A Terrible Temptation: A Story of To-Day
“Don't be giddy; I'm hideous; so behave, and answer all my questions.
Oh, I'm so unhappy. Answer me, is young people, or old people,
goodest?”
“You should say best, dear. Good, better, best. Why, old people, to be
sure--much.”
“So I thought; and that is why I am so puzzled. Then your papa and mine
are much betterer--will that do?--than we are?”
“Of course they are.”
“There he goes! Such a child for answering slap bang I never.”
“I'm not a child. I'm older than you are, Ruperta.”
“That's a story.”
“Well, then, I'm as old; for Mary says we were born the same day--the
same hour--the same minute.”
“La! we are twins.”
She paused, however, on this discovery, and soon found reason to doubt
her hasty conclusion. “No such thing,” said she: “they tell me the
bells were ringing for you being found, and then I was found--to
catechism you.”
“There! then you see I _am_ older than you, Ruperta.”
“Yes, dear,” said Ruperta, very gravely; “I'm younger in my body, but
older in my head.”
This matter being settled so that neither party could complain, since
antiquity was evenly distributed, the catechizing recommenced.
“Do you believe in 'Let dogs delight?'”
“I don't know.”
“What!” screamed Ruperta. “Oh, you wicked boy! Why, it comes next after
the Bible.”
“Then I do believe it,” said Compton, who, to tell the truth, had been
merely puzzled by the verb, and was not afflicted with any doubt that
the composition referred to was a divine oracle.
“Good boy!” said Ruperta, patronizingly. “Well, then, this is what
puzzles me; your papa and mine don't believe in 'Dogs delight.' They
have been quarreling this twelve years and more, and mean to go on, in
spite of mamma. She _is_ good. Didn't you know that your papa and mine
are great enemies?”
“No, Ruperta. Oh, what a pity!”
“Don't, Compton, don't: there, you have made me cry.”
He set himself to console her.
She consented to be consoled.
But she said, with a sigh, “What becomes of old people being better
than young ones, now? Are you and I bears and lions? Do we scratch out
each other's eyes? It is all puzzle, puzzle, puzzle. I wish I was dead!
Nurse says, when I'm dead I shall understand it all. But I don't know;
I saw a dead cat once, and she didn't seem to know as much as before;
puzzle, puzzle. Compton, do you think they are puzzled in heaven?”
“No.”
“Then the sooner we both go there, the better.”
“Yes, but not just now.”
“Why not?”
“Because of the cowslips.”
“Here's a boy! What, would you rather be among the cowslips than the
angels? and think of the diamonds and pearls that heaven is paved
with.”
“But _you_ mightn't be there.”
“What! Am I a wicked girl, then--wickeder than you, that is a boy?”
“Oh no, no, no; but see how big it is up there;” they cast their eyes
up, and, taking the blue vault for creation, were impressed with its
immensity. “I know where to find you here, but up there you might be
ever so far off me.”
“La! so I might. Well, then, we had better keep quiet. I suppose we
shall get wiser as we get older. But Compton, I'm so sorry your papa
and mine are bears and lions. Why doesn't the clergyman scold them?”
“Nobody dare scold my papa,” said Compton, proudly. Then, after
reflection, “Perhaps, when we are older, we may persuade them to make
friends. I think it is very stupid to quarrel; don't you?”
“As stupid as an owl.”
“You and I had a quarrel once, Ruperta.”
“Yes, you misbehaved.”
“No, no; you were cross.”
“Story! Well, never mind: we _did_ quarrel. And you were miserable
directly.”
“Not so very,” said Compton, tossing his head.
“I _was,_ then,” said Ruperta, with unguarded candor.
“So was I.”
“Good boy! Kiss me, dear.”
“There--and there--and there--and--”
“That will do. I want to talk, Compton.”
“Yes, dear.”
“I'm not very sure, but I rather think I'm in love with you--a little,
little bit, you know.”
“And I'm sure I'm in love with you, Ruperta.”
“Over head an' ears?”
“Yes.”
“Then I love you to distraction. Bother the gate! If it wasn't for
that, I could run in the meadow with you; and marry you perhaps, and so
gather cowslips together for ever and ever.”
“Let us open it.”
“You can't.”
“Let us try.”
“I have. It won't be opened.”
“Let _me_ try. Some gates want to be lifted up a little, and then they
will open. There, I told you so.”
The gate came open.
Ruperta uttered an exclamation of delight, and then drew back.
“I'm afraid, Compton,” said she, “papa would be angry.”
She wanted Compton to tempt her; but that young gentleman, having a
strong sense of filial duty, omitted so to do.
When she saw he would not persuade her, she dispensed. “Come along,”
said she, “if it is only for five minutes.”
She took his hand, and away they scampered. He showed her the cowslips,
the violets, and all the treasures of the meadow; but it was all hurry,
and skurry, and excitement; no time to look at anything above half a
minute, for fear of being found out: and so, at last, back to the gate,
beaming with stolen pleasure, glowing and sparkling with heat and
excitement.
The cunning thing made him replace the gate, and then, after saying she
must go for about an hour, marched demurely back to the house.
After one or two of these hasty trips, impunity gave her a sense of
security, and, the weather getting warm, she used to sit in the meadow
with her beau and weave wreaths of cowslips, and place them in her
black hair, and for Comp-ton she made coronets of bluebells, and
adorned his golden head.
And sometimes, for a little while, she would nestle to him, and lean
her head, with all the feminine grace of a mature woman, on his
shoulder.
Said she, “A boy's shoulder does very nice for a girl to put her nose
on.”
One day the aspiring girl asked him what was that forest.
“That is Bassett's wood.”
“I will go there with you some day, when papa is out.”
“I'm afraid that is too far for you,” said Compton.
“Nothing is too far for me,” replied the ardent girl. “Why, how far is
it?”
“More than half a mile.”
“Is it very big?”
“Immense.”
“Belong to the queen?”
“No, to papa.”
“Oh!”
And here my reader may well ask what was Lady Bassett about, or did
Compton, with all his excellent teaching, conceal all this from his
mother and his friend.
On the contrary, he went open-mouthed to her and told her he had seen
such a pretty little girl, and gave her a brief account of their
conversation.
Lady Bassett was startled at first, and greatly perplexed. She told him
he must on no account go to her; if he spoke to her, it must be on
papa's ground. She even made him pledge his honor to that.
More than that she did not like to say. She thought it unnecessary and
undesirable to transmit to another generation the unhappy feud by which
she had suffered so much, and was even then suffering. Moreover, she
was as much afraid of Richard Bassett as ever. If he chose to tell his
girl not to speak to Compton, he might. She was resolved not to go out
of her way to affront him, through his daughter. Besides, that might
wound Mrs. Bassett, if it got round to her ears; and, although she had
never spoken to Mrs. Bassett, yet their eyes had met in church, and
always with a pacific expression. Indeed, Lady Bassett felt sure she
had read in that meek woman's face a regret that they were not friends,
and could not be friends, because of their husbands. Lady Bassett,
then, for these reasons, would not forbid Compton to be kind to Ruperta
in moderation.
Whether she would have remained as neutral had she known how far these
young things were going, is quite another matter; but Compton's
narratives to her were, naturally enough, very tame compared with the
reality, and she never dreamed that two seven-year-olds could form an
attachment so warm, as these little plagues were doing.
And, to conclude, about the time when Mr. Compton first opened the gate
for his inamorata, Lady Bassett's mind was diverted, in some degree,
even from her beloved boy Compton, by a new trouble, and a host of
passions it excited in her own heart.
A thunder-clap fell on Sir Charles Bassett, in the form of a letter
from Reginald's tutor, informing him that Reginald and another lad had
been caught wiring hares in a wood at some distance and were now in
custody.
Sir Charles mounted his horse and rode to the place, leaving Lady
Bassett a prey to great anxiety and bitter remorse.
Sir Charles came back in two days, with the galling news that his son
and heir was in prison for a month, all his exertions having only
prevailed to get the case summarily dealt with.
Reginald's companion, a young gypsy, aged seventeen, had got three
months, it being assumed that he was the tempter: the reverse was the
case, though.
When Sir Charles told Lady Bassett all this, with a face of agony, and
a broken voice, her heart almost burst: she threw every other
consideration to the winds.
“Charles,” she cried, “I can't bear it: I can't see your heart wrung
any more, and your affections blighted. Tear that young viper out of
your breast: don't go on wasting your heart's blood on a stranger; HE
IS NOT YOUR SON.”
CHAPTER XXXIX.
AT this monstrous declaration, from the very lips of the man's wife,
there was a dead silence, Sir Charles being struck dumb, and Lady
Bassett herself terrified at the sound of the words she had uttered.
After a terrible pause, Sir Charles fixed his eyes on her, with an
awful look, and said, very slowly, “Will--you--have--the--goodness--
to--say that again? but first think what you are saying.”
This made Lady Bassett shake in every limb; indeed the very flesh of
her body quivered. Yet she persisted, but in a tone that of itself
showed how fast her courage was oozing. She faltered out, almost
inaudibly, “I say you must waste no more love on him--he is not your
son.”
Sir Charles looked at her to see if she was in her senses: it was not
the first time he had suspected her of being deranged on this one
subject. But no: she was pale as death, she was cringing, wincing,
quivering, and her eyes roving to and fro; a picture not of frenzy, but
of guilt unhardened.
He began to tremble in his turn, and was so horror-stricken and
agitated that he could hardly speak. “Am I dreaming?” he gasped.
Lady Bassett saw the storm she had raised, and would have given the
world to recall her words.
“Whose is he, then?” asked Sir Charles, in a voice scarcely human.
“I don't know,” said Lady Bassett doggedly.
“Then how dare you say that he isn't mine?”
“Kill me, Charles,” cried she, passionately; “but don't look at me so
and speak to me so. Why I say he is not yours, is he like you either in
face or mind?”
“And he is like--whom?”
Lady Bassett had lost all her courage by this time: she whimpered out,
“Like nobody except the gypsies.”
“Bella, this is a subject which will part you and me for life unless we
can agree upon it--”
No reply, in words, from Lady Bassett.
“So please let us understand each other. Your son is not my son. Is
that what you look me in the face and tell me?”
“Charles, I never said _that._ How could he be my son, and not be
yours?”
And she raised her eyes, and looked him full in the face: nor fear nor
cringing now: the woman was majestic.
Sir Charles was a little alarmed in his turn; for his wife's soft eyes
flamed battle for the first time in her life.
“Now you talk sense,” said he; “if he is yours, he is mine; and, as he
is certainly yours, this is a very foolish conversation, which must not
be renewed, otherwise--”
“I shall be insulted by my own husband?”
“I think it very probable. And, as I do not choose you to be insulted,
nor to think yourself insulted, I forbid you ever to recur to this
subject.”