SIR CHARLES BASSETT was in high spirits this afternoon—indeed, a little too high.
“Bella, my love,” said he, “now I'll tell you why I made you give me your signature this morning. The money has all come in for the wood, and this very day I sent Oldfield instructions to open an account for you with a London banker.”
Lady Bassett looked at him with tears of tenderness in her eyes. “Dearest,” said she, “I have plenty of money; but the love to which I owe this present, that is my treasure of treasures. Well, I accept it, Charles; but don't ask me to spend it on myself; I should feel I was robbing you.”
“It is nothing to me how you spend it; I have saved it from the enemy.”
Now that very enemy heard these words. He had looked from the “Heir's Tower,” and seen Sir Charles and Lady Bassett walking on their side the wall, and the nurse carrying his heir on the other side.
He had come down to look at his child in the sun; but he walked softly, on the chance of overhearing Sir Charles and Lady Bassett say something or other about his health; his design went no further than that, but the fate of listeners is proverbial.
Lady Bassett endeavored to divert her husband from the topic he seemed to be approaching; it always excited him now, and did him harm.
“Do not waste your thoughts on that enemy. He is powerless.”
“At this moment, perhaps; but his turn is sure to come again; and I shall provide for it. I mean to live on half my income, and settle the other half on you. I shall act on the clause in the entail, and sell all the timber on the estate, except about the home park and my best covers. It will take me some years to do this; I must not glut the market, and spoil your profits; but every year I'll have a fall, till I have denuded Mr. Bassett's inheritance, as he calls it, and swelled your banker's account to a Plum. Bella, I have had a shake. Even now that I am better such a pain goes through my head, like a bullet crushing through it, whenever I get excited. I don't think I shall be a long-lived man. But never mind, I'll live as long as I can; and, while I do live, I'll work for you, and against that villain.”
“Charles,” cried Lady Bassett, “I implore you to turn your thoughts away from that man, and to give up these idle schemes. Were you to die I should soon follow you; so pray do not shorten your life by these angry passions, or you will shorten mine.”
This appeal acted powerfully on Sir Charles, and he left off suddenly with flushed cheeks and tried to compose himself.
But his words had now raised a corresponding fury on the other side of that boundary wall. Richard Bassett, stung with rage, and, unlike his high-bred cousin, accustomed to mix cunning even with his fury, gave him a terrible blow—a verycoup de Jarnac.He spokeathim; he ran forward to the nurse, and said very loud: “Let me see the little darling. He does you credit. What fat cheeks!—what arms!—an infant hercules! There, take him up the mound. Now lift him in your arms, and let him see his inheritance. Higher, nurse, higher. Ay, crow away, youngster; all that is yours—house and land and all. They may steal the trees; they can't make away with the broad acres. Ha! I believe he understands every word, nurse. See how he smiles and crows.”
At the sound of Bassett's voice Sir Charles started, and, at the first taunt, he uttered something between a moan and a roar, as of a wounded lion.
“Come away,” cried Lady Bassett. “He is doing it on purpose.”
But the stabs came too fast. Sir Charles shook her off, and looked wildly round for a weapon to strike his insulter with.
“Curse him and his brat!” he cried. “They shall neither of them—I'll kill them both.”
He sprang fiercely at the wall, and, notwithstanding his weakly condition, raised himself above it, and glared over with a face so full of fury that Richard Bassett recoiled in dismay for a moment, and said, “Run! run! He'll hurt the child!”
But, the next moment, Sir Charles's hands lost their power; he uttered a miserable moan, and fell gasping under the wall in an epileptic fit, with all the terrible symptoms I have described in a previous portion of this story. These were new to his poor wife, and, as she strove in vain to control his fearful convulsions, her shrieks rent the air. Indeed, her screams were so appalling that Bassett himself sprang at the wall, and, by a great effort of strength, drew himself up, and peered down, with white face, at the glaring eyes, clinched teeth, purple face, and foaming lips of his enemy, and his body that bounded convulsively on the ground with incredible violence.
At that moment humanity prevailed over every thing, and he flung himself over the wall, and in his haste got rather a heavy fall himself. “It is a fit!” he cried, and running to the brook close by, filled his hat with water, and was about to dash it over Sir Charles's face.
But Lady Bassett repelled him with horror. “Don't touch him, you villain! You have killed him.” And then she shrieked again.
At this moment Mr. Angelo dashed up, and saw at a glance what it was, for he had studied medicine a little. He said, “It is epilepsy. Leave him to me.” He managed, by his great strength, to keep the patient's head down till the face got pale and the limbs still; then, telling Lady Bassett not to alarm herself too much, he lifted Sir Charles, and actually proceeded to carry him toward the house. Lady Bassett, weeping, proffered her assistance, and so did Mary Wells; but this athlete said, a little bruskly, “No, no; I have practiced this sort of thing;” and, partly by his rare strength, partly by his familiarity with all athletic feats, carried the insensible baronet to his own house, as I have seen my accomplished friend Mr. Henry Neville carry a tall actress on the mimic stage; only, the distance being much longer, the perspiration rolled down Mr. Angelo's face with so sustained an effort.
He laid him gently on the floor of his study, while Lady Bassett sent two grooms galloping for medical advice, and half a dozen servants running for this and that stimulant, as one thing after another occurred to her agitated mind. The very rustling of dresses and scurry of feet overhead told all the house a great calamity had stricken it.
Lady Bassett hung over the sufferer, sighing piteously, and was for supporting his beloved head with her tender arm; but Mr. Angelo told her it was better to keep the head low, that the blood might flow back to the vessels of the brain.
She cast a look of melting gratitude on her adviser, and composed herself to apply stimulants under his direction and advice.
Thus judiciously treated, Sir Charles began to recover consciousness in part. He stared and muttered incoherently. Lady Bassett thanked God on her knees, and then turned to Mr. Angelo with streaming eyes, and stretched out both hands to him, with an indescribable eloquence of gratitude. He gave her his hands timidly, and she pressed them both with all her soul. Unconsciously she sent a rapturous thrill through the young man's body: he blushed, and then turned pale, and felt for a moment almost faint with rapture at that sweet and unexpected pressure of her soft hands.
But at this moment Sir Charles broke out in a sort of dry, business-like voice, “I'll kill the viper and his brood!” Then he stared at Mr. Angelo, and could not make him out at first. “Ah!” said he, complacently, “this is my private tutor: a man of learning. I read Homer with him; but I have forgotten it, all but one line—
“[greek]”
“That's a beautiful verse. Homer, old boy, I'll take your advice. I'll kill the heir at law, and his brat as well, and when they are dead and well seasoned I'll sell them to that old timber-merchant, the devil, to make hell hotter. Order my horse, somebody, this minute!”
During this tirade Lady Bassett's hands kept clutching, as if to stop it, and her eyes filled with horror.
Mr. Angelo came again to her rescue. He affected to take it all as a matter of course, and told the servants they need not wait, Sir Charles was coming to himself by degrees, and the danger was all over.
But when the servants were gone he said to Lady Bassett, seriously, “I would not let any servant be about Sir Charles, except this one. She is evidently attached to you. Suppose we take him to his own room.”
He then made Mary Wells a signal, and they carried him upstairs.
Sir Charles talked all the while with pitiable vehemence. Indeed, it was a continuous babble, like a brook.
Mary Wells was taking him into his own room, but Lady Bassett said, “No: into my room. Oh, I will never let him out of my sight again.”
Then they carried him into Lady Bassett's bedroom, and laid him gently down on a couch there.
He looked round, observed the locality, and uttered a little sigh of complacency. He left off talking for the present, and seemed to doze.
The place which exerted this soothing influence on Sir Charles had a contrary and strange effect on Mr. Angelo.
It was of palatial size, and lighted by two side windows, and an oriel window at the end. The delicate stone shafts and mullions were such as are oftener seen in cathedrals than in mansions. The deep embrasure was filled with beautiful flowers and luscious exotic leaf-plants from the hot-houses. The floor was of polished oak, and some feet of this were left bare on all sides of the great Aubusson carpet made expressly for the room. By this means cleanliness penetrated into every corner: the oak was not only cleaned, but polished like a mirror. The curtains were French chintzes, of substance, and exquisite patterns, and very voluminous. On the walls was a delicate rose-tinted satin paper, to which French art, unrivaled in these matters, had given the appearance of being stuffed, padded, and divided into a thousand cozy pillows, by gold-headed nails.
The wardrobes were of satin-wood. The bedsteads, one small, one large, were plain white, and gold in moderation.
All this, however, was but the frame to the delightful picture of a wealthy young lady's nest.
The things that startled and thrilled Mr. Angelo were those his imagination could see the fair mistress using. The exquisite toilet table; the Dresden mirror, with its delicate china frame muslined and ribboned; the great ivory-handled brushes, the array of cut-glass gold-mounted bottles, and all the artillery of beauty; the baths of various shapes and sizes, in which she laved her fair body; the bath sheets, and the profusion of linen, fine and coarse; the bed, with its frilled sheets, its huge frilled pillows, and its eider-down quilt, covered with bright purple silk.
A delicate perfume came through the wardrobes, where strata of fine linen from Hamburg and Belfast lay on scented herbs; and this, permeating the room, seemed the very perfume of Beauty itself, and intoxicated the brain. Imagination conjured pictures proper to the scene: a goddess at her toilet; that glorious hair lying tumbled on the pillow, and burning in contrasted color with the snowy sheets and with the purple quilt.
From this reverie he was awakened by a soft voice that said, “How can I ever thank you enough, sir?”
Mr. Angelo controlled himself, and said, “By sending for me whenever I can be of the slightest use.” Then, comprehending his danger, he added, hastily, “And I fear I am none whatever now.” Then he rose to go.
Lady Bassett gave him both her hands again, and this time he kissed one of them, all in a flurry; he could not resist the temptation. Then he hurried away, with his whole soul in a tumult. Lady Bassett blushed, and returned to her husband's side.
Doctor Willis came, heard the case, looked rather grave and puzzled, and wrote the inevitable prescription; for the established theory is that man is cured by drugs alone.
Sir Charles wandered a little while the doctor was there, and continued to wander after he was gone.
Then Mary Wells begged leave to sleep in the dressing-room.
Lady Bassett thanked her, but said she thought it unnecessary; a good night's rest, she hoped, would make a great change in the sufferer.
Mary Wells thought otherwise, and quietly brought her little bed into the dressing-room and laid it on the floor.
Her judgment proved right; Sir Charles was no better the next day, nor the day after. He brooded for hours at a time, and, when he talked, there was an incoherence in his discourse; above all, he seemed incapable of talking long on any subject without coming back to the fatal one of his childlessness; and, when he did return to this, it was sure to make him either deeply dejected or else violent against Richard Bassett and his son; he swore at them, and said they were waiting for his shoes.
Lady Bassett's anxiety deepened; strange fears came over her. She put subtle questions to the doctor; he returned obscure answers, and went on prescribing medicines that had no effect.
She looked wistfully into Mary Wells's face, and there she saw her own thoughts reflected.
“Mary,” said she, one day, in a low voice, “what do they say in the kitchen?”
“Some say one thing, some another. What can they say? They never see him, and never shall while I am here.”
This reminded Lady Bassett that Mary's time was up. The idea of a stranger taking her place, and seeing Sir Charles in his present condition, was horrible to her. “Oh, Mary,” said she, piteously, “surely you will not leave me just now?”
“Do you wish me to stay, my lady?”
“Can you ask it? How can I hope to find such devotion as yours, such fidelity, and, above all, such secrecy? Ah, Mary, I am the most unhappy lady in all England this day.”
Then she began to cry bitterly, and Mary Wells cried with her, and said she would stay as long as she could; “but,” said she, “I gave you good advice, my lady, and so you will find.”
Lady Bassett made no answer whatever, and that disappointed Mary, for she wanted a discussion.
The days rolled on, and brought no change for the better. Sir Charles continued to brood on his one misfortune. He refused to go out-of-doors, even into the garden, giving as his reason that he was not fit to be seen. “I don't mind a couple of women,” said he, gravely, “but no man shall see Charles Bassett in his present state. No. Patience! Patience! I'll wait till Heaven takes pity on me. After all, it would be a shame that such a race as mine should die out, and these fine estates go to blackguards, and poachers, and anonymous-letter writers.”
Lady Bassett used to coax him to walk in the corridor; but, even then, he ordered Mary Wells to keep watch and let none of the servants come that way. From words he let fall it seems he thought “Childlessness” was written on his face, and that it had somehow degraded his features.
Now a wealthy and popular baronet could not thus immure himself for any length of time without exciting curiosity, and setting all manner of rumors afloat. Visitors poured into Huntercombe to inquire.
Lady Bassett excused herself to many, but some of her own sex she thought it best to encounter. This subjected her to the insidious attacks of curiosity admirably veiled with sympathy. The assailants were marvelously subtle; but so was the devoted wife. She gave kiss for kiss, and equivoque for equivoque. She seemed grateful for each visit; but they got nothing out of her except that Sir Charles's nerves were shaken by his fall, and that she was playing the tyrant for once, and insisting on absolute quiet for her patient.
One visitor she never refused—Mr. Angelo. He, from the first, had been her true friend; had carried Sir Charles away from the enemy, and then had dismissed the gaping servants. She saw that he had divined her calamity and she knew from things he said to her that he would never breathe a word out-of-doors. She confided in him. She told him Mr. Bassett was the real cause of all this misery: he had insulted Sir Charles. The nature of this insult she suppressed. “And oh, Mr. Angelo,” said she, “that man is my terror night and day! I don't know what he can do, but I feel he will do something if he ever learns my poor husband's condition.”
“I trust, Lady Bassett, you are convinced he will learn nothing from me. Indeed, I will tell the ruffian anything you like. He has been sounding me a little; called to inquire after his poor cousin—the hypocrite!”
“How good you are! Please tell him absolute repose is prescribed for a time, but there is no doubt of Sir Charles's ultimate recovery.”
Mr. Angelo promised heartily.
Mary Wells was not enough; a woman must have a man to lean on in trouble, and Lady Bassett leaned on Mr. Angelo. She even obeyed him. One day he told her that her own health would fail if she sat always in the sick-room; she must walk an hour every day.
“MustI?” said she, sweetly.
“Yes, even if it is only in your own garden.”
From that time she used to walk with him nearly every day.
Richard Bassett saw this from his tower of observation; saw it, and chuckled. “Aha!” said he. “Husband sick in bed. Wife walking in the garden with a young man—a parson, too. He is dark, she is fair. Something will come of this. Ha, ha!”
Lady Bassett now talked of sending to London for advice; but Mary Wells dissuaded her. “Physic can't cure him. There's only one can cure him, and that is yourself, my lady.”
“Ah, would to Heaven I could!”
“Trymyway, and you will see, my lady.”
“What,thatway! Oh, no, no!”
“Well, then, if you won't, nobody else can.”
Such speeches as these, often repeated, on the one hand, and Sir Charles's melancholy on the other, drove Lady Bassett almost wild with distress and perplexity.
Meanwhile her vague fears of Richard Bassett were being gradually realized.
Bassett employed Wheeler to sound Dr. Willis as to his patient's condition.
Dr. Willis, true to the honorable traditions of his profession, would tell him nothing. But Dr. Willis had a wife. She pumped him: and Wheeler pumped her.
By this channel Wheeler got a somewhat exaggerated account of Sir Charles's state. He carried it to Bassett, and the pair put their heads together.
The consultation lasted all night, and finally a comprehensive plan of action was settled. Wheeler stipulated that the law should not be broken in the smallest particular, but only stretched.
Four days after this conference Mr. Bassett, Mr. Wheeler, and two spruce gentlemen dressed in black, sat upon the “Heir's Tower,” watching Huntercombe Hall.
They watched, and watched, until they saw Mr. Angelo make his usual daily call.
Then they watched, and watched, until Lady Bassett and the young clergyman came out and strolled together into the shrubbery.
Then the two gentlemen went down the stairs, and were hastily conducted by Bassett to Huntercombe Hall.
They rang the bell, and the taller said, in a business-like voice, “Dr. Mosely, from Dr. Willis.”
Mary Wells was sent for, and Dr. Mosely said, “Dr. Willis is unable to come to-day, and has sent me.”
Mary Wells conducted him to the patient. The other gentleman followed.
“Who is this?” said Mary. “I can't let all the world in to see him.”
“It is Mr. Donkyn, the surgeon. Dr. Willis wished the patient to be examined with the stethoscope. You can stay outside, Mr. Donkyn.”
This new doctor announced himself to Sir Charles, felt his pulse, and entered at once into conversation with him.
Sir Charles was in a talking mood, and very soon said one or two inconsecutive things. Dr. Mosely looked at Mary Wells and said he would write a prescription.
As soon as he had written it he said, very loud, “Mr. Donkyn!”
The door instantly opened, and that worthy appeared on the threshold.
“Oblige me,” said the doctor to his confrere, “by seeing this prescription made up; and you can examine the patient yourself; but do not fatigue him.”
With this he retired swiftly, and strolled down the corridor, to wait for his companion.
He had not to wait long. Mr. Donkyn adopted a free and easy style with Sir Charles, and that gentleman marked his sense of the indignity by turning him out of the room, and kicking him industriously half-way down the passage.
Messrs. Mosely and Donkyn retired to Highmore.
Bassett was particularly pleased at the baronet having kicked Donkyn; so was Wheeler; so was Dr. Mosely. Donkyn alone did not share the general enthusiasm.
When Sir Charles had disposed of Mr. Donkyn he turned on Mary Wells, and rated her soundly for bringing strangers into his room to gratify their curiosity; and when Lady Bassett came in he made his formal complaint, concluding with a proposal that one of two persons should leave Huntercombe, forever, that afternoon—Mary Wells or Sir Charles Bassett.
Mary replied, not to him, but to her mistress, “He came from Dr. Willis, my lady. It was Dr. Mosely; and the other gent was a surgeon.”
“Two medical men, sent by Dr. Willis?” said Lady Bassett, knitting her brow with wonder and a shade of doubt.
“A couple of her own sweethearts, sent by herself,” suggested Sir Charles.
Lady Bassett sat down and wrote a hasty letter to Dr. Willis. “Send a groom with it, as fast as he can ride,” said she; and she was much discomposed and nervous and impatient till the answer came bade.
Dr. Willis came in person. “I sent no one to take my place,” said he. “I esteem my patient too highly to let any stranger prescribe for him or even see him—for a few days to come.”
Lady Bassett sank into a chair, and her eloquent face filled with an undefinable terror.
Mary Wells, being on her defense, put in her word. “I am sure he was a doctor; for he wrote a prescription, and here 'tis.”
Dr. Willis examined the prescription, with no friendly eye.
“Acetate of morphia! The very worst thing that could be given him. This is the favorite of the specialists. This fatal drug has eaten away a thousand brains for one it has ever benefited.”
“Ah!” said Lady Bassett. “'Specialists!' what are they?”
“Medical men, who confine their practice to one disease.”
“Mad-doctors, he means,” said the patient, very gravely.
Lady Bassett turned very pale. “Then those were mad-doctors.”
“Never you mind, Bella,” said Sir Charles. “I kicked the fellow handsomely.”
“I am sorry to hear it, Sir Charles.”
“Why?”
Dr. Willis looked at Lady Bassett, as much as to say, “I shall not givehimmy real reason;” and then said, “I think it very undesirable you should be excited and provoked, until your health is thoroughly restored.”
Dr. Willis wrote a prescription, and retired.
Lady Bassett sank into a chair, and trembled all over. Her divining fit was on her; she saw the hand of the enemy, and filled with vague fears.
Mary Wells tried to, comfort her. “I'll take care no more strangers get in here,” said she. “And, my lady, if you are afraid, why not have the keepers, and two or three more, to sleep in the house? for, as for them footmen, they be too soft to fight.”
“I will,” said Lady Bassett; “but I fear it will be no use. Our enemy has so many resources unknown to me. How can a poor woman fight with a shadow, that comes in a moment and strikes; and then is gone and leaves his victim trembling?”
Then she slipped into the dressing-room and became hysterical, out of her husband's sight and hearing.
Mary Wells nursed her, and, when she was better, whispered in her ear, “Lose no more time, then. Cure him. You know the way.”
IN the present condition of her mind these words produced a strange effect on Lady Bassett. She quivered, and her eyes began to rove in that peculiar way I have already noticed; and then she started up and walked wildly to and fro; and then she kneeled down and prayed; and then, alarmed, perplexed, exhausted, she went and leaned her head on her patient's shoulder, and wept softly a long time.
Some days passed, and no more strangers attempted to see Sir Charles.
Lady Bassett was beginning to breathe again, when she was afflicted by an unwelcome discovery.
Mary Wells fainted away so suddenly that, but for Lady Bassett's quick eye and ready hand, she would have fallen heavily.
Lady Bassett laid her head down and loosened her stays, and discovered her condition. She said nothing till the young woman was well, and then she taxed her with it.
Mary denied it plump; but, seeing her mistress's disgust at the falsehood, she owned it with many tears.
Being asked how she could so far forget herself, she told Lady Bassett she had long been courted by a respectable young man; he had come to the village, bound on a three years' voyage, to bid her good-by, and, what with love and grief at parting, they had been betrayed into folly; and now he was on the salt seas, little dreaming in what condition he had left her: “and,” said she, “before ever he can write to me, and I to him, I shall be a ruined girl; that is why I wanted to put an end to myself; Iwill,too, unless I can find some way to hide it from the world.”
Lady Bassett begged her to give up those desperate thoughts; she would think what could be done for her. Lady Bassett could say no more to her just then, for she was disgusted with her.
But when she came to reflect that, after all, this was not a lady, and that she appeared by her own account to be the victim of affection and frailty rather than of vice, she made some excuses; and then the girl had laid aside her trouble, her despair, and given her sorrowful mind to nursing and comforting Sir Charles. This would have outweighed a crime, and it made the wife's bowels yearn over the unfortunate girl. “Mary,” said she, “others must judge you; I am a wife, and can only see your fidelity to my poor husband. I don't know what I shall do without you, but I think it is my duty to send you to him if possible. You are sure he really loves you?”
“Me cross the seas after a young man?” said Mary Wells. “I'd as lieve hang myself on the nighest tree and make an end. No, my lady, if you are really my friend, let me stay here as long as I can—I will never go downstairs to be seen—and then give me money enough to get my trouble over unbeknown to my sister; she is all my fear. She is married to a gentleman, and got plenty of money, and I shall never want while she lives, and behave myself; but she would never forgive me if she knew. She is a hard woman; she is not like you, my lady. I'd liever cut my hand off than I'd trust her as I would you.”
Lady Bassett was not quite insensible to this compliment; but she felt uneasy.
“What, help you to deceive your sister?”
“For her good. Why, if any one was to go and tell her about me now, she'd hate them for telling her almost as much as she would hate me.”
Lady Bassett was sore perplexed. Unable to see quite clear in the matter, she naturally reverted to her husband and his interest. That dictated her course. She said, “Well, stay with us, Mary, as long as you can; and then money shall not be wanting to hide your shame from all the world; but I hope when the time comes you will alter your mind and tell your sister. May I ask what her name is?”
Mary, after a moment's hesitation, said her name was Marsh.
“I know a Mrs. Marsh,” said Lady Bassett; “but, of course, that is not your sister. My Mrs. Marsh is rather fair.”
“So is my sister, for that matter.”
“And tall?”
“Yes; but you never saw her. You'd never forget her it you had. She has got eyes like a lion.”
“Ah! Does she ride?”
“Oh, she is famous for that; and driving, and all.”
“Indeed! But no; I see no resemblance.”
“Oh, she is only my half-sister.”
“This is very strange.”
Lady Bassett put her hand to her brow, and thought.
“Mary,” said she, “all this is very mysterious. We are wading in deep waters.”
Mary Wells had no idea what she meant.
The day was not over yet. Just before dinner-time a fly from the station drove to the door, and Mr. Oldfield got out.
He was detained in the hall by sentinel Moss.
Lady Bassett came down to him. At the very sight of him she trembled, and said, “Richard Bassett?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Oldfield, “he is in the field again. He has been to the Court of Chanceryex parte,and obtained an injunctionad interimto stay waste. Not another tree must be cut down on the estate for the present.”
“Thank Heaven it is no worse than that. Not another tree shall be felled on the grounds.”
“Of course not. But they will not stop there. If we do not move to dissolve the injunction, I fear they will go on and ask the Court to administer the estate, with a view to all interests concerned, especially those of the heir at law and his son.”
“What, while my husband lives?”
“If they can prove him dead in law.”
“I don't understand you, Mr. Oldfield.”
“They have got affidavits of two medical men that he is insane.”
Lady Bassett uttered a faint scream, and put her hand to her heart.
“And, of course, they will use that extraordinary fall of timber as a further proof, and also as a reason why the Court should interfere to protect the heir at law. Their case is well got up and very strong,” said Mr. Oldfield, regretfully.
“Well, but you are a lawyer, and you have always beaten them hitherto.”
“I had law and fact on my side. It is not so now. To be frank, Lady Bassett, I don't see what I can do but watch the case, on the chance of some error or illegality. It is very hard to fight a case when you cannot put your client forward—and I suppose that would not be safe. How unfortunate that you have no children!”
“Children! How could they help us?”
“What a question! How could Richard Bassett move the Court if he was not the heir at law?”
After a long conference Mr. Oldfield returned to town to see what he could do in the way of procrastination, and Lady Bassett promised to leave no stone unturned to cure Sir Charles in the meantime. Mr. Oldfield was to write immediately if any fresh step was taken.
When Mr. Oldfield was gone, Lady Bassett pondered every word he had said, and, mild as she was, her rage began to rise against her husband's relentless enemy. Her wits worked, her eyes roved in that peculiar half-savage way I have described. She became intolerably restless; and any one acquainted with her sex might see that some strange conflict was going on in her troubled mind.
Every now and then she would come and cling to her husband, and cry over him; and that seemed to still the tumult of her soul a little.
She never slept all that night, and next day, clinging in her helpless agony to the nearest branch, she told Mary Wells what Bassett was doing, and said, “What shall I do? He is not mad; but he is in so very precarious a state that, if they get at him to torment him, they will drive him mad indeed.”
“My lady,” said Mary Wells, “I can't go from my word. 'Tis no use in making two bites of a cherry. We must cure him: and if we don't, you'll never rue it but once, and that will be all your life.”
“I should look on myself with horror afterward were I to deceive him now.”
“No, my lady, you are too fond of him for that. Once you saw him happy you'd be happy too, no matter how it came about. That Richard Bassett will turn him out of this else. I am sure he will; he is a hard-hearted villain.”
Lady Bassett's eyes flashed fire; then her eyes roved; then she sighed deeply.
Her powers of resistance were beginning to relax. As for Mary Wells, she gave her no peace; she kept instilling her mind into her mistress's with the pertinacity of a small but ever-dripping fount, and we know both by science and poetry that small, incessant drops of water will wear a hole in marble.
“Gutta cavat lapidem non vi sed saepe cadendo.”
And in the midst of all a letter came from Mr. Oldfield, to tell her that Mr. Bassett threatened to take out a commissionde lunatico,and she must prepare Sir Charles for an examination; for, if reported insane, the Court would administer the estates; but the heir at law, Mr. Bassett, would have the ear of the Court and the right of application, and become virtually master of Huntercombe and Bassett; and, perhaps, considering the spirit by which he was animated, would contrive to occupy the very Hall itself. Lady Bassett was in the dressing-room when she received this blow, and it drove her almost frantic. She bemoaned her husband; she prayed God to take them both, and let their enemy have his will. She wept and raved, and at the height of her distress came from the other room a feeble cry, “Childless! childless! childless!”
Lady Bassett heard that, and in one moment, from violent she became unnaturally and dangerously calm. She said firmly to Mary Wells, “This is more than I can bear. You pretend you can save him—do it.”
Mary Wells now trembled in her turn; but she seized the opportunity. “My lady, whatever I say you'll stand to?”
“Whatever you say I'll stand to.”
MARY WELLS, like other uneducated women, was not accustomed to think long and earnestly on any one subject; to use an expression she once applied with far less justice to her sister, her mind was like running water.
But gestation affects the brains of such women, and makes them think more steadily, and sometimes very acutely; added to which, the peculiar dangers and difficulties that beset this girl during that anxious period stimulated her wits to the very utmost. Often she sat quite still for hours at a time, brooding and brooding, and asking herself how she could turn each new and unexpected event to her own benefit. Now so much does mental force depend on that exercise of keen and long attention, in which her sex is generally deficient, that this young woman's powers were more than doubled since the day she first discovered her condition, and began to work her brains night and day for her defense.
Gradually, as events I have related unfolded themselves, she caught a glimpse of this idea, that if she could get her mistress to have a secret, her mistress would help her to keep her own. Hence her insidious whispers, and her constant praises of Mr. Angelo, who, she saw, was infatuated with Lady Bassett. Yet the designing creature was actually fond of her mistress: and so strangely compounded is a heart of this low kind that the extraordinary step she now took was half affectionate impulse, half egotistical design.
She made a motion with her hand inviting Lady Bassett to listen, and stepped into Sir Charles's room.
“Childless! childless! childless!”
“Hush, sir,” said Mary Wells. “Don't say so. We shan't be many mouths without one, please Heaven.”
Sir Charles shook his head sadly.
“Don't you believe me?”
“No.”
“What, did ever I tell you a lie?”
“No: but you are mistaken. She would have told me.”
“Well, sir, my lady is young and shy, and I think she is afraid of disappointing you after all; for you know, sir, there's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip. But 'tis as I tell you, sir.”
Sir Charles was much agitated, and said he would give her a hundred guineas if that was true. “Where is my darling wife? Why do I hear this through a servant?”
Mary Wells cast a look at the door, and said, for Lady Bassett to hear, “She is receiving company. Now, sir, I have told you good news; will you do something to oblige me? You shouldn't speak of it direct to my lady just yet; and if you want all to go well, you mustn't vex my lady as you are doing now. What I mean, you mustn't be so downhearted— there's no reason for't—and you mustn't coop yourself up on this floor: it sets the folks talking, and worries my lady. You should give her every chance, being the way she is.”
Sir Charles said eagerly he would not vex her for the world. “I'll walk in the garden,” said he; “but as for going abroad, you know I am not in a fit condition yet; my mind is clouded.”
“Not as I see.”
“Oh, not always. But sometimes a cloud seems to get into my head; and if I was in public I might do or say something discreditable. I would rather die.”
“La, sir!” said Mary Wells, in a broad, hearty way—“a cloud in your head! You've had a bad fall, and a fit at top on't, and no wonder your poor head do ache at times. You'll outgrow that—if you take the air and give over fretting about the t'other thing. I tell you you'll hear the music of a child's voice and little feet a-pattering up and down this here corridor before so very long—if so be you take my advice, and leave off fretting my lady with fretting of yourself. You should consider: she is too fond of you to be well when you be ill.”
“I'll get well for her sake,” said Sir Charles, firmly.
At this moment there was a knock at the door. Mary Wells opened it so that the servant could see nothing.
“Mr. Angelo has called.”
“My lady will be down directly.”
Mary Wells then slipped into the dressing-room, and found Lady Bassett looking pale and wild. She had heard every word.
“There, he is better already,” said Mary Wells. “He shall walk in the garden with you this afternoon.”
“What have you done? I can't look him in the face now. Suppose he speaks to me?”
“He will not. I'll manage that. You won't have to say a word. Only listen to what I say, and don't make a liar of me. He is better already.”
“How will this end?” cried Lady Bassett, helplessly. “What shall I do?”
“You must go downstairs, and not come here for an hour at least, or you'll spoil my work. Mr. Angelo is in the drawing-room.”
“I will go to him.”
Lady Bassett slipped out by the other door, and it was three hours, instead of one, before she returned.
For the first time in her life she was afraid to face her husband.