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A Terrible Temptation

C >> Charles Reade >> A Terrible Temptation




"You came here to abuse him behind his back, eh?" asked the lady with
undisguised contempt.

Bassett winced, but kept his temper. "No, Miss Somerset; but you seem
to think I ought to have come to you through Sir Charles. I would not
enter your house if I did not feel sure I shall not meet him here."

Miss Somerset looked rather puzzled. "Sir Charles does not come here
every day, but he comes now and then, and he is always welcome."

"You surprise me."

"Thank you. Now some of my gentlemen friends think it is a wonder he
does not come every minute."

"You mistake me. What surprises me is that you are such good friends
under the circumstances."

"Circumstances! what circumstances?"

"Oh, you know. You are in his confidence, I presume?"--this rather
satirically. So the lady answered, defiantly:

"Yes, I am; he knows I can hold my tongue, so he tells me things he
tells nobody else."

"Then, if you are in his confidence, you know he is about to be
married."

"Married! Sir Charles married!"

"In three weeks."

"It's a lie! You get out of my house this moment!"

Mr. Bassett colored at this insult. He rose from his seat with some
little dignity, made her a low bow, and retired. But her blood was up:
she made a wonderful rush, sweeping down a chair with her dress as she
went, and caught him at the door, clutched him by the shoulder and half
dragged him back, and made him sit down again, while she stood opposite
him, with the knuckles of one hand resting on the table.

"Now," said she, panting, "you look me in the face and say that again."

"Excuse me; you punish me too severely for telling the truth."

"Well, I beg your pardon--there. Now tell me--this instant. Can't you
speak, man?" And her knuckles drummed the table.

"He is to be married in three weeks."

"Oh! Who to?"

"A young lady I love."

"Her name?"

"Miss Arabella Bruce."

"Where does she live?"

"Portman Square."

"I'll stop that marriage."

"How?" asked Richard, eagerly.

"I don't know; that I'll think over. But he shall not marry
her--never!"

Bassett sat and looked up with almost as much awe as complacency at the
fury he had evoked; for this woman was really at times a poetic
impersonation of that fiery passion she was so apt to indulge. She
stood before him, her cheek pale, her eyes glittering and roving
savagely, and her nostrils literally expanding, while her tall body
quivered with wrath, and her clinched knuckles pattered on the table.

"He shall not marry her. I'll kill him first!"


CHAPTER III.

RICHARD BASSETT eagerly offered his services to break off the obnoxious
match. But Miss Somerset was beginning to be mortified at having shown
so much passion before a stranger.

"What have you to do with it?" said she, sharply.

"Everything. I love Miss Bruce."

"Oh, yes; I forgot that. Anything else? There is, now. I see it in your
eye. What is it?"

"Sir Charles's estates are mine by right, and they will return to my
line if he does not marry and have issue."

"Oh, I see. That is so like a man. It's always love, and something more
important, with you. Well, give me your address. I'll write if I want
you."

"Highly flattered," said Bassett, ironically-wrote his address and left
her.

Miss Somerset then sat down and wrote:



"DEAR SIR CHARLES--please call here, I want to speak to you.

yours respecfuly,

"RHODA SOMERSET."



Sir Charles obeyed this missive, and the lady received him with a
gracious and smiling manner, all put on and catlike. She talked with
him of indifferent things for more than an hour, still watching to see
if he would tell her of his own accord.

When she was quite sure he would not, she said,

"Do you know there's a ridiculous report about that you are going to be
married?"

"Indeed!"

"They even tell her name--Miss Bruce. Do you know the girl?"

"Yes."

"Is she pretty?"

"Very."

"Modest?"

"As an angel."

"And are you going to marry her?"

"Yes."

"Then you are a villain."

"The deuce I am!"

"You are, to abandon a woman who has sacrificed all for you."

Sir Charles looked puzzled, and then smiled; but was too polite to give
his thoughts vent. Nor was it necessary; Miss Somerset, whose brave
eyes never left the person she was speaking to, fired up at the smile
alone, and she burst into a torrent of remonstrance, not to say
vituperation. Sir Charles endeavored once or twice to stop it, but it
was not to be stopped; so at last he quietly took up his hat, to go.

He was arrested at the door by a rustle and a fall. He turned round,
and there was Miss Somerset lying on her back, grinding her white teeth
and clutching the air.

He ran to the bell and rang it violently, then knelt down and did his
best to keep her from hurting herself; but, as generally happens in
these cases, his interference made her more violent. He had hard work
to keep her from battering her head against the floor, and her arms
worked like windmills.

Hearing the bell tugged so violently, a pretty page ran headlong into
the room--saw--and; without an instant's diminution of speed, described
a curve, and ran headlong out, screaming "Polly! Polly!"

The next moment the housekeeper, an elderly woman, trotted in at the
door, saw her mistress's condition, and stood stock-still, calling,
"Polly," but with the most perfect tranquillity the mind can conceive.

In ran a strapping house-maid, with black eyes and brown arms, went
down on her knees, and said, firmly though respectfully, "Give her me,
sir."

She got behind her struggling mistress, pulled her up into her own lap,
and pinned her by the wrists with a vigorous grasp.

The lady struggled, and ground her teeth audibly, and flung her arms
abroad. The maid applied all her rustic strength and harder muscle to
hold her within bounds. The four arms went to and fro in a magnificent
struggle, and neither could the maid hold the mistress still, nor the
mistress shake off the maid's grasp, nor strike anything to hurt
herself.

Sir Charles, thrust out of the play looked on with pity and anxiety,
and the little page at the door--combining art and nature--stuck
stock-still in a military attitude, and blubbered aloud.

As for the housekeeper, she remained in the middle of the room with
folded arms, and looked down on the struggle with a singular expression
of countenance. There was no agitation whatever, but a sort of
thoughtful examination, half cynical, half admiring.

However, as soon as the boy's sobs reached her ear she wakened up, and
said, tenderly, "What is the child crying for? Run and get a basin of
water, and fling it all over her; that will bring her to in a minute."

The page departed swiftly on this benevolent errand.

Then the lady gave a deep sigh, and ceased to struggle.

Next she stared in all their faces, and seemed to return to
consciousness.

Next she spoke, but very feebly. "Help me up," she sighed.

Sir Charles and Polly raised her, and now there was a marvelous change.
The vigorous vixen was utterly weak, and limp as a wet towel--a woman
of jelly. As such they handled her, and deposited her gingerly on the
sofa.

Now the page ran in hastily with the water. Up jumps the poor lax
sufferer, with flashing eyes: "You dare come near me with it!" Then to
the female servants: "Call yourselves women, and water my lilac silk,
not two hours old?" Then to the housekeeper: "You old monster, you
wanted it for your Polly. Get out of my sight, _the lot!"_

Then, suddenly remembering how feeble she was, she sank instantly down,
and turned piteously and languidly to Sir Charles. "They eat my bread,
and rob me, and hate me," said she, faintly. "I have but one friend on
earth." She leaned tenderly toward Sir Charles as that friend; but
before she quite reached him she started back, her eyes filled with
sudden horror. "And he forsakes me!" she cried; and so turned away from
him despairingly, and began to cry bitterly, with head averted over the
sofa, and one hand hanging by her side for Sir Charles to take and
comfort her. He tried to take it. It resisted; and, under cover of that
little disturbance, the other hand dexterously whipped two pins out of
her hair. The long brown tresses--all her own--fell over her eyes and
down to her waist, and the picture of distressed beauty was complete.

Even so did the women of antiquity conquer male pity--_"solutis
crinibus."_

The females interchanged a meaning glance, and retired; then the boy
followed them with his basin, sore perplexed, but learning life in this
admirable school.

Sir Charles then, with the utmost kindness, endeavored to reconcile the
weeping and disheveled fair to that separation which circumstances
rendered necessary. But she was inconsolable, and he left the house,
perplexed and grieved; not but what it gratified his vanity a little to
find himself beloved all in a moment, and the Somerset unvixened. He
could not help thinking how wide must be the circle of his charms,
which had won the affections of two beautiful women so opposite in
character as Bella Bruce and La Somerset.

The passion of this latter seemed to grow. She wrote to him every day,
and begged him to call on her.

She called on him--she who had never called on a man before.

She raged with jealousy; she melted with grief. She played on him with
all a woman's artillery; and at last actually wrung from him what she
called a reprieve.

Richard Bassett called on her, but she would not receive him; so then
he wrote to her, urging co-operation, and she replied, frankly, that
she took no interest in his affairs; but that she was devoted to Sir
Charles, and should keep him for herself. Vanity tempted her to add
that he (Sir Charles) was with her every day, and the wedding
postponed.

This last seemed too good to be true, so Richard Bassett set his
servant to talk to the servants in Portman Square. He learned that the
wedding was now to be on the 15th of June, instead of the 31st of May.

Convinced that this postponement was only a blind, and that the
marriage would never be, he breathed more freely at the news.

But the fact is, although Sir Charles had yielded so far to dread of
scandal, he was ashamed of himself, and his shame became remorse when
he detected a furtive tear in the dove-like eyes of her he really loved
and esteemed.

He went and told his trouble to Mr. Oldfield. "I am afraid she will do
something desperate," he said.

Mr. Oldfield heard him out, and then asked him had he told Miss
Somerset what he was going to settle on her.

"Not I. She is not in a condition to be influenced by that, at
present."

"Let me try her. The draft is ready. I'll call on her to-morrow." He
did call, and was told she did not know him.

"You tell her I am a lawyer, and it is very much to her interest to see
me," said Mr. Oldfield to the page.

He was admitted, but not to a _tete-a-tete._ Polly was kept in the
room. The Somerset had peeped, and Oldfield was an old fellow, with
white hair; if he had been a young fellow, with black hair, she might
have thought that precaution less necessary.

"First, madam," said Oldfield, "I must beg you to accept my apologies
for not coming sooner. Press of business, etc."

"Why have you come at all? That is the question," inquired the lady,
bluntly.

"I bring the draft of a deed for your approval. Shall I read it to
you?"

"Yes; if it is not very long." He began to read it. The lady
interrupted him characteristically.

"It's a beastly rigmarole. What does it mean--in three words?"

"Sir Charles Bassett secures to Rhoda Somerset four hundred pounds a
year, while single; this is reduced to two hundred if you marry. The
deed further assigns to you, without reserve, the beneficial lease of
this house, and all the furniture and effects, plate, linen, wine,
etc."

"I see--a bribe."

"Nothing of the kind, madam. When Sir Charles instructed me to prepare
this deed he expected no opposition on your part to his marriage; but
he thought it due to him and to yourself to mark his esteem for you,
and his recollection of the pleasant hours he has spent in your
company."

Miss Somerset's eyes searched the lawyer's face. He stood the battery
unflinchingly. She altered her tone, and asked, politely and almost
respectfully, whether she might see that paper.

Mr. Oldfield gave it her. She took it, and ran her eye over it; in
doing which, she raised it so that she could think behind it
unobserved. She handed it back at last, with the remark that Sir
Charles was a gentleman and had done the right thing.

"He has; and you will do the right thing too, will you not?"

"I don't know. I am just beginning to fall in love with him myself."

"Jealousy, madam, not love," said the old lawyer. "Come, now! I see you
are a young lady of rare good sense; look the thing in the face: Sir
Charles is a landed gentleman; he must marry, and, have heirs. He is
over thirty, and his time has come. He has shown himself your friend;
why not be his? He has given you the means to marry a gentleman of
moderate income, or to marry beneath you, if you prefer it--"

"And most of us do--"

"Then why not make his path smooth? Why distress him with your tears
and remonstrances?"

He continued in this strain for some time, appealing to her good sense
and her better feelings.

When he had done she said, very quietly, "How about the ponies and my
brown mare? Are they down in the deed?"

"I think not; but if you will do your part handsomely I'll guarantee
you shall have them."

"You are a good soul." Then, after a pause, "Now just you tell me
exactly what you want me to do for all this."

Oldfield was pleased with this question. He said, "I wish you to
abstain from writing to Sir Charles, and him to visit you only once
more before his marriage, just to shake hands and part, with mutual
friendship and good wishes."

"You are right," said she, softly; "best for us both, and only fair to
the girl." Then, with sudden and eager curiosity, "Is she very pretty?"

"I don't know."

"What, hasn't he told you?"

"He says she is lovely, and every way adorable; but then he is in love.
The chances are she is not half so handsome as yourself."

"And yet he is in love with her?"

"Over head and ears."

"I don't believe it. If he was really in love with one woman he
couldn't be just to another. _I_ couldn't. He'll be coming back to me
in a few months."

"God forbid!"

"Thank you, old gentleman."

Mr. Oldfield began to stammer excuses. She interrupted him: "Oh, bother
all that; I like you none the worse for speaking your mind." Then,
after a pause, "Now excuse me; but suppose Sir Charles should change
his mind, and never sign this paper?"

"I pledge my professional credit."

"That is enough, sir; I see I can trust you. Well, then, I consent to
break off with Sir Charles, and only see him once more--as a friend.
Poor Sir Charles! I hope he will be happy" (she squeezed out a tear for
him)--"happier than I am. And when he does come he can sign the deed,
you know."

Mr. Oldfield left her, and joined Sir Charles at Long's, as had been
previously agreed.

"It is all right, Sir Charles; she is a sensible girl, and will give
you no further trouble."

"How did you get over the hysterics?"

"We dispensed with them. She saw at once it was to be business, not
sentiment. You are to pay her one more visit, to sign, and part
friends. If you please, I'll make that appointment with both parties,
as soon as the deed is engrossed. Oh, by-the-by, she did shed a tear or
two, but she dried them to ask me for the ponies and the brown mare."

Sir Charles's vanity was mortified. But he laughed it off, and said she
should have them, of course.

So now his mind was at ease, his conscience was at rest, and he could
give his whole time where he had given his heart.

Richard Bassett learned, through his servant, that the wedding-dresses
were ordered. He called on Miss Somerset. She was out.

Polly opened the door and gave him a look of admiration--due to his
fresh color--that encouraged him to try and enlist her in his service.

He questioned her, and she told him in a general way how matters were
going. "But," said she, "why not come and talk to her yourself? Ten to
one but she tells you. She is pretty outspoken."

"My pretty dear," said Richard, "she never will receive me."

"Oh, but I'll make her!" said Polly.

And she did exert her influence as follows:

"Lookee here, the cousin's a-coming to-morrow and I've been and
promised he should see you."

"What did you do that for?"

"Why, he's a well-looking chap, and a beautiful color, fresh from the
country, like me. And he's a gentleman, and got an estate belike; and
why not put yourn to hisn, and so marry him and be a lady? You might
have me about ye all the same, till my turn comes."

"No, no," said Rhoda; "that's not the man for me. If ever I marry, it
must be one of my own sort, or else a fool, like Marsh, that I can make
a slave of."

"Well, any way, you must see him, not to make a fool of _me,_ for I did
promise him; which, now I think on't, 'twas very good of me, for I
could find in my heart to ask him down into the kitchen, instead of
bringing him upstairs to you."

All this ended, somehow, in Mr. Bassett's being admitted.

To his anxious inquiry how matters stood, she replied coolly that Sir
Charles and herself were parted by mutual consent.

"What! after all your protestations?" said Bassett, bitterly.

But Miss Somerset was not in an irascible humor just then. She shrugged
her shoulders, and said:

"Yes, I remember I put myself in a passion, and said some ridiculous
things. But one can't be always a fool. I have come to my senses. This
sort of thing always does end, you know. Most of them part enemies, but
he and I part friends and well-wishers."

"And you throw _me_ over as if I was nobody," said Richard, white with
anger.

"Why, what are you to me?" said the Somerset. "Oh, I see. You thought
to make a cat's-paw of me. Well, you won't, then."

"In other words, you have been bought off."

"No, I have not. I am not to be bought by anybody--and I am not to be
insulted by you, you ruffian! How dare you come here and affront a lady
in her own house--a lady whose shoestrings your betters are ready to
tie, you brute? If you want to be a landed proprietor, go and marry
some ugly old hag that's got it, and no eyesight left to see you're no
gentleman. Sir Charles's land you'll never have; a better man has got
it, and means to keep it for him and his. Here, Polly! Polly! Polly!
take this man down to the kitchen, and teach him manners if you can: he
is not fit for my drawing-room, by a long chalk."

Polly arrived in time to see the flashing eyes, the swelling veins, and
to hear the fair orator's peroration.

"What, you are in your tantrums again!" said she. "Come along, sir.
Needs must when the devil drives. You'll break a blood-vessel some day,
my lady, like your father afore ye."

And with this homely suggestion, which always sobered Miss Somerset,
and, indeed, frightened her out of her wits, she withdrew the offender.
She did not take him into the kitchen, but into the dining-room, and
there he had a long talk with her, and gave her a sovereign.

She promised to inform him if anything important should occur.

He went away, pondering and scowling deeply.


CHAPTER IV.

SIR CHARLES BASSETT was now living in Elysium. Never was rake more
thoroughly transformed. Every day he sat for hours at the feet of Bella
Bruce, admiring her soft, feminine ways and virgin modesty even more
than her beauty. And her visible blush whenever he appeared suddenly,
and the soft commotion and yielding in her lovely frame whenever he
drew near, betrayed his magnetic influence, and told all but the blind
she adored him.

She would decline all invitations to dine with him and her father--a
strong-minded old admiral, whose authority was unbounded, only, to
Bella's regret, very rarely exerted. Nothing would have pleased her
more than to be forbidden this and commanded that; but no! the admiral
was a lion with an enormous paw, only he could not be got to put it
into every pie.

In this charming society the hours glided, and the wedding-day drew
close. So deeply and sincerely was Sir Charles in love that when Mr.
Oldfield's letter came, appointing the day and hour to sign Miss
Somerset's deed, he was unwilling to go, and wrote back to ask if the
deed could not be sent to his house.

Mr. Oldfield replied that the parties to the deed and the witnesses
must meet, and it would be unadvisable, for several reasons, to
irritate the lady's susceptibility previous to signature; the
appointment having been made at her house, it had better remain so.

That day soon came.

Sir Charles, being due in Mayfair at 2 P.M., compensated himself for
the less agreeable business to come by going earlier than usual to
Portman Square. By this means he caught Miss Bruce and two other young
ladies inspecting bridal dresses. Bella blushed and looked ashamed,
and, to the surprise of her friends, sent the dresses away, and set
herself to talk rationally with Sir Charles--as rationally as lovers
can.

The ladies took the cue, and retired in disgust.

Sir Charles apologized.

"This is too bad of me. I come at an unheard-of hour, and frighten away
your fair friends; but the fact is, I have an appointment at two, and I
don't know how long they will keep me, so I thought I would make sure
of two happy hours at the least."

And delightful hours they were. Bella Bruce, excited by this little
surprise, leaned softly on his shoulder, and prattled her maiden love
like some warbling fountain.

Sir Charles, transfigured by love, answered her in kind--three months
ago he could not--and they compared pretty little plans of wedded life,
and had small differences, and ended by agreeing.

Complete and prompt accord upon two points: first, they would not have
a single quarrel, like other people; their love should never lose its
delicate bloom; second, they would grow old together, and die the same
day--the same minute if possible; if not, they must be content with the
same day, but, on that, inexorable.

But soon after this came a skirmish. Each wanted to obey t'other.

Sir Charles argued that Bella was better than he, and therefore more
fit to conduct the pair.

Bella, who thought him divinely good, pounced on this reason furiously.
He defended it. He admitted, with exemplary candor, that he was good
now--"awfully good." But he assured her that he had been anything but
good until he knew her; now she had been always good; therefore, he
argued, as his goodness came originally from her, for her to obey him
would be a little too much like the moon commanding the sun.

"That is too ingenious for me, Charles," said Bella. "And, for shame!
Nobody was ever so good as you are. I look up to you and--Now I could
stop your mouth in a minute. I have only to remind you that I shall
swear at the altar to obey you, and you will not swear to obey me. But
I will not crush you under the Prayer-book--no, dearest; but, indeed,
to obey is a want of my nature, and I marry you to supply that want:
and that's a story, for I marry you because I love and honor and
worship and adore you to distraction, my own--own--own!" With this she
flung herself passionately, yet modestly on his shoulder, and, being
there, murmured, coaxingly, "You will let me obey you, Charles?"

Thereupon Sir Charles felt highly gelatinous, and lost, for the moment,
all power of resistance or argument.

"Ah, you will; and then you will remind me of my dear mother. She knew
how to command; but as for poor dear papa, he is very disappointing. In
selecting an admiral for my parent, I made sure of being ordered about.
Instead of that--now I'll show you--there he is in the next room,
inventing a new system of signals, poor dear--"

She threw the folding-doors open.

"Papa dear, shall I ask Charles to dinner to-day?"

"As you please, my dear."

"Do you think I had better walk or ride this afternoon?"

"Whichever you prefer."

"There," said Bella, "I told you so. That is always the way. Papa dear,
you used always to be firing guns at sea. Do, please, fire one in this
house--just one--before I leave it, and make the very windows rattle."

"I beg your pardon, Bella; I never wasted powder at sea. If the convoy
sailed well and steered right I never barked at them. You are a modest,
sensible girl, and have always steered a good course. Why should I
hoist a petticoat and play the small tyrant? Wait till I see you going
to do something wrong or silly."

"Ah! then you _would_ fire a gun, papa?"

"Ay, a broadside."

"Well, that is something," said Bella, as she closed the door softly.

"No, no; it amounts to just nothing," said Sir Charles; "for you never
will do anything wrong or silly. I'll accommodate you. I have thought
of a way. I shall give you some blank cards; you shall write on them,
'I think I should like to do so and so.' You shall be careless, and
leave them about; I'll find them, and bluster, and say, 'I command you
to do so and so, Bella Bassett'--the very thing on the card, you know."

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