A Terrible Temptation: A Story of To-Day
defiance, and bore him swiftly into the house, with words ringing in
her ears that cost Mr. Bassett dear, he being the only person she could
punish. She sat down on a bench, flung young master across her knee in
a minute, and bestowed such a smacking on him as far transcended his
wildest dreams of the weight, power, and pertinacity of the human arm.
The words Richard Bassett had shot her flying with were these:
“Too late! I've SEEN THE PARSON'S BRAT.”
Richard Bassett mounted his horse and rode over to Wheeler, for he
could no longer wheedle the man of law over to Highmore, and I will
very briefly state why.
1st. About three years ago an old lady, one of his few clients, left
him three thousand pounds, just reward of a very little law and a vast
deal of gossip.
2d. The head solicitor of the place got old and wanted a partner.
Wheeler bought himself in, and thenceforth took his share of a good
business, and by his energy enlarged it, though he never could found
one for himself.
3d. He married a wife.
4th. She was a pretty woman, and blessed with jealousy of a just and
impartial nature: she was equally jealous of women, men, books,
business--anything that took her husband from her.
No more sleeping out at Highmore; no more protracted potations; no more
bachelor tricks for Wheeler. He still valued his old client and
welcomed him; but the venue was changed, so to speak.
Richard Bassett was kept waiting in the outer office; but when he did
get in he easily prevailed on Wheeler to send the next client or two to
his partner, and give him a full hearing.
Then he opened his business. “Well,” said he, “I've seen him at last!”
“Seen him? seen whom?”
“The boy they have set up to rob my boy of the estate. I've seen him,
Wheeler, seen him close; and HE'S AS BLACK AS MY HAT.”
CHAPTER XXXIV.
WHEELER, instead of being thunder-stricken, said quietly, “Oh, is he?
Well?”
“Sir Charles is lighter than I am: Lady Bassett has a skin like satin,
and red hair.”
“Red! say auburn gilt. I never saw such lovely hair.”
“Well,” said Richard, impatiently, “then the boy has eyes like sloes,
and a brown skin, like an Italian, and black hair almost; it will be
quite.”
“Well,” said Wheeler, “it is not so very uncommon for a dark child to
be born of fair parents, or _vice versa._ I once saw an urchin that was
like neither father nor mother, but the image of his father's
grandfather, that died eighty years before he was born. They used to
hold him up to the portrait.”
Said Bassett, “Will you admit that it is uncommon?”
“Not so uncommon as for a high-bred lady, living in the country, and
adored by her husband, to trifle with her marriage vow, for that is
what you are driving at.”
“Then we have to decide between two improbabilities: will you grant me
that, Mr. Wheeler?”
“Yes.”
“Then suppose I can prove fact upon fact, and coincidence upon
coincidence, all tending one way! Are you so prejudiced that nothing
will convince you?”
“No. But it will take a great deal: that lady's face is full of purity,
and she fought us like one who loved her husband.”
_“Fronti nulla fides:_ and as for her fighting, her infidelity was the
weapon she defeated us with. Will you hear me?”
“Yes, yes; but pray stick to facts, and not conjectures.”
“Then don't interrupt me with childish arguments:
_“Fact 1._--Both reputed parents fair; the boy as black as the ace of
spades.
_“Fact 2._--A handsome young fellow was always buzzing about her
ladyship, and he was a parson, and ladies are remarkably fond of
parsons.
_“Fact 3._--This parson was of Italian breed, dark, like the boy.
_“Fact 4._--This dark young man left Huntercombe one week, and my lady
left it the next, and they were both in the city of Bath at one time.
_“Fact 5._--The lady went from Bath to London. The dark young man went
from Bath to London.”
“None of this is new to me,” said Wheeler, quietly.
“No; but it is the rule, in estimating coincidences, that each fresh
one multiplies the value of the others. Now the boy looking so Italian
is a new coincidence, and so is what I am going to tell you--at last I
have found the medical man who attended Lady Bassett in London.”
“Ah!”
“Yes, sir; and I have learned _Fact 6._--Her ladyship rented a house,
but hired no servants, and engaged no nurse. She had no attendant but a
lady's maid, no servant but a sort of charwoman.
_“Fact 7._--She dismissed this doctor unusually soon, and gave him a
very large fee.
_“Fact 8._--She concealed her address from her husband.”
“Oh! can you prove that?”
“Certainly. Sir Charles came up to town, and had to hunt for her, came
to this very medical man, and asked for the address his wife had not
given him; but lo! when he got there the bird was flown.
_“Fact 9._--Following the same system of concealment, my lady levanted
from London within ten days of her confinement.
“Now put all these coincidences together. Don't you see that she had a
lover, and that he was about her in London and other places? Stop!
_Fact 10._--Those two were married for years, and had no child but this
equivocal one; and now four years and a half have passed, during all
which time they have had none, and the young parson has been abroad
during that period.”
Wheeler was staggered and perplexed by this artful array of
coincidences.
“Now advise me,” said Bassett.
“It is not so easy. Of course if Sir Charles was to die, you could
claim the estate, and give them a great deal of pain and annoyance; but
the burden of proof would always rest on you. My advice is not to
breathe a syllable of this; but get a good detective, and push your
inquiries a little further among house agents, and the women they put
into houses; find that charwoman, and see if you can pick up anything
more.”
“Do you know such a thing as an able detective?”
“I know one that will work if I instruct him.”
“Instruct him, then.”
“I will.”
CHAPTER XXXV.
LADY BASSETT, as her time of trial drew near, became despondent.
She spoke of the future, and tried to pierce it; and in all these
little loving speculations and anxieties there was no longer any
mention of herself.
This meant that she feared her husband was about to lose her. I put the
fear in the very form it took in that gentle breast.
Possessed with this dread, so natural to her situation, she set her
house in order, and left her little legacies of clothes and jewels,
without the help of a lawyer; for Sir Charles, she knew, would respect
her lightest wish.
To him she left her all, except these trifles, and, above all--a
manuscript book. It was the history of her wedded life. Not the bare
outward history; but such a record of a sensitive woman's heart as no
male writer's pen can approach.
It was the nature of her face and her tongue to conceal; but here, on
this paper, she laid bare her heart; here her very subtlety operated,
not to hide, but to dissect herself and her motives.
But oh, what it cost her to pen this faithful record of her love, her
trials, her doubts, her perplexities, her agonies, her temptations, and
her crime! Often she laid down the pen, and hid her face in her hands.
Often the scalding tears ran down that scarlet face. Often she writhed
at her desk, and wrote on, sighing and moaning. Yet she persevered to
the end. It was the grave that gave her the power. “When he reads
this,” she said, “I shall be in my tomb. Men make excuses for the dead.
My Charles will forgive me when I am gone. He will know I loved him to
desperation.”
It took her many days to write; it was quite a thick quarto; so much
may a woman feel in a year or two; and, need I say that, to the reader
of that volume, the mystery of her conduct was all made clear as
daylight; clearer far, as regards the revelation of mind and feeling,
than I, dealer in broad facts, shall ever make it, for want of a
woman's mental microscope and delicate brush.
And when this record was finished, she wrapped it in paper, and sealed
it with many seals, and wrote on it,
“Only for my husband's eye. From her who loved him not wisely, But too
well.”
And she took other means that even the superscription should never be
seen of any other eye but his. It was some little comfort to her, when
the book was written.
She never prayed to live. But she used to pray, fervently, piteously,
that her child might live, and be a comfort and joy to his father.
The person employed by Wheeler discovered the house agent, and the
woman he had employed.
But these added nothing to the evidence Bassett had collected.
At last, however, this woman, under the influence of a promised reward,
discovered a person who was likely to know more about the matter--viz.,
the woman who was in the house with Lady Bassett at the very time.
But this woman scented gold directly: so she held mysterious language;
declined to say a word to the officer; but intimated that she knew a
great deal, and that the matter was, in truth, well worth looking into,
and she could tell some strange tales, if it was worth her while.
This information was sent to Bassett; he replied that the woman only
wanted money for her intelligence, and he did not blame her; he would
see her next time he went to town, and felt sure she would complete his
chain of evidence. This put Richard Bassett into extravagant spirits.
He danced his little boy on his knee, and said, “I'll run this little
horse against the parson's brat; five to one, and no takers.”
Indeed, his exultation was so loud and extravagant that it jarred on
gentle Mrs. Bassett. As for Jessie, the Scotch servant, she shook her
head, and said the master was fey.
In the morning he started for London, still so exuberant and excited
that the Scotch woman implored her mistress not to let him go; there
would be an accident on the railway, or something. But Mrs. Bassett
knew her husband too well to interfere with his journeys.
Before he drove off he demanded his little boy.
“He must kiss me,” said he, “for I'm going to work for him. D'ye hear
that, Jane? This day makes him heir of Huntercombe and Bassett.”
The nurse brought word that Master Bassett was not very well this
morning.
“Let us look at him,” said Bassett.
He got out of his gig, and went to the nursery. He found his little boy
had a dry cough, with a little flushing.
“It is not much,” said he; “but I'll send the doctor over from the
town.”
He did so, and himself proceeded up to London.
The doctor came, and finding the boy labored in breathing, administered
a full dose of ipecacuanha. This relieved the child for the time; but
about four in the afternoon he was distressed again, and began to cough
with a peculiar grating sound.
Then there was a cry of dismay--“The croup!” The doctor was gone for,
and a letter posted to Richard Bassett, urging him to come back
directly.
The doctor tried everything, even mercury, but could not check the
fatal discharge; it stiffened into a still more fatal membrane.
When Bassett returned next afternoon, in great alarm, he found the poor
child thrusting its fingers into its mouth, in a vain attempt to free
the deadly obstruction.
A warm bath and strong emetics were now administered, and great relief
obtained. The patient even ate and drank, and asked leave to get up and
play with a new toy he had. But, as often happens in this disorder, a
severe relapse soon came, with a spasm of the glottis so violent and
prolonged that the patient at last resigned the struggle. Then pain
ceased forever; the heavenly smile came; the breath went; and nothing
was left in the little white bed but a fair piece of tinted clay, that
must return to the dust, and carry thither all the pride, the hopes,