but don't ask me to spend it on myself; I should feel I was
robbing you.”
“It is nothing to me how you spend it; I have saved it from the enemy.”
Now that very enemy heard these words. He had looked from the “Heir's
Tower,” and seen Sir Charles and Lady Bassett walking on their side the
wall, and the nurse carrying his heir on the other side.
He had come down to look at his child in the sun; but he walked softly,
on the chance of overhearing Sir Charles and Lady Bassett say something
or other about his health; his design went no further than that, but
the fate of listeners is proverbial.
Lady Bassett endeavored to divert her husband from the topic he seemed
to be approaching; it always excited him now, and did him harm.
“Do not waste your thoughts on that enemy. He is powerless.”
“At this moment, perhaps; but his turn is sure to come again; and I
shall provide for it. I mean to live on half my income, and settle the
other half on you. I shall act on the clause in the entail, and sell
all the timber on the estate, except about the home park and my best
covers. It will take me some years to do this; I must not glut the
market, and spoil your profits; but every year I'll have a fall, till I
have denuded Mr. Bassett's inheritance, as he calls it, and swelled
your banker's account to a Plum. Bella, I have had a shake. Even now
that I am better such a pain goes through my head, like a bullet
crushing through it, whenever I get excited. I don't think I shall be a