A Terrible Temptation: A Story of To-Day Part 2

Marsh fired up. "So would any woman that was as beautiful, and as witty and as much run after as she is. Why she is a leader of fashion. Look at all the ladies following her round the park. They used to drive on the north side of the Serpentine. She just held up her finger, and now they have cut the Serpentine, and followed her to the south drive."

"Oh, indeed!" said Ba.s.sett. "Ah then this is a great lady; a poor country squire must not venture into her august presence." He turned savagely on his heel, and Marsh went and made sickly mirth at his expense.

By this means the matter soon came to the ears of old Mr. Woodgate, the father of that club, and a genial gossip. He got hold of Ba.s.sett in the dinner-room and examined him. "So you want an introduction to La Somerset, and Marsh refuses--Marsh, hitherto celebrated for his weak head rather than his hard heart?"

Richard Ba.s.sett nodded rather sullenly. He had not bargained for this rapid publicity.

The venerable chief resumed: "We all consider Marsh's conduct unclubable and a thing to be combined against. Wanted--an Anti-dog-in-the-manger League. I'll introduce you to the Somerset."

"What! do _you_ visit her?" asked Ba.s.sett, in some astonishment.

The old gentleman held up his hands in droll disclaimer, and chuckled merrily "No, no; I enjoy from the sh.o.r.e the disasters of my youthful friends--that sacred pleasure is left me. Do you see that elegant creature with the little auburn beard and mustache, waiting sweetly for his dinner. He launched the Somerset."

"Launched her?"

"Yes; but for him she might have wasted her time breaking hearts and slapping faces in some country village. He it was set her devastating society; and with his aid she shall devastate you.--Vandeleur, will you join Ba.s.sett and me?"

Mr. Vandeleur, with ready grace, said he should be delighted, and they dined together accordingly.

Mr. Vandeleur, six feet high, lank, but graceful as a panther, and the pink of politeness, was, beneath his varnish, one of the wildest young men in London--gambler, horse-racer, libertine, what not?--but in society charming, and his manners singularly elegant and winning. He never obtruded his vices in good company; in fact, you might dine with him all your life and not detect him. The young serpent was torpid in wine; but he came out, a bit at a time, in the sunshine of Cigar.

After a brisk conversation on current topics, the venerable chief told him plainly they were both curious to know the history of Miss Somerset, and he must tell it them.

"Oh, with pleasure," said the obliging youth. "Let us go into the smoking-room."

"Let--me--see. I picked her up by the sea-side. She promised well at first. We put her on my chestnut mare, and she showed lots of courage, so she soon learned to ride; but she kicked, even down there."

"Kicked!--whom?"

"Kicked all round; I mean showed temper. And when she got to London, and had ridden a few times in the park, and swallowed flattery, there was no holding her. I stood her cheek for a good while, but at last I told the servants they must not turn her out, but they could keep her out. They sided with me for once. She had ridden over them, as well.

The first time she went out they bolted the doors, and handed her boxes up the area steps."

"How did she take that?"

"Easier than we expected. She said, 'Lucky for you beggars that I'm a lady, or I'd break every d--d window in the house.'"

This caused a laugh. It subsided. The historian resumed.

"Next day she cooled, and wrote a letter."

"To you?"

"No, to my groom. Would you like to see it? It is a curiosity."

He sent one of the club waiters for his servant, and his servant for his desk, and produced the letter.

"There!" said Vandeleur. "She looks like a queen, and steps like an empress, and this is how she writes:

"'DEAR JORGE--i have got the sak, an' praps your turn nex. dear jorge he alwaies promise me the grey oss, which now an oss is life an death to me. If you was to ast him to lend me the grey he wouldn't refuse you,

"'Yours respecfully,

"'RHODA SOMERSET.'"

When the letter and the handwriting, which, unfortunately, I cannot reproduce, had been duly studied and approved, Vandeleur continued--

"Now, you know, she had her good points, after all. If any creature was ill, she'd sit up all night and nurse them, and she used to go to church on Sundays, and come back with the sting out of her; only then she would preach to a fellow, and bore him. She is awfully fond of preaching. Her dream is to jump on a first-rate hunter, and ride across country, and preach to the villages. So, when George came grinning to me with the letter, I told him to buy a new side-saddle for the gray, and take her the lot, with my compliments. I had noticed a slight spavin in his near foreleg. She rode him that very day in the park, all alone, and made such a sensation that next day my gray was standing in Lord Hailey's stables. But she rode Hailey, like my gray, with a long spur, and he couldn't stand it. None of 'em could except Sir Charles Ba.s.sett, and he doesn't play fair--never goes near her."

"And that gives him an unfair advantage over his fascinating predecessors?" inquired the senior, slyly.

"Of course it does," said Vandeleur, stoutly. "You ask a girl to dine at Richmond once a month, and keep out of her way all the rest of the time, and give her lots of money--she will never quarrel with you."

"Profit by this information, young man," said old Woodgate, severely; "it comes too late for me. In my day there existed no sure method of pleasing the fair. But now that is invented, along with everything else. Richmond and--absence, equivalent to 'Richmond and victory!' Now, Ba.s.sett, we have heard the truth from the fountain-head, and it is rather serious. She swears, she kicks, she preaches. Do you still desire an introduction? As for me, my manly spirit is beginning to quake at Vandeleur's revelations, and some lines of Scott recur to my Gothic memory--

"'From the chafed tiger rend his prey, Bar the fell dragon's blighting way, But shun that lovely snare."'

Ba.s.sett replied, gravely, that he had no such motive as Mr. Woodgate gave him credit for, but still desired the introduction.

"With pleasure," said Vandeleur; "but it will be no use to you. She hates me like poison; says I have no heart. That is what all ill-tempered women say."

Notwithstanding his misgivings the obliging youth called for writing materials, and produced the following epistle--

"DEAR MISS SOMERSET--Mr. Richard Ba.s.sett, a cousin of Sir Charles, wishes very much to be introduced to you, and has begged me to a.s.sist in an object so laudable. I should hardly venture to present myself, and, therefore, shall feel surprised as well as flattered if you will receive Mr. Ba.s.sett on my introduction, and my a.s.surance that he is a respectable country gentleman, and bears no resemblance in character to

"Yours faithfully,

"ARTHUR VANDELEUR."

Next day Ba.s.sett called at Miss Somerset's house in May Fair, and delivered his introduction.

He was admitted after a short delay and entered the lady's boudoir. It was Luxury's nest. The walls were rose colored satin, padded and puckered; the voluminous curtains were pale satin, with floods and billows of real lace; the chairs embroidered, the tables all buhl and ormolu, and the sofas felt like little seas. The lady herself, in a delightful peignoir, sat nestled cozily in a sort of ottoman with arms.

Her finely formed hand, clogged with brilliants, was just conveying brandy and soda-water to a very handsome mouth when Richard Ba.s.sett entered.

She raised herself superbly, but without leaving her seat, and just looked at a chair in a way that seemed to say, "I permit you to sit down;" and that done, she carried the gla.s.s to her lips with the same admirable firmness of hand she showed in driving. Her lofty manner, coupled with her beautiful but rather haughty features, smacked of imperial origin. Yet she was the writer to "jorge," and four years ago a shrimp-girl, running into the sea with legs as brown as a berry.

So swiftly does merit rise in this world which, nevertheless, some morose folk pretend is a wicked one.

I ought to explain, however, that this haughty reception was partly caused by a breach of propriety. Vandeleur ought first to have written to her and asked permission to present Richard Ba.s.sett. He had no business to send the man and the introduction together. This law a Parliament of Sirens had pa.s.sed, and the slightest breach of it was a bitter offense Equilibrium governs the world. These ladies were bound to be overstrict in something or other, being just a little lax in certain things where other ladies are strict.