A Terrible Temptation: A Story of To-Day
to nursing and comforting Sir Charles. This would have outweighed a
crime, and it made the wife's bowels yearn over the unfortunate girl.
“Mary,” said she, “others must judge you; I am a wife, and can only see
your fidelity to my poor husband. I don't know what I shall do without
you, but I think it is my duty to send you to him if possible. You are
sure he really loves you?”
“Me cross the seas after a young man?” said Mary Wells. “I'd as lieve
hang myself on the nighest tree and make an end. No, my lady, if you
are really my friend, let me stay here as long as I can--I will never
go downstairs to be seen--and then give me money enough to get my
trouble over unbeknown to my sister; she is all my fear. She is married
to a gentleman, and got plenty of money, and I shall never want while
she lives, and behave myself; but she would never forgive me if she
knew. She is a hard woman; she is not like you, my lady. I'd liever cut
my hand off than I'd trust her as I would you.”
Lady Bassett was not quite insensible to this compliment; but she felt
uneasy.
“What, help you to deceive your sister?”
“For her good. Why, if any one was to go and tell her about me now,
she'd hate them for telling her almost as much as she would hate me.”
Lady Bassett was sore perplexed. Unable to see quite clear in the
matter, she naturally reverted to her husband and his interest. That
dictated her course. She said, “Well, stay with us, Mary, as long as
you can; and then money shall not be wanting to hide your shame from
all the world; but I hope when the time comes you will alter your mind
and tell your sister. May I ask what her name is?”
Mary, after a moment's hesitation, said her name was Marsh.
“I know a Mrs. Marsh,” said Lady Bassett; “but, of course, that is not
your sister. My Mrs. Marsh is rather fair.”
“So is my sister, for that matter.”
“And tall?”
“Yes; but you never saw her. You'd never forget her it you had. She has
got eyes like a lion.”
“Ah! Does she ride?”
“Oh, she is famous for that; and driving, and all.”
“Indeed! But no; I see no resemblance.”
“Oh, she is only my half-sister.”
“This is very strange.”
Lady Bassett put her hand to her brow, and thought.
“Mary,” said she, “all this is very mysterious. We are wading in deep
waters.”
Mary Wells had no idea what she meant.
The day was not over yet. Just before dinner-time a fly from the
station drove to the door, and Mr. Oldfield got out.
He was detained in the hall by sentinel Moss.
Lady Bassett came down to him. At the very sight of him she trembled,
and said, “Richard Bassett?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Oldfield, “he is in the field again. He has been to the
Court of Chancery _ex parte,_ and obtained an injunction _ad interim_
to stay waste. Not another tree must be cut down on the estate for the
present.”
“Thank Heaven it is no worse than that. Not another tree shall be
felled on the grounds.”
“Of course not. But they will not stop there. If we do not move to
dissolve the injunction, I fear they will go on and ask the Court to
administer the estate, with a view to all interests concerned,
especially those of the heir at law and his son.”
“What, while my husband lives?”
“If they can prove him dead in law.”
“I don't understand you, Mr. Oldfield.”
“They have got affidavits of two medical men that he is insane.”
Lady Bassett uttered a faint scream, and put her hand to her heart.
“And, of course, they will use that extraordinary fall of timber as a
further proof, and also as a reason why the Court should interfere to
protect the heir at law. Their case is well got up and very strong,”
said Mr. Oldfield, regretfully.
“Well, but you are a lawyer, and you have always beaten them hitherto.”
“I had law and fact on my side. It is not so now. To be frank, Lady
Bassett, I don't see what I can do but watch the case, on the chance of
some error or illegality. It is very hard to fight a case when you
cannot put your client forward--and I suppose that would not be safe.
How unfortunate that you have no children!”
“Children! How could they help us?”
“What a question! How could Richard Bassett move the Court if he was
not the heir at law?”
After a long conference Mr. Oldfield returned to town to see what he
could do in the way of procrastination, and Lady Bassett promised to
leave no stone unturned to cure Sir Charles in the meantime. Mr.
Oldfield was to write immediately if any fresh step was taken.
When Mr. Oldfield was gone, Lady Bassett pondered every word he had
said, and, mild as she was, her rage began to rise against her
husband's relentless enemy. Her wits worked, her eyes roved in that
peculiar half-savage way I have described. She became intolerably
restless; and any one acquainted with her sex might see that some
strange conflict was going on in her troubled mind.
Every now and then she would come and cling to her husband, and cry
over him; and that seemed to still the tumult of her soul a little.
She never slept all that night, and next day, clinging in her helpless
agony to the nearest branch, she told Mary Wells what Bassett was
doing, and said, “What shall I do? He is not mad; but he is in so very
precarious a state that, if they get at him to torment him, they will
drive him mad indeed.”
“My lady,” said Mary Wells, “I can't go from my word. 'Tis no use in
making two bites of a cherry. We must cure him: and if we don't, you'll
never rue it but once, and that will be all your life.”
“I should look on myself with horror afterward were I to deceive him
now.”
“No, my lady, you are too fond of him for that. Once you saw him happy
you'd be happy too, no matter how it came about. That Richard Bassett
will turn him out of this else. I am sure he will; he is a hard-hearted
villain.”
Lady Bassett's eyes flashed fire; then her eyes roved; then she sighed
deeply.
Her powers of resistance were beginning to relax. As for Mary Wells,
she gave her no peace; she kept instilling her mind into her mistress's
with the pertinacity of a small but ever-dripping fount, and we know
both by science and poetry that small, incessant drops of water will
wear a hole in marble.
“Gutta cavat lapidem non vi sed saepe cadendo.”
And in the midst of all a letter came from Mr. Oldfield, to tell her
that Mr. Bassett threatened to take out a commission _de lunatico,_ and
she must prepare Sir Charles for an examination; for, if reported
insane, the Court would administer the estates; but the heir at law,
Mr. Bassett, would have the ear of the Court and the right of
application, and become virtually master of Huntercombe and Bassett;
and, perhaps, considering the spirit by which he was animated, would
contrive to occupy the very Hall itself. Lady Bassett was in the
dressing-room when she received this blow, and it drove her almost
frantic. She bemoaned her husband; she prayed God to take them both,
and let their enemy have his will. She wept and raved, and at the
height of her distress came from the other room a feeble cry,
“Childless! childless! childless!”
Lady Bassett heard that, and in one moment, from violent she became
unnaturally and dangerously calm. She said firmly to Mary Wells, “This
is more than I can bear. You pretend you can save him--do it.”
Mary Wells now trembled in her turn; but she seized the opportunity.
“My lady, whatever I say you'll stand to?”
“Whatever you say I'll stand to.”
CHAPTER XVIII.
MARY WELLS, like other uneducated women, was not accustomed to think
long and earnestly on any one subject; to use an expression she once
applied with far less justice to her sister, her mind was like running
water.
But gestation affects the brains of such women, and makes them think
more steadily, and sometimes very acutely; added to which, the peculiar
dangers and difficulties that beset this girl during that anxious
period stimulated her wits to the very utmost. Often she sat quite
still for hours at a time, brooding and brooding, and asking herself
how she could turn each new and unexpected event to her own benefit.
Now so much does mental force depend on that exercise of keen and long
attention, in which her sex is generally deficient, that this young
woman's powers were more than doubled since the day she first
discovered her condition, and began to work her brains night and day
for her defense.
Gradually, as events I have related unfolded themselves, she caught a
glimpse of this idea, that if she could get her mistress to have a
secret, her mistress would help her to keep her own. Hence her
insidious whispers, and her constant praises of Mr. Angelo, who, she
saw, was infatuated with Lady Bassett. Yet the designing creature was
actually fond of her mistress: and so strangely compounded is a heart
of this low kind that the extraordinary step she now took was half
affectionate impulse, half egotistical design.
She made a motion with her hand inviting Lady Bassett to listen, and
stepped into Sir Charles's room.
“Childless! childless! childless!”
“Hush, sir,” said Mary Wells. “Don't say so. We shan't be many mouths
without one, please Heaven.”
Sir Charles shook his head sadly.
“Don't you believe me?”
“No.”
“What, did ever I tell you a lie?”
“No: but you are mistaken. She would have told me.”
“Well, sir, my lady is young and shy, and I think she is afraid of
disappointing you after all; for you know, sir, there's many a slip
'twixt the cup and the lip. But 'tis as I tell you, sir.”
Sir Charles was much agitated, and said he would give her a hundred
guineas if that was true. “Where is my darling wife? Why do I hear this
through a servant?”
Mary Wells cast a look at the door, and said, for Lady Bassett to hear,
“She is receiving company. Now, sir, I have told you good news; will
you do something to oblige me? You shouldn't speak of it direct to my
lady just yet; and if you want all to go well, you mustn't vex my lady
as you are doing now. What I mean, you mustn't be so downhearted--
there's no reason for't--and you mustn't coop yourself up on this
floor: it sets the folks talking, and worries my lady. You should give
her every chance, being the way she is.”
Sir Charles said eagerly he would not vex her for the world. “I'll walk
in the garden,” said he; “but as for going abroad, you know I am not in
a fit condition yet; my mind is clouded.”
“Not as I see.”
“Oh, not always. But sometimes a cloud seems to get into my head; and
if I was in public I might do or say something discreditable. I would
rather die.”
“La, sir!” said Mary Wells, in a broad, hearty way--“a cloud in your
head! You've had a bad fall, and a fit at top on't, and no wonder your
poor head do ache at times. You'll outgrow that--if you take the air
and give over fretting about the t'other thing. I tell you you'll hear
the music of a child's voice and little feet a-pattering up and down
this here corridor before so very long--if so be you take my advice,
and leave off fretting my lady with fretting of yourself. You should
consider: she is too fond of you to be well when you be ill.”
“I'll get well for her sake,” said Sir Charles, firmly.
At this moment there was a knock at the door. Mary Wells opened it so
that the servant could see nothing.
“Mr. Angelo has called.”
“My lady will be down directly.”
Mary Wells then slipped into the dressing-room, and found Lady Bassett
looking pale and wild. She had heard every word.
“There, he is better already,” said Mary Wells. “He shall walk in the
garden with you this afternoon.”
“What have you done? I can't look him in the face now. Suppose he
speaks to me?”
“He will not. I'll manage that. You won't have to say a word. Only
listen to what I say, and don't make a liar of me. He is better
already.”