“ENGLISH!” said Sir Charles. “Then tell me, how did I come here? Where am I?”
“You had a fit, and the doctor ordered you to be kept quiet; and I am here to nurse you.”
“A fit! Ay, I remember. That vile woman!”
“Don't think of her: give your mind to getting well: remember, there is somebody who would break her heart if you—”
“Oh, my poor Bella! my sweet, timid, modest, loving Bella!” He was so weakened that he cried like a child.
Miss Somerset rose, and laid her forehead sadly upon the window-sill.
“Why do I cry for her, like a great baby?” muttered Sir Charles. “She wouldn't cry for me. She has cast me off in a moment.”
“Not she. It is her father's doing. Have a little patience. The whole thing shall be explained to them; and then she will soon soften the old man. 'It is not as if you were really to blame.”
“No more I was. It is all that vile woman.”
“Oh, don't! She is so sorry; she has taken it all to heart. She had once shammed a fit, on the very place; and when you had a real fit there—on the very spot—oh, it was so fearful—and lay like one dead, she saw God's finger, and it touched her hard heart. Don't say anything more against her just now. She is trying so hard to be good. And, besides, it is all a mistake: she never told that old admiral; she never breathed a word out of her own house. Her own people have betrayed her and you. She has made me promise two things: to find out who told the admiral, and—”
“Well?”
“The second thing I have to do—Well, that is a secret between me and that unhappy woman. She is bad enough, but not so heartless as you think.”
Sir Charles shook his head incredulously, but said no more; and soon after fell asleep.
In the evening he woke, and found the Sister watching.
She now turned her head away from him, and asked him quietly to describe Miss Bella Bruce to her.
He described her in minute and glowing terms. “But oh, Sister,” said he, “it is not her beauty only, but the beauty of her mind. So gentle, so modest, so timid, so docile. She would never have had the heart to turn me off. But she will obey her father. She looked forward to obey me, sweet dove.”
“Did she say so?”
“Yes, that is her dream of happiness, to obey.”
The Sister still questioned him with averted head, and he told her what had passed between Bella and him the last time he saw her, and all their innocent plans of married happiness. He told her, with the tear in his eye, and she listened, with the tear in hers. “And then,” said he, laying his hand on her shoulder, “is it not hard? I just went to Mayfair, not to please myself, but to do an act of justice—of more than justice; and then, for that, to have her door shut in my face. Only two hours between the height of happiness and the depth of misery.”
The Sister said nothing, but she hid her face in her hands, and thought.
The next morning, by her order, Polly came into the room, and said, “You are to go home. The carriage is at the door.” With this she retired, and Sir Charles's valet entered the room soon after to help him dress.
“Where am I, James?”
“Miss Somerset's house, Sir Charles.”
“Then get me out of it directly.”
“Yes, Sir Charles. The carriage is at the door.”
“Who told you to come, James?”
“Miss Somerset, Sir Charles.”
“That is odd.”
“Yes, Sir Charles.”
When he got home he found a sofa placed by a fire, with wraps and pillows; his cigar case laid out, and a bottle of salts, and also a small glass of old cognac, in case of faintness.
“Which of you had the gumption to do all this?”
“Miss Somerset, Sir Charles.”
“What, has she beenhere?”
“Yes, Sir Charles.”
“Curse her!”
“Yes, Sir Charles.”
BELLA BRUCE was drinking the bitterest cup a young virgin soul can taste. Illusion gone—the wicked world revealed as it is, how unlike what she thought it was—love crushed in her, and not crushed out of her, as it might if she had been either proud or vain.
Frail men and women should see what a passionate but virtuous woman can suffer, when a revelation, of which they think but little, comes and blasts her young heart, and bids her dry up in a moment the deep well of her affection, since it flows for an unworthy object, and flows in vain. I tell you that the fair head severed from the chaste body is nothing to her compared with this. The fair body, pierced with heathen arrows, was nothing to her in the days of old compared with this.
In a word—for nowadays we can but amplify, and so enfeeble, what some old dead master of language, immortal though obscure, has said in words of granite—here
“Love lay bleeding.”
No fainting—no vehement weeping; but oh, such deep desolation; such weariness of life; such a pitiable restlessness. Appetite gone; the taste of food almost lost; sleep unwilling to come; and oh, the torture of waking—for at that horrible moment all rushed back at once, the joy that had been, the misery that was, the blank that was to come.
She never stirred out, except when ordered, and then went like an automaton. Pale, sorrow-stricken, and patient, she moved about, the ghost of herself; and lay down a little, and then tried to work a little, and then to read a little; and could settle to nothing but sorrow and deep despondency.
Not that she nursed her grief. She had been told to be brave, and she tried. But her grief was her master. It came welling through her eyes in a moment, of its own accord.
She was deeply mortified too. But, in her gentle nature, anger could play but a secondary part. Her indignation was weak beside her grief, and did little to bear her up.
Yet her sense of shame was vivid; and she tried hard not to let her father see how deeply she loved the man who had gone from her to Miss Somerset. Besides, he had ordered her to fight against a love that now could only degrade her; he had ordered, and it was for her to obey.
As soon as Sir Charles was better, he wrote her a long, humble letter, owning that, before he knew her, he had led a free life; but assuring her that, ever since that happy time, his heart and his time had been solely hers; as to his visit to Miss Somerset, it had been one of business merely, and this he could prove, if she would receive him. The admiral could be present at that interview, and Sir Charles hoped to convince him he had been somewhat hasty and harsh in his decision.
Now the admiral had foreseen Sir Charles would write to her; so he had ordered his man to bring all letters to him first.
He recognized Sir Charles's hand, and brought the latter in to Bella. “Now, my child,” said he, “be brave. Here is a letter from that man.”
“Oh, papa! I thought he would. I knew he would.” And the pale face was flushed with joy and hope all in a moment.
“Do what?”
“Write and explain.”
“Explain? A thing that is clear as sunshine. He has written to throw dust in your eyes again. You are evidently in no state to judge.Ishall read this letter first.”
“Yes, papa,” said Bella, faintly.
He did read it, and she devoured his countenance all the time.
“There is nothing in it. He offers no real explanation, but only says he can explain, and asks for an interview—to play upon your weakness. If I give you this letter, it will only make you cry, and render your task more difficult. I must be strong for your good, and set you an example. I loved this young man too; but, now I know him”—then he actually thrust the letter into the fire.
But this was too much. Bella shrieked at the act, and put her hand to her heart, and shrieked again. “Ah! you'll kill us, you'll kill us both!” she cried. “Poor Charles! Poor Bella! You don't love your child—you have no pity.” And, for the first time, her misery was violent. She writhed and wept, and at last went into violent hysterics, and frightened that stout old warrior more than cannon had ever frightened him; and presently she became quiet, and wept at his knees, and begged his forgiveness, and said he was wiser than she was, and she would obey him in everything, only he must not be angry with her if she could not live.
Then the stout admiral mingled his tears with hers, and began to realize what deep waters of affliction his girl was wading in.
Yet he saw no way out but firmness. He wrote to Sir Charles to say that his daughter was too ill to write; but that no explanation was possible, and no interview could be allowed.
Sir Charles, who, after writing, had conceived the most sanguine hopes, was now as wretched as Bella. Only, now that he was refused a hearing, he had wounded pride to support him a little under wounded love.
Admiral Bruce, fearing for his daughter's health, and even for her life—she pined so visibly—now ordered her to divide her day into several occupations, and exact divisions of time—an hour for this, an hour for that; an hour by the clock—and here he showed practical wisdom. Try it, ye that are very unhappy, and tell me the result.
As a part of this excellent system, she had to walk round the square from eleven to twelve A. M., but never alone; he was not going to have Sir Charles surprising her into an interview. He always went with her, and, as he was too stiff to walk briskly, he sat down, and she had to walk in sight. He took a stout stick with him—for Sir Charles. But Sir Charles was proud, and stayed at home with his deep wound.
One day, walking round the square with a step of Mercury and heart of lead, Bella Bruce met a Sister of Charity pacing slow and thoughtful; their eyes met and drank, in a moment, every feature of each other.
The Sister, apparently, had seen the settled grief on that fair face; for the next time they met, she eyed her with a certain sympathy, which did not escape Bella.
This subtle interchange took place several times and Bella could not help feeling a little grateful. “Ah!” she thought to herself, “how kind religious people are! I should like to speak to her.” And the next time they met she looked wistfully in the Sister's face.
She did not meet her again, for she went and rested on a bench, in sight of her father, but at some distance from him. Unconsciously to herself, his refusal even to hear Sir Charles repelled her. That was so hard on him and her. It looked like throwing away the last chance, the last little chance of happiness.
By-and-by the Sister came and sat on the same bench.
Bella was hardly surprised, but blushed high, for she felt that her own eyes had invited the sympathy of a stranger; and now it seemed to be coming. The timid girl felt uneasy. The Sister saw that, and approached her with tact. “You look unwell,” said she, gently, but with no appearance of extravagant interest or curiosity.
“I am—a little,” said Bella, very reservedly.
“Excuse my remarking it. We are professional nurses, and apt to be a little officious, I fear.”
No reply.
“I saw you were unwell. But I hope it is not serious. I can generally tell when the sick are in danger.” A peculiar look. “I am glad not to see it in so young and—good a face.”
“You are young, too; very young, and—” she was going to say “beautiful,” but she was too shy—“to be a Sister of Charity. But I am sure you never regret leaving such a world as this is.”
“Never. I have lost the only thing I ever valued in it.”
“I have no right to ask you what that was.”
“You shall know without asking. One I loved proved unworthy.”
The Sister sighed deeply, and then, hiding her face with her hands for a moment, rose abruptly, and left the square, ashamed, apparently, of having been betrayed into such a confession.
Bella, when she was twenty yards off, put out a timid hand, as if to detain her; but she had not the courage to say anything of the kind.
She never told her father a word. She had got somebody now who could sympathize with her better than he could.
Next day the Sister was there, and Bella bowed to her when she met her. This time it was the Sister who went and sat on the bench.
Bella continued her walk for some time, but at last could not resist the temptation. She came and sat down on the bench, and blushed; as much as to say, “I have the courage to come, but not to speak upon a certain subject, which shall be nameless.”
The Sister, as may be imagined, was not so shy. She opened a conversation. “I committed a fault yesterday. I spoke to you of myself, and of the past: it is discouraged by our rules. We are bound to inquire the griefs of others; not to tell our own.”
This was a fair opening, but Bella was too delicate to show her wounds to a fresh acquaintance.
The Sister, having failed at that, tried something very different.
“But I could tell you a pitiful case about another. Some time ago I nursed a gentleman whom love had laid on a sick-bed.”
“A gentleman! What! can they love as we do?” said Bella, bitterly.
“Not many of them; but this was an exception. But I don't know whether I ought to tell these secrets to so young a lady.”
“Oh, yes—please—what else is there in this world worth talking about? Tell me about the poor man who could love as we can.”
The Sister seemed to hesitate, but at last decided to go on.
“Well, he was a man of the world, and he had not always been a good man; but he was trying to be. He had fallen in love with a young lady, and seen the beauty of virtue, and was going to marry her and lead a good life. But he was a man of honor, and there was a lady for whom he thought it was his duty to provide. He set his lawyer to draw a deed, and his lawyer appointed a day for signing it at her house. The poor man came because his lawyer told him. Do you think there was any great harm in that?”
“No; of course not.”
“Well, then, he lost his love for that.”
Miss Bruce's color began to come and go, and her supple figure to crouch a little. She said nothing.
The Sister continued: “Some malicious person went and told the young lady's father the gentleman was in the habit of visiting that lady, and would be with her at a certain hour. And so he was; but it was the lawyer's appointment, you know. You seem agitated.”
“No, no; not agitated,” said Bella, “but astonished; it is so like a story I know. A young lady, a friend of mine, had an anonymous letter, telling her that one she loved and esteemed was unworthy. But what you have told me shows me how deceitful appearances may be. What was your patient's name?”
“It is against our rules to tell that. But you said an 'anonymous letter.' Was your friend so weak as to believe an anonymous letter? The writer of such a letter is a coward, and a coward always is a liar. Show me your friend's anonymous letter. I may, perhaps, be able to throw a light on it.”
The conversation was interrupted by Admiral Bruce, who had approached them unobserved. “Excuse me,” said he, “but you ladies seem to have hit upon a very interesting theme.”
“Yes, papa,” said Bella. “I took the liberty to question this lady as to her experiences of sick-beds, and she was good enough to give me some of them.”
Having uttered this with a sudden appearance of calmness that first amazed the Sister, then made her smile, she took her father's arm, bowed politely, and a little stiffly, to her new friend, and drew the admiral away.
“Oh!” thought the Sister. “I am not to speak to the old gentleman. He is not in her confidence. Yet she is very fond of him. How she hangs on his arm! Simplicity! Candor! We are all tarred with the same stick—we women.”
That night Bella was a changed girl—exalted and depressed by turns, and with no visible reason.
Her father was pleased. Anything better than that deadly languor.
The next day Bella sat by her father's side in the square, longing to go to the Sister, yet patiently waiting to be ordered.
At last the admiral, finding her dull and listless, said, “Why don't you go and talk to the Sister? She amuses you. I'll join you when I have smoked this cigar.”
The obedient Bella rose, and went toward the Sister as if compelled. But when she got to her her whole manner changed. She took her warmly by the hand, and said, trembling and blushing, and all on fire, “I have brought you the anonymous letter.”
The elder actress took it and ran her eye over it—an eye that now sparkled like a diamond. “Humph!” said she, and flung off all the dulcet tones of her assumed character with mighty little ceremony. “This hand is disguised a little, but I think I know it. I am sure I do! The dirty little rascal!”
“Madam!” cried Bella, aghast with surprise at this language.
“I tell you I know the writer and his rascally motive. You must lend me this for a day or two.”
“Must I?” said Bella. “Excuse me! Papa would be so angry.”
“Very likely; but you will lend it to me for all that; for with this I can clear Miss Bruce's lover and defeat his enemies.”
Bella uttered a faint cry, and trembled, and her bosom heaved violently. She looked this way and that, like a frightened deer. “But papa? His eye is on us.”
“Never deceive your father!” said the Sister, almost sternly; “but,” darting her gray eyes right into those dove-like orbs, “give me five minutes' start—IF YOU REALLY LOVE SIR CHARLES BASSETT.”
With these words she carried off the letter; and Bella ran, blushing, panting, trembling, to her father, and clung to him.
He questioned her, but could get nothing from her very intelligible until the Sister was out of sight, and then she told him all without reserve.
“I was unworthy of him to doubt him. An anonymous slander. I'll never trust appearances again. Poor Charles! Oh, my darling! what he must have suffered if he loves like me.” Then came a shower of happy tears; then a shower of happy kisses.
The admiral groaned, but for a long time he could not get a word in. When he did it was chilling. “My poor girl,” said he, “this unhappy love blinds you. What, don't you see the woman is no nun, but some sly hussy that man has sent to throw dust in your eyes?”
Nothing she could say prevailed to turn him from this view, and he acted upon it with resolution: he confined her excursions to a little garden at the back of the house, and forbade her, on any pretense, to cross the threshold.
Miss Somerset came to the square in another disguise, armed with important information. But no Bella Bruce appeared to meet her.
All this time Richard Bassett was happy as a prince.
So besotted was he with egotism, and so blinded by imaginary wrongs, that he rejoiced in the lovers' separation, rejoiced in his cousin's attack.
Polly, who now regarded him almost as a lover, told him all about it; and already in anticipation he saw himself and his line once more lords of the two manors—Bassett and Huntercombe—on the demise of Sir Charles Bassett, Bart., deceased without issue.
And, in fact, Sir Charles was utterly defeated. He lay torpid.
But there was a tough opponent in the way—all the more dangerous that she was not feared.
One fine day Miss Somerset electrified her groom by ordering her pony carriage to the door at ten A. M.
She took the reins on the pavement, like a man, jumped in light as a feather, and away rattled the carriage into the City. The ponies were all alive, the driver's eye keen as a bird's; her courage and her judgment equal. She wound in and out among the huge vehicles with perfect composure; and on those occasions when, the traffic being interrupted, the oratorical powers were useful to fill up the time, she shone with singular brilliance. The West End is too often in debt to the City, but, in the matter of chaff, it was not so this day; for whenever she took a peck she returned a bushel; and so she rattled to the door of Solomon Oldfield, solicitor, Old Jewry.
She penetrated into the inner office of that worthy, and told him he must come with her that minute to Portman Square.
“Impossible, madam!” And, as they say in the law reports, gave his reasons.
“Certain, sir!” And gave no reasons.
He still resisted.
Thereupon she told him she should sit there all day and chaff his clients one after another, and that his connection with the Bassett and Huntercombe estates should end.
Then he saw he had to do with a termagant, and consented, with a sigh.
She drove him westward, wincing every now and then at her close driving, and told him all, and showed him what she was pleased to call her little game. He told her it was too romantic. Said he, “You ladies read nothing but novels; but the real world is quite different from the world of novels.” Having delivered this remonstrance—which was tolerably just, for she never read anything but novels and sermons—he submitted like a lamb, and received her instructions.
She drove as fast as she talked, so that by this time they were at Admiral Bruce's door.
Now Mr. Oldfield took the lead, as per instructions. “Mr. Oldfield, solicitor, and a lady—on business.”
The porter delivered this to the footman with the accuracy which all who send verbal messages deserve and may count on. “Mr. Oldfield and lady.”
The footman, who represented the next step in oral tradition, without which form of history the Heathen world would never have known that Hannibal softened the rocks with vinegar, nor the Christian world that eleven thousand virgins dwelt in a German town the size of Putney, announced the pair as “Mr. and Mrs. Hautville.”
“I don't know them, I think. Well, I will see them.”
They entered, and the admiral stared a little, and wondered how this couple came together—the keen but plain old man, with clothes hanging on him, and the dashing beauty, with her dress in the height of the fashion, and her gauntleted hands. However, he bowed ceremoniously, and begged his visitors to be seated.
Now the folding-doors were ajar, and thesoi-disantMrs. Oldfield peeped. She saw Bella Bruce at some distance, seated by the fire, in a reverie.
Judge that young lady's astonishment when she looked up and observed a large white, well-shaped hand, sparkling with diamonds and rubies, beckoning her furtively.
The owner of that sparkling hand soon heard a soft rustle of silk come toward the door; the very rustle, somehow, was eloquent, and betrayed love and timidity, and something innocent yet subtle. The jeweled hand went in again directly.
MEANTIME Mr. Oldfield began to tell the admiral who he was, and that he was come to remove a false impression about a client of his, Sir Charles Bassett.
“That, sir,” said the admiral, sternly, “is a name we never mention here.”
He rose and went to the folding-doors, and deliberately closed them.
The Somerset, thus defeated, bit her lip, and sat all of a heap, like a cat about to spring, looking sulky and vicious.
Mr. Oldfield persisted, and, as he took the admiral's hint and lowered his voice, he was interrupted no more, but made a simple statement of those facts which are known to the reader.
Admiral Bruce heard them, and admitted that the case was not quite so bad as he had thought.
Then Mr. Oldfield proposed that Sir Charles should be re-admitted.
“No,” said the old admiral, firmly; “turn it how you will, it is too ugly; the bloom of the thing is gone. Why should my daughter take that woman's leavings? Why should I give her pure heart to a man about town?”
“Because you will break it else,” said Miss Somerset, with affected politeness.
“Give her credit for more dignity, madam, if you please,” replied Admiral Bruce, with equal politeness.
“Oh, bother dignity!” cried the Somerset.
At this free phrase from so well-dressed a lady Admiral Bruce opened his eyes, and inquired of Oldfield, rather satirically, who was this lady that did him the honor to interfere in his family affairs.
Oldfield looked confused; but Somerset, full of mother-wit, was not to be caught napping. “I'm a by-stander; and they always see clearer than the folk themselves. You are a man of honor, sir, and you are very clever at sea, no doubt, and a fighter, and all that; but you are no match for land-sharks. You are being made a dupe and a tool of. Who do you think wrote that anonymous letter to your daughter? A friend of truth? a friend of injured innocence? Nothing of the sort. One Richard Bassett—Sir Charles's cousin. Here, Mr. Oldfield, please compare these two handwritings closely, and you will see I am right.” She put down the anonymous letter and Richard Bassett's letter to herself; but she could not wait for Mr. Oldfield to compare the documents, now her tongue was set going. “Yes, gentlemen, this is new to you; but you'll find that little scheming rascal wrote them both, and with as base a motive and as black a heart as any other anonymous coward's. His game is to make Sir Charles Bassett die childless, and so then this dirty fellow would inherit the estate; and owing to you being so green, and swallowing an anonymous letter like pure water from the spring, he very nearly got his way. Sir Charles has been at death's door along of all this.”
“Hush, madam! not so loud, please,” whispered Admiral Bruce, looking uneasily toward the folding, doors.
“Why not?” bawled the Somerset. “THE TRUTH MAY BE BLAMED, BUT IT CAN'T BE SHAMED. I tell you that your precious letter brought Sir Charles Bassett to the brink of the grave. Soon as ever he got it he came tearing in his cab to Miss Somerset's house, and accused her of telling the lie to keep him—and he might have known better, for the jade never did a sneaking thing in her life. But, any way, he thought it must be her doing, miscalled her like a dog, and raged at her dreadful, and at last—what with love and fury and despair—he had the terriblest fit you ever saw. He fell down as black as your hat, and his eyes rolled, and his teeth gnashed, and he foamed at the mouth, and took four to hold him; and presently as white as a ghost, and given up for dead. No pulse for hours; and when his life came back his reason was gone.”
“Good Heavens, madam!”
“For a time it was. How he did rave! and 'Bella' the only name on his lips. And now he lies in his own house as weak as water. Come, old gentleman, don't you be too hard; you are not a child, like your daughter; take the world as it is. Do you think you will ever find a man of fortune who has not had a lady friend? Why, every single gentleman in London that can afford to keep a saddle-horse has an article of that sort in some corner or other; and if he parts with her as soon as his banns are cried, that is all you can expect. Do you think any mother in Belgravia would make a row about that? They are downier than you are; they would shrug their aristocratic shoulders, and decline to listen to thepastlives of their sons-in-law—unless it was all in the newspapers, mind you.”
“If Belgravian mothers have mercenary minds, that is no reason why I should, whose cheeks have bronzed in the service of a virtuous queen, and whose hairs have whitened in honor.”
On receiving this broadside the Somerset altered her tone directly, and said, obsequiously: “That is true, sir, and I beg your pardon for comparing you to the trash. But brave men are pitiful, you know. Then show your pity here. Pity a gentleman that repented his faults as soon as your daughter showed him there was a better love within reach, and now lies stung by an anonymous viper, and almost dying of love and mortification; and pity your own girl, that will soon lose her health, and perhaps her life, if you don't give in.”
“She is not so weak, madam. She is in better spirits already.”
“Ay, but then she didn't know what he had suffered forher.She does now, for I heard her moan; and she will die for him now, or else she will give you twice as many kisses as usual some day, and cry a bucketful over you, and then run away with her lover. I know women better than you do; I am one of the precious lot.”
The admiral replied only with a look of superlative scorn. This incensed the Somerset; and that daring woman, whose ear was nearer to the door, and had caught sounds that escaped the men, actually turned the handle, and while her eye flashed defiance, her vigorous foot spurned the folding-doors wide open in half a moment.
Bella Bruce lay with her head sidewise on the table, and her hands extended, moaning and sobbing piteously for poor Sir Charles.
“For shame, madam, to expose my child,” cried the admiral, bursting with indignation and grief. He rushed to her and took her in his arms.
She scarcely noticed him, for the moment he turned her she caught sight of Miss Somerset, and recognized her face in a moment. “Ah! the Sister of Charity!” she cried, and stretched out her hands to her, with a look and a gesture so innocent, confiding, and imploring, that the Somerset, already much excited by her own eloquence, took a turn not uncommon with termagants, and began to cry herself.
But she soon stopped that, for she saw her time was come to go, and avoid unpleasant explanations. She made a dart and secured the two letters. “Settle it among yourselves,” said she, wheeling round and bestowing this advice on the whole party; then shot a sharp arrow at the admiral as she fled: “If you must be a tool of Richard Bassett, don't be a tool and a dupe by halves.Heis in love with her too. Marry her to the blackguard, and then you will be sure to kill Sir Charles.” Having delivered this with such volubility that the words pattered out like a roll of musketry, she flounced out, with red cheeks and wet eyes, rushed down the stairs, and sprang into her carriage, whipped the ponies, and away at a pace that made the spectators stare.
Mr. Oldfield muttered some excuses, and retired more sedately.
All this set Bella Bruce trembling and weeping, and her father was some time before he could bring her to anything like composure. Her first words, when she could find breath, were, “He is innocent; he is unhappy. Oh, that I could fly to him!”
“Innocent! What proof?”
“That brave lady said so.”
“Brave lady! A bold hussy. Most likely a friend of the woman Somerset, and a bird of the same feather. Sir Charles has done himself no good with me by sending such an emissary.”
“No, papa; it was the lawyer brought her, and then her own good heartmade her burst out.Ah! she is not like me: she has courage. What a noble thing courage is, especially in a woman!”
“Pray did you hear the language of this noble lady?”
“Every word nearly; and I shall never forget them. They were diamonds and pearls.”
“Of the sort you can pick up at Billingsgate.”
“Ah, papa, she pleaded forhimas I cannot plead, and yet I love him. It was true eloquence. Oh, how she made me shudder! Only think: he had a fit, and lost his reason, and all for me. What shall I do? What shall I do?”
This brought on a fit of weeping.
Her father pitied her, and gave her a crumb of sympathy: said he was sorry for Sir Charles.
“But,” said he, recovering his resolution, “it cannot be helped. He must expiate his vices, like other men. Do, pray, pluck up a little spirit and sense. Now try and keep to the point. This woman came from him; and you say you heard her language, and admire it. Quote me some of it.”
“She said he fell down as black as his hat, and his eyes rolled, and his poor teeth gnashed, and—oh, my darling! my darling! oh! oh! oh!”
“There—there—I mean about other things.”
Bella complied, but with a running accompaniment of the sweetest little sobs.
“She said I must be very green, to swallow an anonymous letter like spring water. Oh! oh!”
“Green? There was a word!”
“Oh! oh! But it is the right word. You can't mend it. Try, and you will see you can't. Of course I was green. Oh! And she said every gentleman who can afford to keep a saddle-horse has a female friend, till his banns are called in church. Oh! oh!”
“A pretty statement to come to your ears!”
“But if it is the truth! 'THE TRUTH MAY BE BLAMED, BUT IT CAN'T BE SHAMED.' Ah! I'll not forget that: I'll pray every night I may remember those words of the brave lady. Oh!”
“Yes, take her for your oracle.”
“I mean to. I always try to profit by my superiors. She has courage: I have none. I beat about the bush, and talk skim-milk; she uses the very word. She said we have been the dupe and the tool of a little scheming rascal, an anonymous coward, with motives as base as his heart is black—oh! oh! Ay, that is the way to speak of such a man; I can't do it myself, but I reverence the brave lady who can. And she wasn't afraid even of you, dear papa. 'Come, old gentleman'—ha! ha! ha!—'take the world as it is; Belgravian mothers would not breakboththeir hearts for what is past and gone.' What hard good sense! a thing I alwaysdidadmire: because I've got none. But herheartis not hard; after all her words of fire, that went so straight instead of beating the bush, she ended by crying for me. Oh! oh! oh! Bless her! Bless her! If ever there was a good woman in the world, that is one. She was not born a lady, I am afraid; but that is nothing: she was born a woman, and I mean to make her acquaintance, and take her for my example in all things. No, dear papa, women are not so pitiful to women without cause. She is almost a stranger, yet she cried for me. Can you be harder to me than she is? No; pity your poor girl, who will lose her health, and perhaps her life. Pity poor Charles, stung by an anonymous viper, and laid on a bed of sickness for me. Oh! oh! oh!”
“I do pity you, Bella. When you cry like this, my heart bleeds.”
“I'll try not to cry, papa. Oh! oh!”
“But most of all, I pity your infatuation, your blindness. Poor, innocent dove, that looks at others by the light of her own goodness, and so sees all manner of virtues in a brazen hussy. Now answer me one plain question. You called her 'the Sister!' Is she not the same woman that played the Sister of Charity?”
Bella blushed to the temples, and said, hesitatingly, she was not quite sure.
“Come, Bella. I thought you were going to imitate the jade, and not beat about the bush. Yes or no?”
“The features are very like.”
“Bella, you know it is the same woman. You recognized her in a moment. That speaks volumes. But she shall find I am not to be made 'a dupe and a tool of' quite so easily as she thinks. I'll tell you what—this is some professional actress Sir Charles has hired to waylay you. Little simpleton!”
He said no more at that time; but after dinner he ruminated, and took a very serious, indeed almost a maritime, view of the crisis. “I'm overmatched now,” thought he. “They will cut my sloop out under the very guns of the flagship if we stay much longer in this port—a lawyer against me, and a woman too; there's nothing to be done but heave anchor, hoist sail, and run for it.”
He sent off a foreign telegram, and then went upstairs. “Bella, my dear,” said he, “pack up your clothes for a journey. We start to-morrow.”
“A journey, papa! A long one?”
“No. We shan't double the Horn this time.”
“Brighton? Paris?”
“Oh, farther than that.”
“The grave: that is the journey I should like to take.”
“So you shall, some day; but just now it is aforeignport you arebound for. Go and pack.”
“I obey.” And she was creeping off, but he called her back and kissed her, and said, “Now I'll tell you where you are going; but you must promise me solemnly not to write one line to Sir Charles.”
She promised, but cried as soon as she had promised; whereat the admiral inferred he had done wisely to exact the promise.
“Well, my dear,” said he, “we are going to Baden. Your aunt Molineux is there. She is a woman of great delicacy and prudence, and has daughters of her own all well married, thanks to her motherly care. She will bring you to your senses better than I can.”
Next evening they left England by the mail; and the day after Richard Bassett learned this through his servant, and went home triumphant, and, indeed, wondering at his success. He ascribed it, however, to the Nemesis which dogs the heels of those who inherit the estate of another.