A Terrible Temptation: A Story of To-Day
the ladies. I doubt if he would walk across the street to advise a
stranger. Candidly, why should he?”
“No; and it was ridiculous vanity to suppose he would. But I never
called on a gentleman in my life.”
“Take me with you. You can go up at nine, and be back to a late
dinner.”
“I shall never have the courage to go. Let me have his letter.”
He gave her the letter, and she took it away.
At six o'clock she sent Mary Wells to Mr. Angelo, with a note to say
she had studied Mr. Rolfe's letter, and there was more in it than she
had thought; but his going off from her husband to boat-racing seemed
trivial, and she could not make up her mind to go to London to consult
a novelist on such a serious matter.
At nine she sent to say she should go, but could not think of dragging
him there: she should take her maid.
Before eleven, she half repented this resolution, but her maid kept her
to it; and at half past twelve next day they reached Mr. Rolfe's door;
an old-fashioned, mean-looking house, in one of the briskest
thoroughfares of the metropolis; a cabstand opposite to the door, and a
tide of omnibuses passing it.
Lady Bassett viewed the place discontentedly, and said to herself,
“What a poky little place for a writer to live in; how noisy, how
unpoetical!”
They knocked at the door. It was opened by a maid-servant.
“Is Mr. Rolfe at home?”
“Yes, ma'am. Please give me your card, and write the business.”
Lady Bassett took out her card and wrote a line or two on the back of
it. The maid glanced at it, and showed her into a room, while she took
the card to her master.
The room was rather long, low, and nondescript; scarlet flock paper;
curtains and sofas green Utrecht velvet; woodwork and pillars white and
gold; two windows looking on the street; at the other end folding-doors
with scarcely any wood-work, all plate-glass, but partly hidden by
heavy curtains of the same color and material as the others. Accustomed
to large, lofty rooms, Lady Bassett felt herself in a long box here;
but the colors pleased her. She said to Mary Wells, “What a funny, cozy
little place for a gentleman to live in!”
Mr. Rolfe was engaged with some one, and she was kept waiting; this was
quite new to her, and discouraged her, already intimidated by the
novelty of the situation.
She tried to encourage herself by saying it was for her husband she did
this unusual thing; but she felt very miserable and inclined to cry.
At last a bell rang; the maid came in and invited Lady Bassett to
follow her. She opened the glass folding-doors, and took them into a
small conservatory, walled like a grotto, with ferns sprouting out of
rocky fissures, and spars sparkling, water dripping. Then she opened
two more glass folding-doors, and ushered them into an empty room, the
like of which Lady Bassett had never seen; it was large in itself, and
multiplied tenfold by great mirrors from floor to ceiling, with no
frames but a narrow oak beading; opposite her, on entering, was a
bay-window all plate-glass, the central panes of which opened, like
doors, upon a pretty little garden that glowed with color, and was
backed by fine trees belonging to the nation; for this garden ran up to
the wall of Hyde Park.
The numerous and large mirrors all down to the ground laid hold of the
garden and the flowers, and by double and treble reflection filled the
room with delightful nooks of verdure and color.
To confuse the eye still more, a quantity of young India-rubber trees,
with glossy leaves, were placed before the large central mirror. The
carpet was a warm velvet-pile, the walls were distempered, a French
gray, not cold, but with a tint of mauve that gave a warm and cheering
bloom; this soothing color gave great effect to the one or two
masterpieces of painting that hung on the walls and to the gilt frames;
the furniture, oak and marqueterie highly polished; the curtains,
scarlet merino, through which the sun shone, and, being a London sun,
diffused a mild rosy tint favorable to female faces. Not a sound of
London could be heard.
So far the room was romantic; but there was a prosaic corner to shock
those who fancy that fiction is the spontaneous overflow of a poetic
fountain fed by nature only; between the fireplace and the window, and
within a foot or two of the wall, stood a gigantic writing-table, with
the signs of hard labor on it, and of severe system. Three plated
buckets, each containing three pints, full of letters to be answered,
other letters to be pasted into a classified guard-book, loose notes to
be pasted into various books and classified (for this writer used to
sneer at the learned men who say, “I will look among my papers for it;”
he held that every written scrap ought either to be burned, or pasted
into a classified guard-book, where it could be found by consulting the
index); five things like bankers' bill-books, into whose several
compartments MS. notes and newspaper cuttings were thrown, as a
preliminary toward classification in books.
Underneath the table was a formidable array of note-books, standing
upright, and labeled on their backs. There were about twenty large
folios of classified facts, ideas, and pictures--for the very wood-cuts
were all indexed and classified on the plan of a tradesman's ledger;
there was also the receipt-book of the year, treated on the same plan.
Receipts on a file would not do for this romantic creature. If a
tradesman brought a bill, he must be able to turn to that tradesman's
name in a book, and prove in a moment whether it had been paid or not.
Then there was a collection of solid quartos, and of smaller folio
guard-books called Indexes. There was “Index rerum et journalium”--
“Index rerum et librorum,”--“Index rerum et hominum,” and a lot more;
indeed, so many that, by way of climax, there was a fat folio ledger
entitled “Index ad Indices.”
By the side of the table were six or seven thick pasteboard cards, each
about the size of a large portfolio, and on these the author's notes
and extracts were collected from all his repertories into something
like a focus for a present purpose. He was writing a novel based on
facts; facts, incidents, living dialogue, pictures, reflections,
situations, were all on these cards to choose from, and arranged in
headed columns; and some portions of the work he was writing on this
basis of imagination and drudgery lay on the table in two forms, his
own writing, and his secretary's copy thereof, the latter corrected for
the press. This copy was half margin, and so provided for additions and
improvements; but for one addition there were ten excisions, great and
small. Lady Bassett had just time to take in the beauty and artistic
character of the place, and to realize the appalling drudgery that
stamped it a workshop, when the author, who had dashed into his garden
for a moment's recreation, came to the window, and furnished contrast
No. 3. For he looked neither like a poet nor a drudge, but a great fat
country farmer. He was rather tall, very portly, smallish head,
commonplace features mild brown eye not very bright, short beard, and
wore a suit of tweed all one color. Such looked the writer of romances
founded on fact. He rolled up to the window--for, if he looked like a
farmer, he walked like a sailor--and stepped into the room.
CHAPTER XXIII.
MR. ROLFE surveyed the two women with a mild, inoffensive, ox-like
gaze, and invited them to be seated with homely civility.
He sat down at his desk, and turning to Lady Bassett, said, rather
dreamily, “One moment, please: let me look at the case and my notes.”
First his homely appearance, and now a certain languor about his
manner, discouraged Lady Bassett more than it need; for all artists
must pay for their excitements with occasional languor. Her hands
trembled, and she began to gulp and try not to cry.
Mr. Rolfe observed directly, and said, rather kindly, “You are
agitated; and no wonder.”
He then opened a sort of china closet, poured a few drops of a
colorless liquid from a tiny bottle into a wine-glass, and filled the
glass with water from a filter. “Drink that, if you please.”
She looked at him with her eyes brimming. _“Must_ I?”
“Yes; it will do you good for once in a way. It is only Ignatia.”
She drank it by degrees, and a tear along with it that fell into the
glass.
Meantime Mr. Rolfe had returned to his notes and examined them. He then
addressed her, half stiffly, half kindly:
“Lady Bassett, whatever may be your husband's condition--whether his
illness is mental or bodily, or a mixture of the two--his clandestine
examination by bought physicians, and his violent capture, the natural
effect of which must have been to excite him and retard his cure, were
wicked and barbarous acts, contrary to God's law and the common law of
England, and, indeed, to all human law except our shallow, incautious
Statutes de Lunatico: they were an insult to yourself, who ought at
least to have been consulted, for your rights are higher and purer than
Richard Bassett's; therefore, as a wife bereaved of your husband by
fraud and violence and the bare letter of a paltry statute whose spirit
has been violated, you are quite justified in coming to me or to any
public man you think can help your husband and you.” Then, with a
certain _bonhomie,_ “So lay aside your nervousness; let us go into this
matter sensibly, like a big man and a little man, or like an old woman
and a young woman, whichever you prefer.”
Lady Bassett looked at him and smiled assent. She felt a great deal
more at her ease after this opening.
“I dare not advise you yet. I must know more than Mr. Angelo has told
me. Will you answer my questions frankly?”
“I will try, sir.”
“Whose idea was it confining Sir Charles Bassett to the house so much?”
“His own. He felt himself unfit for society.”
“Did he describe his ailment to you then?”
“Yes.”
“All the better; what did he say?”
“He said that, at times, a cloud seemed to come into his head, and then
he lost all power of mind; and he could not bear to be seen in that
condition.”
“This was after the epileptic seizure?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Humph! Now will you tell me how Mr. Bassett, by mere words, could so
enrage Sir Charles as to give him a fit?”
Lady Bassett hesitated.
“What did he say to Sir Charles?”
“He did not speak to him. His child and nurse were there, and he called
out loud, for Sir Charles to hear, and told the nurse to hold up his
child to look at his inheritance.”
“Malicious fool! But did this enrage Sir Charles so much as to give him
a fit?”
“Yes.”
“He must be very sensitive.”
“On that subject.”
Mr. Rolfe was silent; and now, for the first time, appeared to think
intently.
His study bore fruit, apparently; for he turned to Lady Bassett and
said, suddenly, “What is the strangest thing Sir Charles has said of
late--the very strangest?”
Lady Bassett turned red, and then pale, and made no reply.
Mr. Rolfe rose and walked up to Mary Wells.
“What is the maddest thing your master has ever said?”
Mary Wells, instead of replying, looked at her mistress.
The writer instantly put his great body between them. “Come, none of
that,” said he. “I don't want a falsehood--I want the truth.”
“La, sir, I don't know. My master he is not mad, I'm sure. The queerest
thing he ever said was--he did say at one time 'twas writ on his face
as he had no children.”
“Ah! And that is why he would not go abroad, perhaps.”
“That was one reason, sir, I do suppose.” Mr. Rolfe put his hands
behind his back and walked thoughtfully and rather disconsolately back
to his seat.
“Humph!” said he. Then, after a pause, “Well, well; I know the worst
now; that is one comfort. Lady Bassett, you really must be candid with