THEY were seated hand in hand, comparing notes and comforting each
other. Then Lady Bassett met with a great surprise: forgetting, or
rather not realizing, Sir Charles's sex and character, she began with a
heavy heart to play the consoler; but after he had embraced her many
times with tender rapture, and thanked God for the sight of her, lo and
behold, this doughty baronet claimed his rights of manhood, and, in
spite of his capture, his incarceration, and his malady, set to work to
console her, instead of lying down to be consoled.
“My darling Bella,” said he, “don't you make a mountain of a mole-hill.
The moment you told me I should be a father I began to get better, and
to laugh at Richard Bassett's malice. Of course I was terribly knocked
over at first by being captured like a felon and clapped under lock and
key; but I am getting over that. My head gets muddled once a day, that
is all. They gave me some poison the first day that made me drunk
twelve hours after; but they have not repeated it.”
“Oh!” cried Lady Bassett, “then don't let me lose a moment. How could I
forget?” She opened the door, and called in Mr. Jones and the nurse.
“Mr. Jones,” said she, “the first day my husband came here Mr. Salter
gave him a sedative, or something, and it made him much worse.”
“It always do make 'em worse,” said Jones, bluntly.
“Then why did he give it?”
“Out o' book, ma'am. His sort don't see how the medicines work; but we
do, as are always about the patient.”
“Mr. Jones,” said Lady Bassett, “if Mr. Salter, or anybody, prescribes,
it is you who _administer_ the medicine.”
Jones assented with a wink. Winking was his foible, as puckering of the
face was Coyne's.
“Should you be offended if I were to offer you and the nurse ten
guineas a month to pretend you had given him Mr. Salter's medicines,
and not do it?”
“Oh, that is not much to do for a gentleman like Sir Charles,” said
Jones. “But I didn't ought to take so much money for that. To be sure,
I suppose, the lady won't miss it.”
“Don't be a donkey, Jones,” said Sir Charles, cutting short his
hypocrisy. “Take whatever you can get; only earn it.”
“Oh, what I takes I earns.”
“Of course,” said Sir Charles. “So that is settled. You have got to
physic those flower-pots instead of me, that is all.”
This view of things tickled Jones so that he roared with laughter.
However, he recollected himself all of a sudden, and stopped with
ludicrous abruptness.
He said to Lady Bassett, with homely kindness, “You go home
comfortable, my lady; you have taken the stick by the right end.” He
then had the good sense to retire from the room.
Then Lady Bassett told Sir Charles of her visit to London, and her
calling on Mr. Rolfe.
He looked blank at his wife calling on a bachelor; but her description
of the man, his age, and his simplicity, reconciled him to that; and
when she told him the plan and order of campaign Mr. Rolfe had given
her he approved it very earnestly.
He fastened in particular on something that Mr. Rolfe had dwelt lightly
on. “Dear as the sight of you is to me, sweet as the sound of your
loved voice is to my ears and my heart, I would rather not see you
again until our hopes are realized than jeopardize _that.”_
Lady Bassett sighed, for this seemed rather morbid. Sir Charles went
on: “So think of your own health first, and avoid agitations. I am
tormented with fear lest that monster should take advantage of my
absence to molest you. If he does, leave Huntercombe. Yes, leave it; go
to London; go, even for my sake; my health and happiness depend on you;
they cannot be much affected by anything that happens here. 'Stone
walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage.'”
Lady Bassett promised, but said she could not keep away from him, and
he must often write to her. She gave him Rolfe's formula, and told him
all letters would pass that praised the asylum.
Sir Charles made a wry face.
Lady Bassett's wrist went round his neck in a moment. “Oh, Charles,
dear, for my sake--hold a little, little candle to the devil. Mr. Rolfe
says we must. Oblige me in this--I am not so noble as you--and then
I'll be very good and obedient in what your heart is set upon.”
At last Sir Charles consented.
Then they made haste, and told each other everything that had happened,
and it was late in the afternoon before they parted.
Lady Bassett controlled her tears at parting as well as she could.
Mr. Coyne had slyly hid himself, but emerged when she came down to the
carriage, and she shook him warmly by the hand, and he bowed at the
door incessantly, with his face all in a pucker, till the cavalcade
dashed away.