A Terrible Temptation: A Story of To-Day Part 34

Thus judiciously treated, Sir Charles began to recover consciousness in part. He stared and muttered incoherently. Lady Ba.s.sett thanked G.o.d on her knees, and then turned to Mr. Angelo with streaming eyes, and stretched out both hands to him, with an indescribable eloquence of grat.i.tude. 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--

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"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 h.e.l.l hotter. Order my horse, somebody, this minute!"

During this tirade Lady Ba.s.sett'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 Ba.s.sett, 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 Ba.s.sett said, "No: into my room. Oh, I will never let him out of my sight again."

Then they carried him into Lady Ba.s.sett'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-gla.s.s 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 coa.r.s.e; 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 G.o.ddess 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 Ba.s.sett 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 Ba.s.sett 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 Ba.s.sett 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 Ba.s.sett and his son; he swore at them, and said they were waiting for his shoes.

Lady Ba.s.sett'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 Ba.s.sett 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 Ba.s.sett 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 Ba.s.sett 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 Ba.s.sett 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 Ba.s.sett excused herself to many, but some of her own s.e.x she thought it best to encounter. This subjected her to the insidious attacks of curiosity admirably veiled with sympathy. The a.s.sailants 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.

Ba.s.sett 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 Ba.s.sett, 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 Ba.s.sett 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.

_"Must_ I?" said she, sweetly.