A Terrible Temptation: A Story of To-Day
long-lived man. But never mind, I'll live as long as I can; and, while
I do live, I'll work for you, and against that villain.”
“Charles,” cried Lady Bassett, “I implore you to turn your thoughts
away from that man, and to give up these idle schemes. Were you to die
I should soon follow you; so pray do not shorten your life by these
angry passions, or you will shorten mine.”
This appeal acted powerfully on Sir Charles, and he left off suddenly
with flushed cheeks and tried to compose himself.
But his words had now raised a corresponding fury on the other side of
that boundary wall. Richard Bassett, stung with rage, and, unlike his
high-bred cousin, accustomed to mix cunning even with his fury, gave
him a terrible blow--a very _coup de Jarnac._ He spoke _at_ him; he ran
forward to the nurse, and said very loud: “Let me see the little
darling. He does you credit. What fat cheeks!--what arms!--an infant
hercules! There, take him up the mound. Now lift him in your arms, and
let him see his inheritance. Higher, nurse, higher. Ay, crow away,
youngster; all that is yours--house and land and all. They may steal
the trees; they can't make away with the broad acres. Ha! I believe he
understands every word, nurse. See how he smiles and crows.”
At the sound of Bassett's voice Sir Charles started, and, at the first
taunt, he uttered something between a moan and a roar, as of a wounded
lion.
“Come away,” cried Lady Bassett. “He is doing it on purpose.”
But the stabs came too fast. Sir Charles shook her off, and looked
wildly round for a weapon to strike his insulter with.
“Curse him and his brat!” he cried. “They shall neither of them--I'll
kill them both.”
He sprang fiercely at the wall, and, notwithstanding his weakly
condition, raised himself above it, and glared over with a face so full
of fury that Richard Bassett recoiled in dismay for a moment, and said,
“Run! run! He'll hurt the child!”
But, the next moment, Sir Charles's hands lost their power; he uttered
a miserable moan, and fell gasping under the wall in an epileptic fit,
with all the terrible symptoms I have described in a previous portion
of this story. These were new to his poor wife, and, as she strove in
vain to control his fearful convulsions, her shrieks rent the air.
Indeed, her screams were so appalling that Bassett himself sprang at
the wall, and, by a great effort of strength, drew himself up, and
peered down, with white face, at the glaring eyes, clinched teeth,
purple face, and foaming lips of his enemy, and his body that bounded
convulsively on the ground with incredible violence.
At that moment humanity prevailed over every thing, and he flung
himself over the wall, and in his haste got rather a heavy fall
himself. “It is a fit!” he cried, and running to the brook close by,
filled his hat with water, and was about to dash it over Sir Charles's
face.
But Lady Bassett repelled him with horror. “Don't touch him, you
villain! You have killed him.” And then she shrieked again.
At this moment Mr. Angelo dashed up, and saw at a glance what it was,
for he had studied medicine a little. He said, “It is epilepsy. Leave
him to me.” He managed, by his great strength, to keep the patient's
head down till the face got pale and the limbs still; then, telling
Lady Bassett not to alarm herself too much, he lifted Sir Charles, and
actually proceeded to carry him toward the house. Lady Bassett,
weeping, proffered her assistance, and so did Mary Wells; but this
athlete said, a little bruskly, “No, no; I have practiced this sort of
thing;” and, partly by his rare strength, partly by his familiarity
with all athletic feats, carried the insensible baronet to his own
house, as I have seen my accomplished friend Mr. Henry Neville carry a
tall actress on the mimic stage; only, the distance being much longer,
the perspiration rolled down Mr. Angelo's face with so sustained an
effort.
He laid him gently on the floor of his study, while Lady Bassett sent
two grooms galloping for medical advice, and half a dozen servants
running for this and that stimulant, as one thing after another
occurred to her agitated mind. The very rustling of dresses and scurry
of feet overhead told all the house a great calamity had stricken it.
Lady Bassett hung over the sufferer, sighing piteously, and was for
supporting his beloved head with her tender arm; but Mr. Angelo told
her it was better to keep the head low, that the blood might flow back
to the vessels of the brain.
She cast a look of melting gratitude on her adviser, and composed
herself to apply stimulants under his direction and advice.
Thus judiciously treated, Sir Charles began to recover consciousness in
part. He stared and muttered incoherently. Lady Bassett thanked God on
her knees, and then turned to Mr. Angelo with streaming eyes, and
stretched out both hands to him, with an indescribable eloquence of
gratitude. He gave her his hands timidly, and she pressed them both
with all her soul. Unconsciously she sent a rapturous thrill through
the young man's body: he blushed, and then turned pale, and felt for a
moment almost faint with rapture at that sweet and unexpected pressure
of her soft hands.
But at this moment Sir Charles broke out in a sort of dry,
business-like voice, “I'll kill the viper and his brood!” Then he
stared at Mr. Angelo, and could not make him out at first. “Ah!” said
he, complacently, “this is my private tutor: a man of learning. I read
Homer with him; but I have forgotten it, all but one line--
“[greek]”
“That's a beautiful verse. Homer, old boy, I'll take your advice. I'll
kill the heir at law, and his brat as well, and when they are dead and
well seasoned I'll sell them to that old timber-merchant, the devil, to
make hell hotter. Order my horse, somebody, this minute!”
During this tirade Lady Bassett's hands kept clutching, as if to stop
it, and her eyes filled with horror.
Mr. Angelo came again to her rescue. He affected to take it all as a
matter of course, and told the servants they need not wait, Sir Charles
was coming to himself by degrees, and the danger was all over.
But when the servants were gone he said to Lady Bassett, seriously, “I
would not let any servant be about Sir Charles, except this one. She is
evidently attached to you. Suppose we take him to his own room.”
He then made Mary Wells a signal, and they carried him upstairs.
Sir Charles talked all the while with pitiable vehemence. Indeed, it
was a continuous babble, like a brook.
Mary Wells was taking him into his own room, but Lady Bassett said,
“No: into my room. Oh, I will never let him out of my sight again.”
Then they carried him into Lady Bassett's bedroom, and laid him gently
down on a couch there.
He looked round, observed the locality, and uttered a little sigh of
complacency. He left off talking for the present, and seemed to doze.
The place which exerted this soothing influence on Sir Charles had a
contrary and strange effect on Mr. Angelo.
It was of palatial size, and lighted by two side windows, and an oriel
window at the end. The delicate stone shafts and mullions were such as
are oftener seen in cathedrals than in mansions. The deep embrasure was
filled with beautiful flowers and luscious exotic leaf-plants from the
hot-houses. The floor was of polished oak, and some feet of this were
left bare on all sides of the great Aubusson carpet made expressly for
the room. By this means cleanliness penetrated into every corner: the
oak was not only cleaned, but polished like a mirror. The curtains were
French chintzes, of substance, and exquisite patterns, and very
voluminous. On the walls was a delicate rose-tinted satin paper, to
which French art, unrivaled in these matters, had given the appearance
of being stuffed, padded, and divided into a thousand cozy pillows, by
gold-headed nails.
The wardrobes were of satin-wood. The bedsteads, one small, one large,
were plain white, and gold in moderation.
All this, however, was but the frame to the delightful picture of a
wealthy young lady's nest.
The things that startled and thrilled Mr. Angelo were those his
imagination could see the fair mistress using. The exquisite toilet
table; the Dresden mirror, with its delicate china frame muslined and
ribboned; the great ivory-handled brushes, the array of cut-glass
gold-mounted bottles, and all the artillery of beauty; the baths of
various shapes and sizes, in which she laved her fair body; the bath
sheets, and the profusion of linen, fine and coarse; the bed, with its
frilled sheets, its huge frilled pillows, and its eider-down quilt,
covered with bright purple silk.
A delicate perfume came through the wardrobes, where strata of fine
linen from Hamburg and Belfast lay on scented herbs; and this,
permeating the room, seemed the very perfume of Beauty itself, and
intoxicated the brain. Imagination conjured pictures proper to the
scene: a goddess at her toilet; that glorious hair lying tumbled on the
pillow, and burning in contrasted color with the snowy sheets and with
the purple quilt.
From this reverie he was awakened by a soft voice that said, “How can I
ever thank you enough, sir?”
Mr. Angelo controlled himself, and said, “By sending for me whenever I
can be of the slightest use.” Then, comprehending his danger, he added,
hastily, “And I fear I am none whatever now.” Then he rose to go.
Lady Bassett gave him both her hands again, and this time he kissed one
of them, all in a flurry; he could not resist the temptation. Then he
hurried away, with his whole soul in a tumult. Lady Bassett blushed,
and returned to her husband's side.
Doctor Willis came, heard the case, looked rather grave and puzzled,
and wrote the inevitable prescription; for the established theory is
that man is cured by drugs alone.
Sir Charles wandered a little while the doctor was there, and continued
to wander after he was gone.
Then Mary Wells begged leave to sleep in the dressing-room.
Lady Bassett thanked her, but said she thought it unnecessary; a good
night's rest, she hoped, would make a great change in the sufferer.
Mary Wells thought otherwise, and quietly brought her little bed into
the dressing-room and laid it on the floor.
Her judgment proved right; Sir Charles was no better the next day, nor
the day after. He brooded for hours at a time, and, when he talked,
there was an incoherence in his discourse; above all, he seemed
incapable of talking long on any subject without coming back to the
fatal one of his childlessness; and, when he did return to this, it was
sure to make him either deeply dejected or else violent against Richard
Bassett and his son; he swore at them, and said they were waiting for
his shoes.
Lady Bassett's anxiety deepened; strange fears came over her. She put
subtle questions to the doctor; he returned obscure answers, and went
on prescribing medicines that had no effect.
She looked wistfully into Mary Wells's face, and there she saw her own
thoughts reflected.
“Mary,” said she, one day, in a low voice, “what do they say in the
kitchen?”
“Some say one thing, some another. What can they say? They never see
him, and never shall while I am here.”
This reminded Lady Bassett that Mary's time was up. The idea of a
stranger taking her place, and seeing Sir Charles in his present
condition, was horrible to her. “Oh, Mary,” said she, piteously,
“surely you will not leave me just now?”
“Do you wish me to stay, my lady?”
“Can you ask it? How can I hope to find such devotion as yours, such
fidelity, and, above all, such secrecy? Ah, Mary, I am the most unhappy
lady in all England this day.”
Then she began to cry bitterly, and Mary Wells cried with her, and said