A Terrible Temptation: A Story of To-Day
consolation suggested that it is much better for a pretty girl to marry
one who plows the land than one who plows the sea.
“That is true,” said Mary, with a sigh; “I have found it to my sorrow.”
After this Drake played a bit with her, and then relented, and one
evening offered her marriage, expecting her to jump eagerly at his
offer.
“You be too late, young man,” said she, coolly; “I'm bespoke.”
“Doan't ye say that! How can ye be bespoke? Why, t'other hain't been
dead four months yet.”
“What o' that? This one spoke for me within a week. Why, our banns are
to be cried to-morrow; come to church and hear 'em; that will learn ye
not to shilly-shally so next time.”
“Next time!” cried Drake, half blubbering; then, with a sudden roar,
“what, be you coming to market again, arter this?”
“Like enough: he is a deal older than I be. 'Tis Mr. Meyrick, if ye
must know.”
Now Mr. Meyrick was well-to-do, and so Drake was taken aback.
“Mr. Meyrick!” said he, and turned suddenly respectful.
But presently a view of a rich widow flitted before his eye.
“Well,” said he, “you shan't throw it in my teeth again as I speak too
late. I ask you now, and no time lost.”
“What! am I to stop my banns, and jilt Farmer Meyrick for _thee?”_
“Nay, nay. But I mean I'll marry you, if you'll marry me, as soon as
ever the breath is out of that dall'd old hunks's body.”
“Well, well, Will Drake,” said Mary, gravely, “if I do outlive this
one--and you bain't married long afore--and if you keeps in the same
mind as you be now--and lets me know it in good time--I'll see about
it.”
She gave a flounce that made her petticoats whisk like a mare's tail,
and off to the kitchen, where she related the dialogue with an
appropriate reflection, the company containing several of either sex.
“Dilly-Dally and Shilly-Shally, they belongs to us as women be. I hate
and despise a man as can't make up his mind in half a minnut.”
So the widow Gosport became Mrs. Meyrick, and lived in a farmhouse not
quite a mile from the Hall.
She used often to come to the Hall, and take a peep at her lamb: this
was the name she gave Mr. Bassett long after he had ceased to be a
child.
About four years after the triumphant return to Huntercombe, Lady
Bassett conceived a sudden coldness toward the little boy, though he
was universally admired.
She concealed this sentiment from Sir Charles, but not from the female
servants: and, from one to another, at last it came round to Sir
Charles. He disbelieved it utterly at first; but, the hint having been
given him, he paid attention, and discovered there was, at all events,
some truth in it.
He awaited his opportunity and remonstrated: “My dear Bella, am I
mistaken, or do I really observe a falling off in your tenderness for
your child?”
Lady Bassett looked this way and that, as if she meditated flight, but
at last she resigned herself, and said, “Yes, dear Charles; my heart is
quite cold to him.”
“Good Heavens, Bella! But why? Is not this the same little angel that
came to our help in trouble, that comforted me even before his birth,
when my mind was morbid, to say the least?”
“I suppose he is the same,” said she, in a tone impossible to convey by
description of mine.
“That is a strange answer.”
“If he is, _I_ am changed.” And this she said doggedly and unlike
herself.
“What!” said Sir Charles, very gravely, and with a sort of awe: “can a
woman withdraw her affection from her child, her innocent child? If so,
my turn may come next.”
“Oh, Charles! Charles!” and the tears began to well.
“Why, who can be secure after this? What is so stable as a mother's
love? If that is not rooted too deep for gusts of caprice to blow it
away, in Heaven's name, what is?”
No answer to that but tears.
Sir Charles looked at her very long, attentively, and seriously, and
said not another syllable.
But his dropping so suddenly a subject of this importance was rather
suspicious, and Lady Bassett was too shrewd not to see that.
They watched each other.
But with this difference: Sir Charles could not conceal his anxiety,
whereas the lady appeared quite tranquil.
One day Sir Charles said, cheerfully, “Who do you think dines here
to-morrow, and stays all night? Dr. Suaby.”
“By invitation, dear?” asked Lady Bassett, quietly.
Sir Charles colored a little, and said, quietly, “Yes.”
Lady Bassett made no remark, and it was impossible to tell by her face
whether the visit was agreeable or not.
Some time afterward, however, she said, “Whom shall I ask to meet Dr.
Suaby?”
“Nobody, for Heaven's sake!”
“Will not that be dull for him?”
“I hope not.”
“You will have plenty to say to him, eh, darling?”
“We never yet lacked topics. Whether or no, his is a mind I choose to
drink neat.”
“Drink him neat?”
“Undiluted with rural minds.”
“Oh!”
She uttered that monosyllable very dryly, and said no more.
Dr. Suaby came next day, and dined with them, and Lady Bassett was
charming; but rather earlier than usual she said, “Now I am sure you
and Dr. Suaby must have many things to talk about,” and retired,
casting back an arch, and almost a cunning smile.
The door closed on her, the smile fled, and a somber look of care and
suffering took its place.
Sir Charles entered at once on what was next his heart, told Dr. Suaby
he was in some anxiety, and asked him if he had observed anything in
Lady Bassett.
“Nothing new,” said Dr. Suaby; “charming as ever.”
Then Sir Charles confided to Dr. Suaby, in terms of deep feeling and
anxiety, what I have coldly told the reader.
Dr. Suaby looked a little grave, and took time to think before he
spoke.
At last he delivered an opinion, of which this is the substance, though
not the exact words.
“It is sudden and unnatural, and I cannot say it does not partake of
mental aberration. If the patient was a man I should fear the most
serious results; but here we have to take into account the patient's
sex, her nature, and her present condition. Lady Bassett has always
appeared to me a very remarkable woman. She has no mediocrity in
anything; understanding keen, perception wonderfully swift, heart large
and sensitive, nerves high strung, sensibilities acute. A person of her
sex, tuned so high as this, is always subject, more or less, to
hysteria. It is controlled by her intelligence and spirit; but she is
now, for the time being, in a physical condition that has often
deranged less sensitive women than she is. I believe this about the boy
to be a hysterical delusion, which will pass away when her next child
is born. That is to say, she will probably ignore her first-born, and
everything else, for a time; but these caprices, springing in reality
from the body rather than the mind, cannot endure forever. When she has
several grown-up children the first-born will be the favorite. It comes
to that at last, my good friend.”
“These are the words of wisdom,” said Sir Charles; “God bless you for
them!”
After a while he said, “Then what you advise is simply--patience?”
“No, I don't say that. With such a large house as this, and your
resources, you might easily separate them before the delusion grows any
farther. Why risk a calamity?”
“A calamity?” and Sir Charles began to tremble.
“She is only cold to the child as yet. She might go farther, and fancy
she hated it. _Obsta principiis:_ that is my motto. Not that I really
think, for a moment, the child is in danger. Lady Bassett has mind to
control her nerves with; but why run the shadow of a chance?”
“I will not run the shadow of a chance,” said Sir Charles, resolutely;
“let us come upstairs: my decision is taken.”
The very next day Sir Charles called on Mrs. Meyrick, and asked if he
could come to any arrangement with her to lodge Mr. Bassett and his
nurse under her roof. “The boy wants change of air,” said he.
Mrs. Meyrick jumped at the proposal, but declined all terms. “No,” said
she, “the child I have suckled shall never pay me for his lodging. Why
should he, sir, when I'd pay _you_ to let him come, if I wasn't afeard
of offending you?”
Sir Charles was touched at this, and, being a gentleman of tact, said,
“You are very good: well, then, I must remain your debtor for the
present.”
He then took his leave, but she walked with him a few yards, just as
far as the wicket, gate that separated her little front garden from the
high-road.
“I hope,” said she, “my lady will come and see me when my lamb is with
me; a sight of her would be good for sore eyes. She have never been
here but once, and then she did not get out of her carriage.”
“Humph!” said Sir Charles, apologetically; “she seldom goes out now;
you understand.”
“Oh, I've heard, sir; and I do put up my prayers for her; for my lady
has been a good friend to me, sir, and if you will believe me, I often
sets here and longs for a sight of her, and her sweet eyes, and her
hair like sunshine, that I've had in my hand so often. Well, sir, I
hope it will be a girl this time, a little girl with golden hair;
that's what I wants this time. They'll be the prettiest pair in
England.”
“With all my heart,” said Sir Charles; “girl or boy, I don't care
which; but I'd give a few thousands if it was here, and the mother
safe.”
He hurried away, ashamed of having uttered the feelings of his heart to
a farmer's wife. To avoid discussion, he sent Mrs. Millar and the boy
off all in a hurry, and then told Lady Bassett what he had done.
She appeared much distressed at that, and asked what she had done.
He soothed her, and said she was not to blarne at all; and she must not
blame him either. He had done it for the best.
“After all, you are the master,” said she, submissively.
“I am,” said he, “and men will be tyrants, you know.”
Then she flung her arm round her tyrant's neck, and there was an end of
the discussion.
One day he inquired for her, and heard, to his no small satisfaction,
she had driven to Mrs. Meyrick's, with a box of things for Mr. Bassett.
She stayed at the farmhouse all day, and Sir Charles felt sure he had
done the right thing.
Mrs. Meyrick found out to her cost the difference between a nursling
and a rampageous little boy.
Her lamb, as she called him, was now a young monkey, vigorous, active,
restless, and, unfortunately, as strong on his pins as most boys of
six. It took two women to look after him, and smart ones too, so
swiftly did he dash off into some mischief or other. At last Mrs.
Meyrick simplified matters in some degree by locking the large gate,
and even the small wicket, and ordering all the farm people and
milkmaids to keep an eye on him, and bring him straight to her if he
should stray, for he seemed to hate in-doors. Never was such a boy.
Nevertheless, such as had not the care of him admired the child for his
beauty and his assurance. He seemed to regard the whole human race as
one family, of which he was the rising head. The moment he caught sight
of a human being he dashed at it and into conversation by one unbroken
movement.
Now children in general are too apt to hide their intellectual
treasures from strangers by shyness.
One day this ready converser was standing on the steps of the house,
when a gentleman came to the wicket gate, and looked over into the
garden.
Young master darted to the gate directly, and getting his foot on the
lowest bar and his hands on the spikes, gave tongue.
“Who are you? _I'm_ Mr. Bassett. I don't live here; I'm only staying.
My home is Huncom Hall. I'm to have it for myself when papa dies. I
didn't know dat till I come here. How old are you? I'm half past
four--”
A loud scream, a swift rustle, and Mr. Bassett was clutched up by Mrs.
Meyrick, who snatched him away with a wild glance of terror and