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 very _coup de Jarnac._ He spoke _at_ him; 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.
_“Must_ I?” 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!”
“Try _my_ way, and you will see, my lady.”
“What, _that_ way! 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 give
_him_ my 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.”