A Terrible Temptation: A Story of To-Day
and lace, with a little face in the middle. The good woman held it up
to Sir Charles, and he felt something novel stir inside him. He looked
at the little thing with a vast yearning of love, with pride, and a
good deal of curiosity; and then turned smiling to his wife. She had
watched him furtively but keenly, and her eyes were brimming over. He
kissed the little thing, and blessed it, and then took his wife's
hands, and kissed her wet eyes, and made her stand and look at baby
with him, hand in hand. It was a pretty picture.
The buxom woman swelled her feathers, as simple women do when they
exhibit a treasure of this sort; she lifted the little mite slowly up
and down, and said, “Oh, you Beauty!” and then went off into various
inarticulate sounds, which I recommend to the particular study of the
new philosophers: they cannot have been invented after speech; that
would be retrogression; they must be the vocal remains of that hairy,
sharp-eared quadruped, our Progenitor, who by accident discovered
language, and so turned Biped, and went ahead of all the other hairy
quadrupeds, whose ears were too long or not sharp enough to stumble
upon language.
Under cover of these primeval sounds Lady Bassett drew her husband a
little apart, and looking in his face with piteous wistfulness, said,
“You won't mind Richard Bassett and his baby now?”
“Not I.”
“You will never have another fit while you live?”
“I promise.”
“You will always be happy?”
“I must be an ungrateful scoundrel else, my dear.”
“Then baby is our best friend. Oh, you little angel!” And she pounced
on the mite, and kissed it far harder than Sir Charles had. Heaven
knows what these gentle creatures are so rough with their mouths to
children, but so it is.
And now how can a mere male relate all the pretty childish things that
were done and said to baby, and of baby, before the inevitable
squalling began, and baby was taken away to be consoled by another of
his subjects.
Sir Charles and Lady Bassett had a thousand things to tell each other,
to murmur in each other's ears, sitting lovingly close to each other.
But when all was quiet, and everybody else was in bed, Lady Bassett
plucked up courage and said, “Charles, I am not quite happy. There is
one thing wanting.” And then she hid her face in her hands and blushed.
“I cannot nurse him.”
“Never mind,” said Sir Charles kindly.
“You forgive me?”
“Forgive you, my poor girl! Why, is that a crime?”
“It leads to so many things. You don't know what a plague a nurse is,
and makes one jealous.”
“Well, but it is only for a time. Come, Bella, this is a little
peevish. Don't let us be ungrateful to Heaven. As for me, while you and
our child live, I am proof against much greater misfortunes than that.”
Then Lady Bassett cleared up, and the subject dropped.
But it was renewed next morning in a more definite form.
Sir Charles rose early; and in the pride and joy of his heart, and not
quite without an eye to triumphing over his mortal enemy and his cold
friends, sent a mounted messenger with orders to his servants to
prepare for his immediate reception, and to send out his landau and
four horses to the “Rose,” at Staveleigh, half-way between Huntercombe
and the place where he now was. Lady Bassett had announced herself able
for the journey.
After breakfast he asked her rather suddenly whether Mrs. Millar was
not rather an elderly woman to select for a nurse. “I thought people
got a young woman for that office.”
“Oh,” said Lady Bassett, “why, Mrs. Millar is not _the_ nurse. Of
course nurse is young and healthy, and from the country, and the best I
could have in every way for baby. But yet--oh, Charles, I hope you will
not be angry--who do you think nurse is? It is Mary Gosport--Mary Wells
that was.”
Sir Charles was a little staggered. He put this and that together, and
said, “Why, she must have been playing the fool, then?”
“Hush! not so loud, dear. She is a married woman now, and her husband
gone to sea, and her child dead. Most wet-nurses have a child of their
own; and don't you think they must hate the stranger's child that parts
them from their own? Now baby is a comfort to Mary. And the wet-nurse
is always a tyrant; and I thought, as this one has got into a habit of
obeying me, she might be more manageable; and then as to her having
been imprudent, I know many ladies who have been obliged to shut their
eyes a little. Why, consider, Charles, would good wives and good
mothers leave their own children to nurse a stranger's? Would their
husbands let them? And I thought,” said she, piteously, “we were so
fortunate to get a young, healthy girl, imprudent but not vicious,
whose fault had been covered by marriage, and then so attached to us
both as she is, poor thing!”
Sir Charles was in no humor to make mountains of mole-hills. “Why, my
dear Bella,” said he, “after all, this is your department, not mine.”
“Yes, but unless I please you in every department there is no happiness
for me.”
“But you know you please me in everything; and the more I look into
anything, the wiser I always think you. You have chosen the best
wet-nurse possible. Send her to me.”
Lady Bassett hesitated. “You will be kind to her. You know the
consequence if anything happens to make her fret. Baby will suffer for
it.”
“Oh, I know. Catch me offending this she potentate till he is weaned.
Dress for the journey, my dear, and send nurse to me.”
Lady Bassett went into the next room, and after a long time Mary came
to Sir Charles with baby in her arms.
Mary had lost for a time some of her ruddy color, but her skin was
clearer, and somehow her face was softened. She looked really a
beautiful and attractive young woman.
She courtesied to Sir Charles, and then took a good look at him.
“Well, nurse,” said he, cheerfully, “here we are back again, both of
us.”
“That we be, sir.” And she showed her white teeth in a broad smile.
“La, sir, you be a sight for sore eyes. How well you do look, to be
sure!”
“Thank you, Mary. I never was better in my life. You look pretty well
too; only a little pale; paler than Lady Bassett does.”
“I give my color to the child,” said Mary, simply.
She did not know she had said anything poetic; but Sir Charles was so
touched and pleased with her answer that he gave her a five-pound note
on the spot; and he said, “We'll bring your color back if beef and beer
and kindness can do it.”
“I ain't afeard o' that, sir; and I'll arn it. 'Tis a lovely boy, sir,
and your very image.”
Inspection followed; and something or other offended young master; he
began to cackle. But this nurse did not take him away, as Mrs. Millar
had. She just sat down with him and nursed him openly, with rustic
composure and simplicity.
Sir Charles leaned his arm on the mantel-piece, and eyed the pair; for
all this was a new world of feeling to him. His paid servant seemed to
him to be playing the mother to his child. Somehow it gave him a
strange twinge, a sort of vicarious jealousy: he felt for his Bella.
But I think his own paternal pride, in all its freshness, was hurt a
little too.
At last he shrugged his shoulders, and was going out of the room, with
a hint to Mary that she must wrap herself up, for it would be an open
carriage--
“Your own carriage, sir, and horses?”
“Certainly.”
“And do all the folk know as we are coming?”
Sir Charles laughed. “Most likely. Gossip is not dead at Huntercombe, I
dare say.”
Nurse's black eyes flashed. “All the village will be out. I hope _he_
will see us ride in, the black-hearted villain!”
Sir Charles was too proud to let her draw him into that topic; he went
about his business.
Lady Bassett's carriage, duly packed, came round, and Lady Bassett was
ready soon afterward; so was Mrs. Millar; so was baby, imbedded now in
a nest of lawn and lace and white fur. They had to wait for nurse. Lady
Bassett explained _sotto voce_ to her husband, “Just at the last moment
she was seized with a desire to wear a silk gown I gave her. I argued
with her, but she only pouted. I was afraid for baby. It is very hard
upon _you,_ dear.”
Her face and voice were so piteous that Sir Charles burst out laughing.
“We must take the bitter along with the sweet. Don't you think the
sweet rather predominates at present?”
Lady Bassett explored his face with all her eyes. “My darling is happy
now; trifles cannot put him out.”
“I doubt if anything could shake me while I have you and our child. As
for that jade keeping us all waiting while she dons silk attire, it is
simply delicious. I wish Rolfe was here, that is all. Ha! ha! ha!”
Mrs. Gosport appeared at last in a purple silk gown, and marched to the
carriage without the slightest sign of the discomfort she really felt;
but that was no wonder, belonging, as she did, to a sex which can walk
not only smiling but jauntily, though dead lame on stilts, as you may
see any day in Regent Street.
Sir Charles, with mock gravity, ushered King Baby and his attendants in
first, then Lady Bassett, and got in last himself.
Before they had gone a mile Nurse No. 1 handed the child over to Nurse
No. 2 with a lofty condescension, as who should say, “You suffice for
porterage; I, the superior artist, reserve myself for emergencies.” No.
2 received the invaluable bundle with meek complacency.
By-and-by Nurse 1 got fidgety, and kept changing her position.
“What is the matter, Mary?” said Lady Bassett, kindly. “Is the dress
too tight?”
“No, no, my lady,” said Mary, sharply; “the gownd's all right.” And
then she was quiet a little.
But she began again; and then Lady Bassett whispered Sir Charles, “I
think she wants to sit forward: _may_ I?”
“Certainly not. I'll change with her. Here, Mary, try this side. We
shall have more room in the landau; it is double, with wide seats.”
Mary was gratified, and amused herself looking out of the window.
Indeed, she was quiet for nearly half an hour. At the expiration of
that period the fit took her again. She beckoned haughtily for baby,
“which did come at her command,” as the song says. She got tired of
baby, or something, and handed him back again.
Presently she was discovered to be crying.
General consternation! Universal but vague consolation!
Lady Bassett looked an inquiry at Mrs. Millar. Mrs. Millar looked back
assent. Lady Bassett assumed the command, and took off Mary's shawl.
_“Yes,”_ said she to Mrs. Millar. “Now, Mary, be good; it _is_ too
tight.”
Thus urged, the idiot contracted herself by a mighty effort, while Lady
Bassett attacked the fastenings, and, with infinite difficulty, they
unhooked three bottom hooks. The fierce burst open that followed, and
the awful chasm, showed what gigantic strength vanity can command, and
how savagely abuse it to maltreat nature.
Lady Bassett loosened the stays too, and a deep sigh of relief told the
truth, which the lying tongue had denied, as it always does whenever
the same question is put.
The shawl was replaced, and comfort gained till they entered the town
of Staveleigh.
Nurse instantly exchanged places with Sir Charles, and took the child
again. He was her banner in all public places.
When they came up to the inn they were greeted with loud hurrahs. It
was market-day. The town was full of Sir Charles's tenants and other
farmers. His return had got wind, and every farmer under fifty had
resolved to ride with him into Huntercombe.
When five or six, all shouting together, intimated this to Sir Charles,
he sent one of his people to order the butchers out to Huntercombe with
joints a score, and then to gallop on with a note to his housekeeper
and butler. “For those that ride so far with me must sup with me,” said
he; a sentiment that was much approved.