A Terrible Temptation: A Story of To-Day
thumb operating through the linen. By this means she avoided two
evils--her fingers did not wet the letter, and the letter did not dirty
her fingers.
She took it into the kitchen to her mistress, whose arms were deep in a
wash-tub.
Mrs. Meyrick had played the fine lady at first starting, and for six
months would not put her hand to anything. But those twin cajolers of
the female heart, Dignity and Laziness, made her so utterly wretched,
that she returned to her old habits of work, only she combined with it
the sweets of domination.
Sally came in and said, “It's an old gypsy, which he have brought you
this.”
Mrs. Meyrick instantly wiped the soapsuds from her brown but shapely
arms, and, whipping a wet hand under her apron, took the note just as
Sally had. It contained these words only:
“NURSE--The old Romance will tell you all about me.
“REGINALD.”
She had no sooner read it than she took her sleeves down, and whipped
her shawl off a peg and put it on, and took off her apron--and all for
an old gypsy. No stranger must take her for anything but a lady.
Thus embellished in a turn of the hand, she went hastily to the door.
She and the gypsy both started at sight of each other, and Mrs. Meyrick
screamed.
“Why, what brings you here, old man?” said she, panting. The gypsy
answered with oily sweetness, “The little gentleman sent me, my dear.
Why, you look like a queen.”
“Hush!” said Mrs. Meyrick.--“Come in here.”
She made the old gypsy sit down, and she sat close to him.
“Speak low, daddy,” said she, “and tell me all about my boy, my
beautiful boy.”
The old gypsy told Mrs. Meyrick the wrongs of Reginald that had driven
him to this; and she fell to crying and lamenting, and inveighing
against all concerned--schoolmaster, Sir Charles, Lady Bassett, and the
gypsies. Them the old man defended, and assured her the young gentleman
was in good hands, and would be made a little king of, all the more
that Keturah had told them there was gypsy blood in him.
Mrs. Meyrick resented this loudly, and then returned to her grief.
When she had indulged that grief for a long time, she felt a natural
desire to quarrel with somebody, and she actually put on her bonnet,
and was going to the Hall to give Lady Bassett a bit of her mind, for
she said that lady had never shown the feelings of a woman for the
lamb.
But she thought better of it, and postponed the visit. “I shall be sure
to say something I shall be sorry for after,” said she; so she sat down
again, and returned to her grief.
Nor could she ever shake it off as thoroughly as she had done any other
trouble in her life.
Months after this, she said to Sally, with a burst of tears, “I never
nursed but one, and I shall never nurse another; and now he is across
the seas.”
She kept the old gypsy at the farm; or, to speak more correctly, she
made the farm his headquarters. She assigned him the only bedroom he
would accept, viz., a cattle-shed, open on one side. She used often to
have him into her room when she was alone; she gave him some of her
husband's clothes, and made him wear a decent hat; by these means she
effaced, in some degree, his nationality, and then she compelled her
servants to call him “the foreign gent.”
The foreign gent was very apt to disappear in fine weather, but rain
soon drove him back to her fireside, and hunger to her flesh-pots.
On the very day the foreign gent came to Meyrick's farm Lady Bassett
had a letter by post from Reginald.
“DEAR MAMMA--I am gone with the gypsies across the water. I am sorry to
leave you. You are the right sort: but they tormented me so with their
books and their dark rooms. It is very unfortunate to be a boy. When I
am a man, I shall be too old to be tormented, and then I will come
back.
“Your dutiful son,
“REGINALD.”
Lady Bassett telegraphed Sir Charles, and he returned to Huntercombe,
looking old, sad, and worn.
Lady Bassett set herself to comfort and cheer him, and this was her
gentle office for many a long month.
She was the more fit for it, that her own health and spirits revived
the moment Reginald left the country with his friends the gypsies; the
color crept back to her cheek, her spirits revived, and she looked as
handsome, and almost as young, as when she married. She tasted
tranquillity. Year after year went by without any news of Reginald, and
the hope grew that he would never cross her threshold again, and
Compton be Sir Charles's heir without any more trouble.
CHAPTER XLI.
OUR story now makes a bold skip. Compton Bassett was fourteen years
old, a youth highly cultivated in mind and trained in body, but not
very tall, and rather effeminate looking, because he was so fair and
his skin so white.
For all that, he was one of the bowlers in the Wolcombe Eleven, whose
cricket-ground was the very meadow in which he had erst gathered
cowslips with Ruperta Bassett; and he had a canoe, which he carried to
adjacent streams, however narrow, and paddled it with singular skill
and vigor. A neighboring miller, suffering under drought, was heard to
say, “There ain't water enough to float a duck; nought can swim but the
dab-chicks and Muster Bassett.”
He was also a pedestrian, and got his father to take long walks with
him, and leave the horses to eat their oats in peace.
In these walks young master botanized and geologized his own father,
and Sir Charles gave him a little politics, history, and English
poetry, in return. He had a tutor fresh from Oxford for the classics.
One day, returning with his father from a walk, they met a young lady
walking toward them from the village; she was tall, and a superb
brunette.
Now it was rather a rare thing to see a lady walking through that
village, so both Sir Charles and his son looked keenly at her as she
came toward them.
Compton turned crimson, and raised his hat to her rather awkwardly.
Sir Charles, who did not know the lady from Eve, saluted her,
nevertheless, and with infinite grace; for Sir Charles, in his youth,
had lived with some of the elite of French society, and those gentlemen
bow to the person whom their companion bows to. Sir Charles had
imported this excellent trait of politeness, and always practiced it,
though not the custom in England, the more the pity.
As soon as the young lady had passed and was out of hearing, Sir
Charles said to Compton, “Who is that lovely girl? Why, how the boy is
blushing!”
“Oh, papa!”
“Well, what is the matter?”
“Don't you see? It is herself come back from school.”
“I have no doubt it is herself, and not her sister, but who is
herself?”
“Ruperta Bassett.”
“Richard Bassett's daughter! impossible. That young lady looks
seventeen or eighteen years of age.”
“Yes, but it is Ruperta. There's nobody like her. Papa!”
“Well?”
“I suppose I may speak to her now.”
“What for?”
“She is so beautiful.”
“That she really is. And therefore I advise you to have nothing to say
to her. You are not children now, you know. Were you to renew that
intimacy, you might be tempted to fall in love with her. I don't say
you would be so mad, for you are a sensible boy; but still, after that
little business in the wood--”
“But suppose I did fall in love with her?”
“Then that would be a great misfortune. Don't you know that her father
is my enemy? If you were to make any advances to that young lady, he
would seize the opportunity to affront you, and me through you.”
This silenced Compton, for he was an obedient youth.
But in the evening he got to his mother and coaxed her to take his
part.
Now Lady Bassett felt the truth of all her husband had said; but she
had a positive wish the young people should be on friendly terms, at
all events; she wanted the family feud to die with the generation it
had afflicted. She promised, therefore, to speak to Sir Charles; and so
great was her influence that she actually obtained terms for Compton:
he might speak to Miss Bassett, if he would realize the whole
situation, and be very discreet, and not revive that absurd familiarity
into which, their childhood had been betrayed.
She communicated this to him, and warned him at the same time that even
this concession had been granted somewhat reluctantly, and in
consideration of his invariable good conduct; it would be immediately
withdrawn upon the slightest indiscretion.
“Oh, I will be discretion itself,” said Compton; but the warmth with
which he kissed his mother gave her some doubts. However, she was
prepared to risk something. She had her own views in this matter.
When he had got this limited permission, Master Compton was not much
nearer the mark; for he was not to call on the young lady, and she did
not often walk in the village.
But he often thought of her, her loving, sprightly ways seven years
ago, and the blaze of beauty with which she had returned.
At last, one Sunday afternoon, she came to church alone. When the
congregation dispersed, he followed her, and came up with her, but his
heart beat violently.
“Miss Bassett!” said he, timidly.
She stopped, and turned her eyes on him; he blushed up to the temples.
She blushed too, but not quite so much.
“I am afraid you don't remember me,” said the boy, sadly.
“Yes, I do, sir,” said Ruperta, shyly.
“How you are grown!”
“Yes, sir.”
“You are taller than I am, and more beautiful than ever.”
No answer, but a blush.
“You are not angry with me for speaking to you?”
“No, sir.”
“I wouldn't offend you.”
“I am not offended. Only--”
“Oh, Miss Bassett, of course I know you will never be--we shall never
be--like we used.”
A very deep blush, and dead silence.
“You are a grown-up young lady, and I am only a boy still, somehow. But
it _would_ have been hard if I might not even speak to you. Would it
not?”
“Yes,” said the young lady, but after some hesitation, and only in a
whisper.
“I wonder where you walk to. I have never seen you out but once.”
No reply to this little feeler.
Then, at last, Compton was discouraged, partly by her beauty and size,
partly by her taciturnity.
He was silent in return, and so, in a state of mutual constraint, they
reached the gate of Highmore.
“Good-by,” said Compton reluctantly.
“Good-by.”
“Won't you shake hands?”
She blushed, and put out her hand halfway. He took it and shook it, and
so they parted.
Compton said to his mother disconsolately, “Mamma, it is all over. I
have seen her, and spoken to her; but she has gone off dreadfully.”
“Why, what is the matter?”
“She is all changed. She is so stupid and dignified got to be. She has
not a word to say to a fellow.”
“Perhaps she is more reserved; that is natural. She is a young lady
now.”
“Then it is a great pity she did not stay as she was. Oh, the bright
little darling! Who'd think she could ever turn into a great, stupid,
dignified thing? She is as tall as you, mamma.”
“Indeed! She has made use of her time. Well, dear, don't take _too
much_ notice of her, and then you will find she will not be nearly so
shy.”
“Too much notice! I shall never speak to her again--perhaps.”
“I would not be violent, one way or the other. Why not treat her like
any other acquaintance?”
Next Sunday afternoon she came to church alone.
In spite of his resolution, Mr. Compton tried her a second time.
Horror! she was all monosyllables and blushes again.
Compton began to find it too up-hill. At last, when they reached
Highmore gate, he lost his patience, and said, “I see how it is. I have
lost my sweet playmate forever. Good-by, Ruperta; I won't trouble you
any more.” And he held out his hand to the young lady for a final
farewell.
Ruperta whipped both her hands behind her back like a school-girl, and