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A Terrible Temptation

C >> Charles Reade >> A Terrible Temptation




He made one stipulation, however. She really must learn to read and
write first.

When he had sworn this Mary became more uniformly affectionate; and as
women who have been in service learn great self-government, and can
generally please so long as it serves their turn, she made herself so
agreeable to him that he began really to have a downright liking for
her--a liking bounded, of course, by his incurable selfishness; but as
for his hobby, that was on her side.

Now learning to read and write was wormwood to Mary Wells; but the
prize was so great; she knew all about the Huntercombe estates, partly
from her sister, partly from Bassett himself. (He must tell his wrongs
even to this girl.) So she resolved to pursue matrimony, even on the
severe condition of becoming a scholar. She set about it as follows:
One day that she was doing Lady Bassett's hair she sighed several
times. This was to attract the lady's attention, and it succeeded.

"Is there anything the matter, Mary?"

"No, my lady."

"I think there is."

"Well, my lady, I am in a little trouble; but it is my own people's
fault for not sending of me to school. I might be married to-morrow if
I could only read and write."

"And can you not?"

"No, my lady."

"Dear me! I thought everybody could read and write nowadays."

"La, no, my lady! not half of them in our village."

"Your parents are much to blame, my poor girl. Well, but it is not too
late. Now I think of it, there is an adult school in the village. Shall
I arrange for you to go to it?"

"Thank you, my lady. But then--"

"Well?"

"All my fellow-servants would have a laugh against me."

"The person you are engaged to, will he not instruct you?"

"Oh, he have no time to teach me. Besides, I don't want him to know,
either. But I won't be his wife to shame him." (Another sigh.)

"Mary," said Lady Bassett, in the innocence of her heart, "you shall
not be mortified, and you shall not lose a good marriage. I will try
and teach you myself."

Mary was profuse in thanks. Lady Bassett received them rather coldly.
She gave her a few minutes' instruction in her dressing-room every day;
and Mary, who could not have done anything intellectual for half an
hour at a stretch, gave her whole mind for those few minutes. She was
quick, and learned very fast. In two months she could read a great deal
more than she could understand, and could write slowly but very
clearly.

Now by this time Lady Bassett had become so interested in her pupil
that she made her read letters and newspapers to her at those parts of
the toilet when her services were not required.

Mary Wells, though a great chatterbox, was the closest girl in England.
Limpet never stuck to a rock as she could stick to a lie. She never
said one word to Bassett about Lady Bassett's lessons. She kept strict
silence till she could write a letter, and then she sent him a line to
say she had learned to write for love of him, and she hoped he would
keep his promise.

Bassett's vanity was flattered by this. But, on reflection, he
suspected it was a falsehood. He asked her suddenly, at their next
meeting, who had written that note for her.

"You shall see me write the fellow to it when you like," was the reply.

Bassett resolved to submit the matter to that test some day. At
present, however, he took her word for it, and asked her who had taught
her.

"I had to teach myself. Nobody cares enough for me to teach me. Well,
I'll forgive you if you will write me a nice letter for mine."

"What! when we can meet here and say everything?"

"No matter; I have written to you, and you might write to me. They all
get letters, except me; and the jades hold 'em up to me: they see I
never get one. When you are out, post me a letter now and then. It will
only cost you a penny. I'm sure I don't ask you for much."

Bassett humored her in this, and in one of his letters called her his
wife that was to be.

This pleased her so much that the next time they met she hung round his
neck with a good deal of feminine grace.

Richard Bassett was a man who now lived in the future. Everybody in the
county believed he had written that anonymous letter, and he had no
hope of shining by his own light. It was bitter to resign his personal
hopes; but he did, and sullenly resolved to be obscure himself, but the
father of the future heirs of Huntercombe. He would marry Mary Wells,
and lay the blame of the match upon Sir Charles, who had blackened him
in the county, and put it out of his power to win a lady's hand.

He told Wheeler he was determined to marry; but he had not the courage
to tell him all at once what a wife he had selected.

The consequence of this half confession was that Wheeler went to work
to find him a girl with money, and not under county influence.

One of Wheeler's clients was a retired citizen, living in a pretty
villa near the market town. Mr. Wright employed him in little matters,
and found him active and attentive. There was a Miss Wright, a meek
little girl, palish, on whom her father doted. Wheeler talked to this
girl of his friend Bassett, his virtues and his wrongs, and interested
the young lady in him. This done, he brought him to the house, and the
girl, being slight and delicate, gazed with gentle but undisguised
admiration on Bassett's _torso._ Wheeler had told Richard Miss Wright
was to have seven thousand pounds on her wedding-day, and that excited
a corresponding admiration in the athletic gentleman.

After that Bassett often called by himself, and the father encouraged
the intimacy. He was old, and wished to see his daughter married before
he left her and this seemed an eligible match, though not a brilliant
one; a bit of land and a good name on one side, a smart bit of money on
the other. The thing went on wheels. Richard Bassett was engaged to
Jane Wright almost before he was aware.

Now he felt uneasy about Mary Wells, very uneasy; but it was only the
uneasiness of selfishness.

He began to try and prepare; he affected business visits to distant
places, etc., in order to break off by degrees. By this means their
meetings were comparatively few. When they did meet (which was now
generally by written appointment), he tried to prepare by telling her
he had encountered losses, and feared that to marry her would be a bad
job for her as well as for him, especially if she should have children.

Mary replied she had been used to work, and would rather work for a
husband than any other master.

On another occasion she asked him quietly whether a gentleman ever
broke his oath.

"Never," said Richard.

In short, she gave him no opening. She would not quarrel. She adhered
to him as she had never adhered to anything but a lie before.

Then he gave up all hope of smoothing the matter. He coolly cut her;
never came to the trysting-place; did not answer her letters; and,
being a reckless egotist, married Jane Wright all in a hurry, by
special license.

He sent forward to the clerk of Huntercombe church, and engaged the
ringers to ring the church-bells from six o'clock till sundown. This
was for Sir Charles's ears.

It was a balmy evening in May. Lady Bassett was commencing her toilet
in an indolent way, with Mary Wells in attendance, when the
church-bells of Huntercombe struck up a merry peal.

"Ah!" said Lady Bassett; "what is that for? Do you know, Mary?"

"No, my lady. Shall I ask?"

"No; I dare say it is a village wedding."

"No, my lady, there's nobody been married here this six weeks. Our
kitchen-maid and the baker was the last, you know. I'll send, and know
what it is for." Mary went out and dispatched the first house-maid she
caught for intelligence. The girl ran into the stable to her
sweetheart, and he told her directly.

Meantime Lady Bassett moralized upon church-bells.

"They are always sad--saddest when they seem to be merriest. Poor
things! they are trying hard to be merry now; but they sound very sad
to me--sadder than usual, somehow."



The girl knocked at the door. Mary half opened it, and the news shot
in--"'Tis for Squire Bassett; he is bringing of his bride home to
Highmore to-day."

"Mr. Bassett--married--that is sudden. Who could he find to marry him?"
There was no reply. The house-maid had flown off to circulate the news,
and Mary Wells was supporting herself by clutching the door, sick with
the sudden blow.

Close as she was, her distress could not have escaped another woman's
eye, but Lady Bassett never looked at her. After the first surprise she
had gone into a reverie, and was conjuring up the future to the sound
of those church-bells. She requested Mary to go and tell Sir Charles;
but she did not lift her head, even to give this order.

Mary crept away, and knocked at Sir Charles's dressing-room.

"Come in," said Sir Charles, thinking, of course, it was his valet.

Mary Wells just opened the door and held it ajar. "My lady bids me tell
you, sir, the bells are ringing for Mr. Bassett; he's married, and
brings her home tonight."

A dead silence marked the effect of this announcement on Sir Charles.
Mary Wells waited.



"May Heaven's curse light on that marriage, and no child of theirs ever
take my place in this house!"

"A-a-men!" said Mary Wells.

"Thank you, sir!" said Sir Charles. He took her voice for a man's, so
deep and guttural was her "A--a--men" with concentrated passion.

She closed the door and crept back to her mistress.

Lady Bassett was seated at her glass, with her hair down and her
shoulders bare. Mary clinched her teeth, and set about her usual work;
but very soon Lady Bassett gave a start, and stared into the glass.
"Mary!" said she, "what _is_ the matter? You look ghastly, and your
hands are as cold as ice. Are you faint?"

"No."

"Then you are ill; very ill."

"I have taken a chill," said Mary, doggedly.

"Go instantly to the still-room maid, and get a large glass of spirits
and hot water--quite hot."

Mary, who wanted to be out of the room, fastened her mistress's back
hair with dogged patience, and then moved toward the door.

"Mary," said Lady Bassett, in a half-apologetic tone.

"My lady."

"I should like to hear what the bride is like."

"I'll know that to-night," said Mary, grinding her teeth.

"I shall not require you again till bedtime."

Mary left the room, and went, not to the still-room, but to her own
garret, and there she gave way. She flung herself, with a wild cry,
upon her little bed, and clutched her own hair and the bedclothes, and
writhed all about the bed like a wild-cat wounded.

In this anguish she passed an hour she never forgot nor forgave. She
got up at last, and started at her own image in the glass. Hair like a
savage's, cheek pale, eyes blood-shot.

She smoothed her hair, washed her face, and prepared to go downstairs;
but now she was seized with a faintness, and had to sit down and moan.
She got the better of that, and went to the still-room, and got some
spirits; but she drank them neat, gulped them down like water. They
sent the devil into her black eye, but no color into her pale cheek.
She had a little scarlet shawl; she put it over her head, and went into
the village. She found it astir with expectation.

Mr. Bassett's house stood near the highway, but the entrance to the
premises was private, and through a long white gate.

By this gate was a heap of stones, and Mary Wells got on that heap and
waited.

When she had been there about half an hour, Richard Bassett drove up in
a hired carriage, with his pale little wife beside him. At his own gate
his eye encountered Mary Wells, and he started. She stood above him,
with her arms folded grandly; her cheek, so swarthy and ruddy, was now
pale, and her black eyes glittered like basilisks at him and his bride.
The whole woman seemed lifted out of her low condition, and dignified
by wrong.

He had to sustain her look for a few seconds, while the gate was being
opened, and it seemed an age. He felt his first pang of remorse when he
saw that swarthy, ruddy cheek so pale. Then came admiration of her
beauty, and disgust at the woman for whom he had jilted her; and that
gave way to fear: the hater looked into those glittering eyes, and saw
he had roused a hate as unrelenting as his own.


CHAPTER XIII.

FOR the first few days Richard Bassett expected some annoyance from
Mary Wells; but none came, and he began to flatter himself she was too
fond of him to give him pain.

This impression was shaken about ten days after the little scene I have
described. He received a short note from her, as follows:



"SIR--You must meet me to-night, at the same place, eight o'clock. If
you do not come it will be the worse for you.

"M. W."



Richard Bassett's inclination was to treat this summons with contempt;
but he thought it would be wiser to go and see whether the girl had any
hostile intentions. Accordingly he went to the tryst. He waited for
some time, and at last he heard a quick, firm foot, and Mary Wells
appeared. She was hooded with her scarlet shawl, that contrasted
admirably with her coal-black hair; and out of this scarlet frame her
dark eyes glittered. She stood before him in silence.

He said nothing.

She was silent too for some time. But she spoke first.

"Well, sir, you promised one, and you have married another. Now what
are you going to do for me?"

"What _can_ I do, Mary? I'm not the first that wanted to marry for
love, but money came in his way and tempted him."

"No, you are not the first. But that's neither here nor there, sir.
That chalk-faced girl has bought you away from me with her money, and
now I mean to have my share on't."

"Oh, if that is all," said Richard, "we can soon settle it. I was
afraid you were going to talk about a broken heart, and all that stuff.
You are a good, sensible girl; and too beautiful to want a husband
long. I'll give you fifty pounds to forgive me."

"Fifty pounds!" said Mary Wells, contemptuously. "What! when you
promised me I should be your wife to-day, and lady of Huntercombe Hall
by-and-by? Fifty pounds! No; not five fifties."

"Well, I'll give you seventy-five; and if that won't do, you must go to
law, and see what you can get."

"What, han't you had your bellyful of law? Mind, it is an unked thing
to forswear yourself, and that is what you done at the 'sizes. I have
seen what you did swear about your letter to my sister; Sir Charles
have got it all wrote down in his study: and you swore a lie to the
judge, as you swore a lie to me here under heaven, you villain!" She
raised her voice very loud. "Don't you gainsay me, or I'll soon have
you by the heels in jail for your lies. You'll do as I bid you, and
very lucky to be let off so cheap. You was to be my master, but you
chose her instead: well, then, you shall be my servant. You shall come
here every Saturday at eight o'clock, and bring me a sovereign, which I
never could keep a lump o' money, and I have had one or two from Rhoda;
so I'll take it a sovereign a week till I get a husband of my own sort,
and then you'll have to come down handsome once for all."

Bassett knitted his brows and thought hard. His natural impulse was to
defy her; but it struck him that a great many things might happen in a
few months; so at last he said, humbly, "I consent. I have been to
blame. Only I'd rather pay you this money in some other way."

"My way, or none."

"Very well, then, I will bring it you as you say."

"Mind you do, then," said Mary Wells, and turned haughtily on her heel.

Bassett never ventured to absent himself at the hour, and, at first,
the blackmail was delivered and received with scarcely a word; but
by-and-by old habits so far revived that some little conversation took
place.

Then, after a while, Bassett used to tell her he was unhappy, and she
used to reply she was glad of it.

Then he began to speak slightingly of his wife, and say what a fool he
had been to marry a poor, silly nonentity, when be might have wedded a
beauty.

Mary Wells, being intensely vain, listened with complacency to this,
although she replied coldly and harshly.

By-and-by her natural volubility overpowered her, and she talked to
Bassett about herself and Huntercombe House, but always with a secret
reserve.

Later--such is the force of habit--each used to look forward with
satisfaction to the Saturday meeting, although each distrusted and
feared the other at bottom.

Later still that came to pass which Mary Wells had planned from the
first with deep malice, and that shrewd insight into human nature which
many a low woman has--the cooler she was the warmer did Richard Bassett
grow, till at last, contrasting his pale, meek little wife with this
glowing Hebe, he conceived an unholy liking for the latter. She met it
sometimes with coldness and reproaches, sometimes with affected alarm,
sometimes with a half-yielding manner, and so tormented him to her
heart's content, and undermined his affection for his wife. Thus she
revenged herself on them both to her heart's content.

But malice so perverse is apt to recoil on itself; and women, in
particular, should not undertake a long and subtle revenge of this
sort; since the strongest have their hours of weakness, and are
surprised into things they never intended. The subsequent history of
Mary Wells will exemplify this. Meantime, however, meek little Mrs.
Bassett was no match for the beauty and low cunning of her rival.

Yet a time came when she defended herself unconsciously. She did
something that made her husband most solicitous for her welfare and
happiness. He began to watch her health with maternal care, to shield
her from draughts, to take care of her diet, to indulge her in all her
whims instead of snubbing her, and to pet her, till she was the
happiest wife in England for a time. She deserved this at his hands,
for she assisted him there where his heart was fixed; she aided his
hobby; did more for it than any other creature in England could.



To return to Huntercombe Hall: the loving couple that owned it were no
longer happy. The hope of offspring was now deserting them, and the
disappointment was cruel. They suffered deeply, with this
difference--that Lady Bassett pined and Sir Charles Bassett fretted.

The woman's grief was more pure and profound than the man's. If there
had been no Richard Bassett in the world, still her bosom would have
yearned and pined, and the great cry of Nature, "Give me children or I
die," would have been in her heart, though it would never have risen to
her lips.

Sir Charles had, of course, less of this profound instinct than his
wife, but he had it too; only in him the feeling was adulterated and at
the same time imbittered by one less simple and noble. An enemy sat at
his gate. That enemy, whose enduring malice had at last begotten equal
hostility in the childless baronet, was now married, and would probably
have heirs; and, if so, that hateful brood--the spawn of an anonymous
letter-writer--would surely inherit Bassett and Huntercombe, succeeding
to Sir Charles Bassett, deceased without issue. This chafed the
childless man, and gradually undermined a temper habitually sweet,
though subject, as we have seen, to violent ebullitions where the
provocation was intolerable. Sir Charles, then, smarting under his
wound, spoke now and then rather unkindly to the wife he loved so
devotedly; that is to say, his manner sometimes implied that he blamed
her for their joint calamity.

Lady Bassett submitted to these stings in silence. They were rare, and
speedily followed by touching regrets; and even had it not been so she
would have borne them with resignation; for this motherless wife loved
her husband with all a wife's devotion and a mother's unselfish
patience. Let this be remembered to her credit. It is the truth, and
she may need it.

Her own yearning was too deep and sad for fretfulness; yet though,
unlike her husband's, it never broke out in anger, the day was gone by
when she could keep it always silent. It welled out of her at times in
ways that were truly womanly and touching.

When she called on a wife the lady was sure to parade her children. The
boasted tact of women--a quality the narrow compass of which has
escaped their undiscriminating eulogists--was sure to be swept away by
maternal egotism; and then poor Lady Bassett would admire the children
loudly, and kiss them, to please the cruel egotist, and hide the tears
that rose to her own eyes; but she would shorten her visit.

When a child died in the village Mary Wells was sure to be sent with
words of comfort and substantial marks of sympathy.

Scarcely a day passed that something or other did not happen to make
the wound bleed; but I will confine myself to two occasions, on each of
which her heart's agony spoke out, and so revealed how much it must
have endured in silence.

Since the day when Sir Charles allowed her to sit in a little room
close to his study while he received Mr. Wheeler's visit she had fitted
up that room, and often sat there to be near Sir Charles; and he would
sometimes call her in and tell her his justice cases. One day she was
there when the constable brought in a prisoner and several witnesses.
The accused was a stout, florid girl, with plump cheeks and pale gray
eyes. She seemed all health, stupidity, and simplicity. She carried a
child on her left arm. No dweller in cities could suspect this face of
crime. As well indict a calf.

Yet the witnesses proved beyond a doubt that she had been seen with her
baby in the neighborhood of a certain old well on a certain day at
noon; that soon after noon she had been seen on the road without her
baby, and being asked what had become of it, had said she had left it
with her aunt, ten miles off; and that about an hour after that a faint
cry had been heard at the bottom of the old well--it was ninety feet
deep; people had assembled, and a brave farmer's boy had been lowered
in the bight of a cart-rope, and had brought up a dead hen, and a live
child, bleeding at the cheek, having fallen on a heap of fagots at the
bottom of the well; which child was the prisoner's.

Sir Charles had the evidence written down, and then told the accused
she might make a counter-statement if she chose, but it would be wiser
to say nothing at all.

Thereupon the accused dropped him a little short courtesy, looked him
steadily in the face with her pale gray eyes, and delivered herself as
follows:

"If you please, sir, I was a-sitting by th' old well, with baby in my
arms; and I was mortal tired, I was, wi' carring of him; he be uncommon
heavy for his age; and, if you please, sir, he is uncommon resolute;
and while I was so he give a leap right out of my arms and fell down
th' old well. I screams, and runs away to tell my brother's wife, as
lives at top of the hill; but she was gone into North Wood for dry
sticks to light her oven; and when I comes back they had got him out of
the well, and I claims him directly; and the constable said we must
come before you, sir; so here we be."

This she delivered very glibly, without tremulousness, hesitation, or
the shadow of a blush, and dropped another little courtesy at the end
to Sir Charles.

Thereupon he said not one word to her, but committed her for trial, and
gave the farmer's boy a sovereign.

The people were no sooner gone than Lady Bassett came in, with the
tears streaming, and threw herself at her husband's knees. "Oh,
Charles! can such things be? Does God give a child to a woman that has
the heart to kill it, and refuse one to me, who would give my heart's
blood to save a hair of its little head? Oh, what have we done that he
singles us out to be so cruel to us?"

Then Sir Charles tried to comfort her, but could not, and the childless
ones wept together.



It began to be whispered that Mrs. Bassett was in the family way.
Neither Sir Charles nor Lady Bassett mentioned this rumor. It would
have been like rubbing vitriol into their own wounds. But this reserve
was broken through one day. It was a sunny afternoon in June, just
thirteen months after Mr. Bassett's wedding--Lady Bassett was with her
husband in his study, settling invitations for a ball, and writing
them--when the church-bells struck up a merry peal. They both left off,
and looked at each other eloquently. Lady Bassett went out, but soon
returned, looking pale and wild.

_"Yes!"_ said she, with forced calmness. Then, suddenly losing her
self-command, she broke out, pointing through the window at Highmore,
_"He_ has got a fine boy--to take our place here. Kill me, Charles!
Send me to heaven to pray for you, and take another wife that will love
you less but be like other wives. That villain has married a fruitful
vine, and" (lifting both arms to heaven, with a gesture unspeakably
piteous, poetic, and touching) "I am a barren stock."


CHAPTER XIV.

OF all the fools Nature produces with the help of Society, fathers of
first-borns are about the most offensive.

The mothers of ditto are bores too, flinging their human dumplings at
every head; but, considering the tortures they have suffered, and the
anguish the little egotistical viper they have just hatched will most
likely give them, and considering further that their love of their
firstborn is greater than their pride, and their pride unstained by
vanity, one must make allowances for them.

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