A Terrible Temptation: A Story of To-Day Part 97

"Sir Charles," said Richard Ba.s.sett, faltering for a moment, "I am very much obliged to you, and I begin to be sorry we are enemies.

Good-morning."

The agitation and terror of this scene nearly killed Lady Ba.s.sett on the spot. She lay all that day in a state of utter prostration.

Meantime Sir Charles put this and that together, but said nothing. He spoke cheerfully and philosophically to his wife--said it had been a fearful blow, terrible wrench: but it was all for the best; such a son as that would have broken his heart before long.

"Ah, but your wasted affections!" groaned Lady Ba.s.sett; and her tears streamed at the thought.

Sir Charles sighed; but said, after a while, "Is affection ever entirely wasted? My love for that young fool enlarged my heart. There was a time he did me a deal of good."

But next day, having only herself to think of now, Lady Ba.s.sett could live no longer under the load of deceit. She told Sir Charles Mary Meyrick had deceived him. "Read this," she said, "and see what your miserable wife has done, who loved you to madness and crime."

Sir Charles looked at her, and saw in her wasted form and her face that, if he did read it, he should kill her; so he played the man: he restrained himself by a mighty effort, and said, "My dear, excuse me; but on this matter I have more faith in Mary Meyrick's exactness than in yours. Besides, I know your heart, and don't care to be told of your errors in judgment, no, not even by yourself. Sorry to offend an auth.o.r.ess; but I decline to read your book, and, more than that, I forbid you the subject entirely for the next thirty years, at least.

Let by-gones be by-gones."

That eventful morning Mr. Rutland called and proposed to Ruperta. She declined politely, but firmly.

She told Mrs. Ba.s.sett, and Mrs. Ba.s.sett told Richard in a nervous way, but his answer surprised her. He said he was very glad of it; Ruperta could do better.

Mrs. Ba.s.sett could not resist the pleasure of telling Lady Ba.s.sett. She went over on purpose, with her husband's consent.

Lady Ba.s.sett asked to see Ruperta. "By all means," said Richard Ba.s.sett, graciously.

On her return to Highmore, Ruperta asked leave to go to the Hall every day and nurse Lady Ba.s.sett. "They will let her die else," said she.

Richard Ba.s.sett a.s.sented to that, too. Ruperta, for some weeks, almost lived at the Hall, and in this emergency revealed great qualities. As the malevolent small-pox, pa.s.sing through the gentle cow, comes out the sovereign cow-pox, so, in this gracious nature, her father's vices turned to their kindred virtues; his obstinacy of purpose shone here a n.o.ble constancy; his audacity became candor, and his cunning wisdom.

Her intelligence saw at once that Lady Ba.s.sett was pining to death, and a weak-minded nurse would be fatal: she was all smiles and brightness, and neglected no means to encourage the patient.

With this view, she promised to plight her faith to Compton the moment Lady Ba.s.sett should be restored to health; and so, with hopes and smiles, and the novelty of a daughter's love, she fought with death for Lady Ba.s.sett, and at last she won the desperate battle.

This did Richard Ba.s.sett's daughter for her father's late enemy.

The grateful husband wrote to Ba.s.sett, and now acknowledged _his_ obligation.

A civil, mock-modest reply from Richard Ba.s.sett.

From this things went on step by step, till at last Compton and Ruperta, at eighteen years of age, were formally betrothed.

Thus the children's love wore out the father's hate.

That love, so troubled at the outset, left, by degrees, the region of romance, and rippled smoothly through green, flowery meadows.

Ruperta showed her lover one more phase of girlhood; she, who had been a precocious and forward child, and then a shy and silent girl, came out now a bright and witty young woman, full of vivacity, modesty, and sensibility. Time cured Compton of his one defect. Ruperta stopped growing at fifteen, but Compton went slowly on; caught her at seventeen, and at nineteen had pa.s.sed her by a head. He won a scholarship at Oxford, he rowed in college races, and at last in the University race on the Thames.

Ruperta stood, in peerless beauty, dark blue from throat to feet, and saw his boat astern of his rival, saw it come up with, and creep ahead, amid the roars of the mult.i.tude. When she saw her lover, with bare corded arms, as brown as a berry, and set teeth, filling his glorious part in that manly struggle within eight yards of her, she confessed he was not a boy now.

But Lady Ba.s.sett accepted no such evidence: being pestered to let them marry at twenty years of age, she clogged her consent with one condition--they must live three years at Huntercombe as man and wife.

"No boy of twenty," said she, "can understand a young woman of that age. I must be in the house to prevent a single misunderstanding between my beloved children."

The young people, who both adored her, voted the condition reasonable.

They were married, and a wing of the s.p.a.cious building allotted to them.

For their sakes let us hope that their wedded life, now happily commenced, will furnish me no materials for another tale: the happiest lives are uneventful.

The foreign gent recovered his wound, but acquired rheumatism and a dislike for midnight expeditions.

Reginald galloped a year or two over seven hundred miles of colony, sowing his wild oats as he flew, but is now a prosperous squatter, very fond of sleeping in the open air. England was not big enough for the bold Bohemian. He does very well where he is.

Old Meyrick died, and left his wife a little estate in the next county.

Drake asked her hand at the funeral. She married him in six months, and migrated to the estate in question; for Sir Charles refused her a lease of his farm, not choosing to have her near him.

Her new abode was in the next parish to her sister's.

La Marsh set herself to convert Mary, and often exhorted her to penitence; she bore this pretty well for some time, being overawed by old reminiscences of sisterly superiority: but at last her vanity rebelled. "Repent! and Repent!" cried she. "Why you be like a cuckoo, all in one song. One would think I had been and robbed a church. 'Tis all very well for you to repent, as led a fastish life at starting: _but I never done nothing as I'm ashamed on."_

Richard Ba.s.sett said one day to Wheeler, "Old fellow, there is not a worse poison than Hate. It has made me old before my time. And what does it all come to? We might just as well have kept quiet; for my grandson will inherit Huntercombe and Ba.s.sett, after all--"

"Thanks to the girl you would not ring the bells for."

Sir Charles and Lady Ba.s.sett lead a peaceful life after all their troubles, and renew their youth in their children, of whom Ruperta is one, and as dear as any.

Yet there is a pensive and humble air about Lady Ba.s.sett, which shows she still expiates her fault, though she knows it will always be ignored by him for whose sake she sinned.

In summing her up, it may be as well to compare this with the unmixed self-complacency of Mrs. Drake.

You men and women, who judge this Bella Ba.s.sett, be firm, and do not let her amiable qualities or her good intentions blind you in a plain matter of right and wrong: be charitable, and ask yourselves how often in your lives you have seen yourselves, or any other human being, resist a terrible temptation.

My experience is, that we resist other people's temptations n.o.bly, and succ.u.mb to our own.

So let me end with a line of England's gentlest satirist--

"Heaven be merciful to us all, sinners as we be."

THE END