A Terrible Temptation: A Story of To-Day
she would stay as long as she could; “but,” said she, “I gave you good
advice, my lady, and so you will find.”
Lady Bassett made no answer whatever, and that disappointed Mary, for
she wanted a discussion.
The days rolled on, and brought no change for the better. Sir Charles
continued to brood on his one misfortune. He refused to go
out-of-doors, even into the garden, giving as his reason that he was
not fit to be seen. “I don't mind a couple of women,” said he, gravely,
“but no man shall see Charles Bassett in his present state. No.
Patience! Patience! I'll wait till Heaven takes pity on me. After all,
it would be a shame that such a race as mine should die out, and these
fine estates go to blackguards, and poachers, and anonymous-letter
writers.”
Lady Bassett used to coax him to walk in the corridor; but, even then,
he ordered Mary Wells to keep watch and let none of the servants come
that way. From words he let fall it seems he thought “Childlessness”
was written on his face, and that it had somehow degraded his features.
Now a wealthy and popular baronet could not thus immure himself for any
length of time without exciting curiosity, and setting all manner of
rumors afloat. Visitors poured into Huntercombe to inquire.
Lady Bassett excused herself to many, but some of her own sex she
thought it best to encounter. This subjected her to the insidious
attacks of curiosity admirably veiled with sympathy. The assailants
were marvelously subtle; but so was the devoted wife. She gave kiss for
kiss, and equivoque for equivoque. She seemed grateful for each visit;
but they got nothing out of her except that Sir Charles's nerves were
shaken by his fall, and that she was playing the tyrant for once, and
insisting on absolute quiet for her patient.
One visitor she never refused--Mr. Angelo. He, from the first, had been
her true friend; had carried Sir Charles away from the enemy, and then
had dismissed the gaping servants. She saw that he had divined her
calamity and she knew from things he said to her that he would never
breathe a word out-of-doors. She confided in him. She told him Mr.
Bassett was the real cause of all this misery: he had insulted Sir
Charles. The nature of this insult she suppressed. “And oh, Mr.
Angelo,” said she, “that man is my terror night and day! I don't know
what he can do, but I feel he will do something if he ever learns my
poor husband's condition.”
“I trust, Lady Bassett, you are convinced he will learn nothing from
me. Indeed, I will tell the ruffian anything you like. He has been
sounding me a little; called to inquire after his poor cousin--the
hypocrite!”
“How good you are! Please tell him absolute repose is prescribed for a
time, but there is no doubt of Sir Charles's ultimate recovery.”
Mr. Angelo promised heartily.
Mary Wells was not enough; a woman must have a man to lean on in
trouble, and Lady Bassett leaned on Mr. Angelo. She even obeyed him.
One day he told her that her own health would fail if she sat always in
the sick-room; she must walk an hour every day.
_“Must_ I?” said she, sweetly.
“Yes, even if it is only in your own garden.”
From that time she used to walk with him nearly every day.
Richard Bassett saw this from his tower of observation; saw it, and
chuckled. “Aha!” said he. “Husband sick in bed. Wife walking in the
garden with a young man--a parson, too. He is dark, she is fair.
Something will come of this. Ha, ha!”
Lady Bassett now talked of sending to London for advice; but Mary Wells
dissuaded her. “Physic can't cure him. There's only one can cure him,
and that is yourself, my lady.”
“Ah, would to Heaven I could!”
“Try _my_ way, and you will see, my lady.”
“What, _that_ way! Oh, no, no!”
“Well, then, if you won't, nobody else can.”
Such speeches as these, often repeated, on the one hand, and Sir
Charles's melancholy on the other, drove Lady Bassett almost wild with
distress and perplexity.
Meanwhile her vague fears of Richard Bassett were being gradually
realized.
Bassett employed Wheeler to sound Dr. Willis as to his patient's
condition.
Dr. Willis, true to the honorable traditions of his profession, would
tell him nothing. But Dr. Willis had a wife. She pumped him: and
Wheeler pumped her.
By this channel Wheeler got a somewhat exaggerated account of Sir
Charles's state. He carried it to Bassett, and the pair put their heads
together.
The consultation lasted all night, and finally a comprehensive plan of
action was settled. Wheeler stipulated that the law should not be
broken in the smallest particular, but only stretched.
Four days after this conference Mr. Bassett, Mr. Wheeler, and two
spruce gentlemen dressed in black, sat upon the “Heir's Tower,”
watching Huntercombe Hall.
They watched, and watched, until they saw Mr. Angelo make his usual
daily call.
Then they watched, and watched, until Lady Bassett and the young
clergyman came out and strolled together into the shrubbery.
Then the two gentlemen went down the stairs, and were hastily conducted
by Bassett to Huntercombe Hall.
They rang the bell, and the taller said, in a business-like voice, “Dr.
Mosely, from Dr. Willis.”
Mary Wells was sent for, and Dr. Mosely said, “Dr. Willis is unable to
come to-day, and has sent me.”
Mary Wells conducted him to the patient. The other gentleman followed.
“Who is this?” said Mary. “I can't let all the world in to see him.”
“It is Mr. Donkyn, the surgeon. Dr. Willis wished the patient to be
examined with the stethoscope. You can stay outside, Mr. Donkyn.”
This new doctor announced himself to Sir Charles, felt his pulse, and
entered at once into conversation with him.
Sir Charles was in a talking mood, and very soon said one or two
inconsecutive things. Dr. Mosely looked at Mary Wells and said he would
write a prescription.
As soon as he had written it he said, very loud, “Mr. Donkyn!”
The door instantly opened, and that worthy appeared on the threshold.
“Oblige me,” said the doctor to his confrere, “by seeing this
prescription made up; and you can examine the patient yourself; but do
not fatigue him.”
With this he retired swiftly, and strolled down the corridor, to wait
for his companion.
He had not to wait long. Mr. Donkyn adopted a free and easy style with
Sir Charles, and that gentleman marked his sense of the indignity by
turning him out of the room, and kicking him industriously half-way
down the passage.
Messrs. Mosely and Donkyn retired to Highmore.
Bassett was particularly pleased at the baronet having kicked Donkyn;
so was Wheeler; so was Dr. Mosely. Donkyn alone did not share the
general enthusiasm.
When Sir Charles had disposed of Mr. Donkyn he turned on Mary Wells,
and rated her soundly for bringing strangers into his room to gratify
their curiosity; and when Lady Bassett came in he made his formal
complaint, concluding with a proposal that one of two persons should
leave Huntercombe, forever, that afternoon--Mary Wells or Sir Charles
Bassett.
Mary replied, not to him, but to her mistress, “He came from Dr.
Willis, my lady. It was Dr. Mosely; and the other gent was a surgeon.”
“Two medical men, sent by Dr. Willis?” said Lady Bassett, knitting her
brow with wonder and a shade of doubt.
“A couple of her own sweethearts, sent by herself,” suggested Sir
Charles.
Lady Bassett sat down and wrote a hasty letter to Dr. Willis. “Send a
groom with it, as fast as he can ride,” said she; and she was much
discomposed and nervous and impatient till the answer came bade.
Dr. Willis came in person. “I sent no one to take my place,” said he.
“I esteem my patient too highly to let any stranger prescribe for him
or even see him--for a few days to come.”
Lady Bassett sank into a chair, and her eloquent face filled with an
undefinable terror.
Mary Wells, being on her defense, put in her word. “I am sure he was a
doctor; for he wrote a prescription, and here 'tis.”
Dr. Willis examined the prescription, with no friendly eye.
“Acetate of morphia! The very worst thing that could be given him. This
is the favorite of the specialists. This fatal drug has eaten away a
thousand brains for one it has ever benefited.”
“Ah!” said Lady Bassett. “'Specialists!' what are they?”
“Medical men, who confine their practice to one disease.”
“Mad-doctors, he means,” said the patient, very gravely.
Lady Bassett turned very pale. “Then those were mad-doctors.”
“Never you mind, Bella,” said Sir Charles. “I kicked the fellow
handsomely.”
“I am sorry to hear it, Sir Charles.”
“Why?”
Dr. Willis looked at Lady Bassett, as much as to say, “I shall not give
_him_ my real reason;” and then said, “I think it very undesirable you
should be excited and provoked, until your health is thoroughly
restored.”
Dr. Willis wrote a prescription, and retired.
Lady Bassett sank into a chair, and trembled all over. Her divining fit
was on her; she saw the hand of the enemy, and filled with vague fears.
Mary Wells tried to, comfort her. “I'll take care no more strangers get
in here,” said she. “And, my lady, if you are afraid, why not have the
keepers, and two or three more, to sleep in the house? for, as for them
footmen, they be too soft to fight.”
“I will,” said Lady Bassett; “but I fear it will be no use. Our enemy
has so many resources unknown to me. How can a poor woman fight with a
shadow, that comes in a moment and strikes; and then is gone and leaves
his victim trembling?”
Then she slipped into the dressing-room and became hysterical, out of
her husband's sight and hearing.
Mary Wells nursed her, and, when she was better, whispered in her ear,
“Lose no more time, then. Cure him. You know the way.”
CHAPTER XVII.
IN the present condition of her mind these words produced a strange
effect on Lady Bassett. She quivered, and her eyes began to rove in
that peculiar way I have already noticed; and then she started up and
walked wildly to and fro; and then she kneeled down and prayed; and
then, alarmed, perplexed, exhausted, she went and leaned her head on
her patient's shoulder, and wept softly a long time.
Some days passed, and no more strangers attempted to see Sir Charles.
Lady Bassett was beginning to breathe again, when she was afflicted by
an unwelcome discovery.
Mary Wells fainted away so suddenly that, but for Lady Bassett's quick
eye and ready hand, she would have fallen heavily.
Lady Bassett laid her head down and loosened her stays, and discovered
her condition. She said nothing till the young woman was well, and then
she taxed her with it.
Mary denied it plump; but, seeing her mistress's disgust at the
falsehood, she owned it with many tears.
Being asked how she could so far forget herself, she told Lady Bassett
she had long been courted by a respectable young man; he had come to
the village, bound on a three years' voyage, to bid her good-by, and,
what with love and grief at parting, they had been betrayed into folly;
and now he was on the salt seas, little dreaming in what condition he
had left her: “and,” said she, “before ever he can write to me, and I
to him, I shall be a ruined girl; that is why I wanted to put an end to
myself; I _will,_ too, unless I can find some way to hide it from the
world.”
Lady Bassett begged her to give up those desperate thoughts; she would
think what could be done for her. Lady Bassett could say no more to her
just then, for she was disgusted with her.
But when she came to reflect that, after all, this was not a lady, and
that she appeared by her own account to be the victim of affection and
frailty rather than of vice, she made some excuses; and then the girl
had laid aside her trouble, her despair, and given her sorrowful mind