A Terrible Temptation: A Story of To-Day
“My lady,” said Moss, “we tracked the carriage into the next county, to
a place thirty miles from here--to a lodge--and there they stopped us.
The place is well guarded with men and great big dogs. We heerd 'em
bark, didn't us, Will?”
“Ay,” said Drake, dejectedly.
“The man as kept the lodge was short, but civil. Says he, 'This is a
place nobody comes in but by law, and nobody goes out but by law. If
the gentleman is here you may go home and sleep; he is safe enough.'”
“A prison? No!”
“A 'sylum, my lady.”
CHAPTER XXI.
THE lady put her hand to her heart, and was silent a long time.
At last she said, doggedly but faintly, “You will go with me to that
place to-morrow, one of you.”
“I'll go, my lady,” said Moss. “Will, here, had better not show his
face. They might take the law on him for that there shot.”
Drake hung his head, and his ardor was evidently cooled by discovering
that Sir Charles had been taken to a mad-house.
Lady Bassett saw and sighed, and said she would take Moss to show her
the way.
At eleven o'clock next morning a light carriage and pair came round to
the Hall gate, and a large basket, a portmanteau, and a bag were placed
on the roof under care of Moss; smaller packages were put inside; and
Lady Bassett and her maid got in, both dressed in black.
They reached Bellevue House at half-past two. The lodge-gate was open,
to Lady Bassett's surprise, and they drove through some pleasant
grounds to a large white house.
The place at first sight had no distinctive character: great ingenuity
had been used to secure the inmates without seeming to incarcerate
them. There were no bars to the lower front windows, and the side
windows, with their defenses, were shrouded by shrubs. The sentinels
were out of sight, or employed on some occupation or other, but within
call. Some patients were playing at cricket; some ladies looking on;
others strolling on the gravel with a nurse, dressed very much like
themselves, who did not obtrude her functions unnecessarily. All was
apparent indifference, and Argus-eyed vigilance. So much for the
surface.
Of course, even at this moment, some of the locked rooms had violent
and miserable inmates.
The hall door opened as the carriage drew up; a respectable servant
came forward.
Lady Bassett handed him her card, and said, “I am come to see my
husband, sir.”
The man never moved a muscle, but said, “You must wait, if you please,
till I take your card in.”
He soon returned, and said, “Dr. Suaby is not here, but the gentleman
in charge will see you.”
Lady Bassett got out, and, beckoning Mary Wells, followed the servant
into a curious room, half library, half chemist's shop; they called it
“the laboratory.”
Here she found a tall man leaning on a dirty mantelpiece, who received
her stiffly. He had a pale mustache, very thin lips, and altogether a
severe manner. His head bald, rather prematurely, and whiskers
abundant.
Lady Bassett looked him all over with one glance of her woman's eye,
and saw she had a hard and vain man to deal with.
“Are you the gentleman to whom this house belongs?” she faltered.
“No, madam; I am in charge during Dr. Suaby's absence.”
“That comes to the same thing. Sir, I am come to see my dear husband.”
“Have you an order?”
“An order, sir? I am his wife.”
Mr. Salter shrugged his shoulders a little, and said, “I have no
authority to let any visitor see a patient without an order from the
person by whose authority he is placed here, or else an order from the
commissioners.”
“But that cannot apply to his wife; to her who is one with him, for
better for worse, in sickness or health.”
“It seems hard; but I have no discretion in the matter. The patient
only came yesterday--much excited. He is better to-day, and an
interview with you would excite him again.”
“Oh no! no! no! I can always soothe him. I will be so mild, so gentle.
You can be present, and hear every word I say. I will only kiss him,
and tell him who has done this, and to be brave, for his wife watches
over him; and, sir, I will beg him to be patient, and not blame you nor
any of the people here.”
“Very proper, very proper; but really this interview must be postponed
till you have an order, or Dr. Suaby returns. He can violate his own
rules if he likes; but I cannot, and, indeed, I dare not.”
“Dare not let a lady see her husband? Then you are not a man. Oh, can
this be England? It is too inhuman.”
Then she began to cry and wring her hands.
“This is very painful,” said Mr. Salter, and left the room.
The respectable servant looked in soon after, and Lady Bassett told
him, between her sobs, that she had brought some clothes and things for
her husband. “Surely, sir,” said she, “they will not refuse me that?”
“Lord, no, ma'am,” said the man. “You can give them to the keeper and
nurse in charge of him.”
Lady Bassett slipped a guinea into the man's hand directly. “Let me see
those people,” said she.
The man winked, and vanished: he soon reappeared, and said, loudly,
“Now, madam, if you will order the things into the hall.”
Lady Bassett came out and gave the order.
A short, bull-necked man, and rather a pretty young woman with a
flaunting cap, bestirred themselves getting down the things; and Mr.
Salter came out and looked on.
Lady Bassett called Mary Wells, and gave her a five-pound note to slip
into the man's hand. She telegraphed the girl, who instantly came near
her with an India rubber bath, and, affecting ignorance, asked her what
that was.
Lady Bassett dropped three sovereigns into the bath, and said, “Ten
times, twenty times that, if you are kind to him. Tell him it is his
cousin's doing, but his wife watches over him.”
“All right,” said the girl. “Come again when the doctor is here.”
All this passed, in swift whispers, a few yards from Mr. Salter, and he
now came forward and offered his arm to conduct Lady Bassett to the
carriage.
But the wretched, heart-broken wife forgot her art of pleasing. She
shrank from him with a faint cry of aversion, and got into her carriage
unaided. Mary Wells followed her.
Mr. Salter was unwilling to receive this rebuff. He followed, and said,
“The clothes shall be given, with any message you may think fit to
intrust to me.”
Lady Bassett turned away sharply from him, and said to Mary Wells,
“Tell him to drive home. Home! I have none now. Its light is torn from
me.”
The carriage drove away as she uttered these piteous words.
She cried at intervals all the way home; and could hardly drag herself
upstairs to bed.
Mr. Angelo called next day with bad news. Not a magistrate would move a
finger against Mr. Bassett: he had the law on his side. Sir Charles was
evidently insane; it was quite proper he should be put in security
before he did some mischief to himself or Lady Bassett. “They say, why
was he hidden for two months, if there was not something very wrong?”
Lady Bassett ordered the carriage and paid several calls, to counteract
this fatal impression.
She found, to her horror, she might as well try to move a rock. There
was plenty of kindness and pity; but the moment she began to assure
them her husband was not insane she was met with the dead silence of
polite incredulity. One or two old friends went further, and said, “My
dear, we are told he could not be taken away without two doctors'
certificates: now, consider, they must know better than you. Have
patience, and let them cure him.”
Lady Bassett withdrew her friendship on the spot from two ladies for
contradicting her on such a subject; she returned home almost wild
herself.
In the village her carriage was stopped by a woman with her hair all
flying, who told her, in a lamentable voice, that Squire Bassett had
sent nine men to prison for taking Sir Charles's part and ill-treating
his captors.
“My lawyer shall defend them at my expense,” said Lady Bassett, with a
sigh.
At last she got home, and went up to her own room, and there was Mary
Wells waiting to dress her.
She tottered in, and sank into a chair. But, after this temporary
exhaustion, came a rising tempest of passion; her eyes roved, her
fingers worked, and her heart seemed to come out of her in words of
fire. “I have not a friend in all the county. That villain has only to
say 'Mad,' and all turn from me, as if an angel of truth had said
'Criminal.' We have no friend but one, and she is my servant. Now go
and envy wealth and titles. No wife in this parish is so poor as I;
powerless in the folds of a serpent. I can't see my husband without an
order from _him._ He is all power, I and mine all weakness.” She raised
her clinched fists, she clutched her beautiful hair as if she would
tear it out by the roots. “I shall, go mad! I shall go mad! No!” said
she, all of a sudden. “That will not do. That is what he wants--and
then my darling _would_ be defenseless. I will not go mad.” Then
suddenly grinding her white teeth: “I'll teach him to drive a lady to
despair. I'll fight.”
She descended, almost without a break, from the fury of a Pythoness to
a strange calm. Oh! then it is her sex are dangerous.
“Don't look so pale,” said she, and she actually smiled. “All is fair
against so foul a villain. You and I will defeat him. Dress me, Mary.”
Mary Wells, carried away by the unusual violence of a superior mind,
was quite bewildered.
Lady Bassett smiled a strange smile, and said, “I'll show you how to
dress me;” and she did give her a lesson that astonished her.
“And now,” said Lady Bassett, “I shall dress you.” And she took a loose
full dress out of her wardrobe, and made Mary Wells put it on; but
first she inserted some stuffing so adroitly that Mary seemed very
buxom, but what she wished to hide was hidden. Not so Lady Bassett
herself. Her figure looked much rounder than in the last dress she
wore.
With all this she was late for dinner, and when she went down Mr.
Angelo had just finished telling Mr. Oldfield of the mishap to the
villagers.
Lady Bassett came in animated and beautiful.
Dinner was announced directly, and a commonplace conversation kept up
till the servants were got rid of. She then told Mr. Oldfield how she
had been refused admittance to Sir Charles at Bellevue House, a plain
proof, to her mind, they knew her husband was not insane; and begged
him to act with energy, and get Sir Charles out before his reason could
be permanently injured by the outrage and the horror of his situation.
This led to a discussion, in which Mr. Angelo and Lady Bassett threw
out various suggestions, and Mr. Oldfield cooled their ardor with sound
objections. He was familiar with the Statutes de Lunatico, and said
they had been strictly observed both in the capture of Sir Charles and
in Mr. Salter's refusal to let the wife see the husband. In short, he
appeared either unable or unwilling to see anything except the strong
legal position of the adverse party.
Mr. Oldfield was one of those prudent lawyers who search for the
adversary's strong points, that their clients may not be taken by
surprise; and that is very wise of them. But wise things require to be
done wisely: he sometimes carried this system so far as to discourage
his client too much. It is a fine thing to make your client think his
case the weaker of the two, and then win it for him easily; that
gratifies your own foible, professional vanity. But suppose, with your
discouraging him so, he flings up or compromises a winning case?
Suppose he takes the huff and goes to some other lawyer, who will warm
him with hopes instead of cooling him with a one-sided and hostile view
of his case?
In the present discussion Mr. Oldfield's habit of beginning by admiring
his adversaries, together with his knowledge of law and little else,