A Terrible Temptation: A Story of To-Day Part 41

"Excuse me one minute," said Mr. Angelo, and followed Mary Wells. She ushered him into a boudoir, where he found Lady Ba.s.sett seated in an armchair, with her head on her hand, and her eyes fixed sadly on the carpet.

She smiled faintly, and said, "Well, what do you wish to say to me?"

"It is about Mr. Oldfield. He is clearly incompetent."

"I don't know. I snubbed him, poor man: but if the law is all against us!"

"How does he know that? He a.s.sumes it because he is prejudiced in favor of the enemy. How does he _know_ they have done _everything_ the Act of Parliament requires? And, if they have, Law is not invincible. When Law defies Morality, it gets baffled, and trampled on in all civilized communities."

"I never heard that before."

"But you would if you had been at Oxford," said he, smiling.

"Ah!"

"What we want is a man of genius, of invention; a man who will see every chance, take every chance, lawful or unlawful, and fight with all manner of weapons."

Lady Ba.s.sett's eye flashed a moment. "Ah!" said she; "but where can I find such a man, with knowledge to guide his zeal?"

"I think I know of a man who could at all events advise you, if you would ask him."

"Ah! Who?"

"He is a writer; and opinions vary as to his merit. Some say he has talent; others say it is all eccentricity and affectation. One thing is certain--his books bring about the changes he demands. And then he is in earnest; he has taken a good many alleged lunatics out of confinement."

"Is it possible? Then let us apply to him at once."

"He lives in London; but I have a friend who knows him. May I send an outline to him through that friend, and ask him whether he can advise you in the matter?"

"You may; and thank you a thousand times!"

"A mind like that, with knowledge, zeal, and invention, must surely throw some light."

"One would think so, dear friend."

"I'll write to-night and send a letter to Greatrex; we shall perhaps get an answer the day after to-morrow."

"Ah! you are not the one to go to sleep in the service of a friend. A writer, did you say? What does he write?"

"Fiction."

"What, novels?"

"And dramas and all."

Lady Ba.s.sett sighed incredulously. "I should never think of going to Fiction for wisdom."

"When the Family Calas were about to be executed unjustly, with the consent of all the lawyers and statesmen in France, one man in a nation saw the error, and fought for the innocent, and saved them; and that one wise man in a nation of fools was a writer of fiction."

"Oh! a learned Oxonian can always answer a poor ignorant thing like me.

One swallow does not make summer, for all that."

"But this writer's fictions are not like the novels you read; they are works of laborious research. Besides, he is a lawyer, as well as a novelist."

"Oh, if he is a lawyer!"

"Then I may write?"

"Yes," said Lady Ba.s.sett, despondingly.

"What is to become of Oldfield?"

"Send him to the drawing-room. I will go down and endure him for another hour. You can write your letter here, and then please come and relieve me of Mr. Negative."

She rang, and ordered coffee and tea into the drawing-room; and Mr.

Oldfield found her very cold company.

In half an hour Mr. Angelo came down, looking flushed and very handsome; and Lady Ba.s.sett had some fresh tea made for him.

This done she bade the gentlemen goodnight, and went to her room. Here she found Mary Wells full of curiosity to know whether the lawyer would get Sir Charles out of the asylum.

Lady Ba.s.sett gave loose to her indignation, and said nothing was to be expected from such a Nullity. "Mary, he could not see. I gave him every opportunity. I walked slowly down the room before him after dinner; and I came into the drawing-room and moved about, and yet he could not see."

"Then you will have to tell him, that is all."

"Never; no more shall you. I'll not trust my fate, and Sir Charles's, to a man that has no eyes."

For this feminine reason she took a spite against poor Oldfield; but to Mr. Angelo she suppressed the real reason, and entered into that ardent gentleman's grounds of discontent, though these alone would not have entirely dissolved her respect for the family solicitor.

Next afternoon Angelo came to her in great distress and ire. "Beaten!

beaten! and all through our adversaries having more talent. Mr. Ba.s.sett did not appear at first. Wheeler excused him on the ground that his wife was seriously ill through the fright. Ba.s.sett's servants were called, and swore to the damage and to the men, all but one. He got off. Then Oldfield made a dry speech; and a tradesman he had prepared offered bail. The magistrates were consulting, when in burst Mr.

Ba.s.sett all in black, and made a speech fifty times stronger than Oldfield's, and sobbed, and told them the rioters had frightened his wife so she had been prematurely confined, and the child was dead.

Could they take bail for a riot, a dastardly attack by a mob of cowards on a poor defenseless woman, the gentlest and most inoffensive creature in England? Then he went on: 'They were told I was not in the house; and then they found courage to fling stones, to terrify my wife and kill my child. Poor soul!' he said, 'she lies between life and death herself: and I come here in an agony of fear, but I come for justice; the man of straw, who offers bail, is furnished with the money by those who stimulated the outrage. Defeat that fraud, and teach these cowards who war on defenseless ladies that there is humanity and justice and law in the land.' Then Oldfield tried to answer him with his hems and his haws; but Ba.s.sett turned on him like a giant, and swept him away."

"Poor woman!"

"Ah! that is true: I am afraid I have thought too little of her. But you suffer, and so must she. It is the most terrible feud; one would think this was Corsica instead of England, only the fighting is not done with daggers. But, after this, pray lean no more on that Oldfield.

We were all carried away at first; but, now I think of it, Ba.s.sett must have been in the court, and held back to make the climax. Oh, yes! it was another surprise and another success. They are all sent to jail.

Superior generalship! If Wheeler had been our man, we should have had eight wives crying for pity, each with one child in her arms, and another holding on to her ap.r.o.n. Do, pray, Lady Ba.s.sett, dismiss that Nullity."

"Oh, I cannot do that; he is Sir Charles's lawyer; but I have promised you to seek advice elsewhere, and so I will."

The conversation was interrupted by the tolling of the church-bell.

The first note startled Lady Ba.s.sett, and she turned pale.

"I must leave you," said Angelo, regretfully. "I have to bury Mr.

Ba.s.sett's little boy; he lived an hour."