A Terrible Temptation: A Story of To-Day Part 45

He made both mistress and maid eat the thin slices of beef and drink a gla.s.s of champagne.

While they were thus fortifying themselves he wrote his address on some stamped envelopes, and gave them to Lady Ba.s.sett, and told her she had better write to him at once if anything occurred. "You must also write to me if you really cannot get to see your husband. Then I will come down myself, with the public press at my back. But I am sure that will not be necessary in Dr. Suaby's asylum. He is a better Christian than I am, confound him for it! You went too soon; your husband had been agitated by the capture; Suaby was away; Salter had probably applied what he imagined to be soothing remedies, leeches--a blister--morphia.

Result, the patient was so much worse than he was before they touched him that Salter was ashamed to let you see him. Having really excited him, instead of soothing him, Sawbones Salter had to pretend that _you_ would excite him. As if creation contained any mineral, drug simple, leech, Spanish fly, gadfly, or showerbath, so soothing as a loving wife is to a man in affliction. New reading of an old song:

'If the heart of a man is oppressed with cares, It makes him much worse when a woman appears.'

"Go to-morrow; you will see him. He will be worse than he was; but not much. Somebody will have told him that his wife put him in there--"

"Oh! oh!"

"And he won't have believed it. His father was a Ba.s.sett; his mother a Le Compton; his great-great-great-grandmother was a Rolfe: there is no cur's blood in him. After the first shock he will have found the spirit and dignity of a gentleman to sustain adversity: these men of fas.h.i.+on are like that; they are better steel than women--and writers."

When he had said this he indicated by his manner that he thought he had exhausted the subject, and himself.

Lady Ba.s.sett rose and said, "Then, sir, I will take my leave; and oh! I am sorry I have not your eloquent pen or your eloquent tongue to thank you. You have interested yourself in a stranger--you have brought the power of a great mind to bear on our distress. I came here a widow--now I feel a wife again. Your good words have warmed my very heart. I can only pray G.o.d to bless you, sir."

"Pray say no more, madam," said Mr. Rolfe, hastily. "A gentleman cannot be always writing lies; an hour or two given to truth and justice is a wholesome diversion. At all events, don't thank me till my advice has proved worth it."

He rang the bell; the servant came, and showed the way to the street door. Mr. Rolfe followed them to the pa.s.sage only, whence he bowed ceremoniously once more to Lady Ba.s.sett as she went out.

As she pa.s.sed into the street she heard a fearful clatter. It was her counselor tearing back to his interrupted novel like a distracted bullock.

"Well, I don't think much of _he,"_ said Mary Wells.

Lady Ba.s.sett was mute to that, and all the journey home very absorbed and taciturn, impregnated with ideas she could not have invented, but was more able to execute than the inventor. She was absorbed in digesting Rolfe's every word, and fixing his map in her mind, and filling in details to his outline; so small-talk stung her: she gave her companion very short answers, especially when she disparaged Mr.

Rolfe.

"You couldn't get in a word edgeways," said Mary Wells.

"I went to hear wisdom, and not to chatter."

"He doesn't think small beer of hisself, anyhow."

"How _can_ he, and see other men?"

"Well. I don't think much of him, for my part."

"I dare say the Queen of Sheba's lady's-maid thought Solomon a silly thing."

"I don't know; that was afore my time" (rather pertly).

"Of course it was, or you couldn't imitate her."

On reaching home she ordered a light dinner upstairs, and sent directions to the coachman and grooms.

At nine next morning the four-in-hand came round, and they started for the asylum--coachman and two more in brave liveries; two outriders.

Twenty miles from Huntercombe they changed the wheelers, two fresh horses having been sent on at night.

They drove in at the lodge-gate of Bellevue House, which was left ostentatiously open, and soon drew up at the hall door, and set many a pale face peeping from the upper windows.

The door opened; the respectable servant came out with a respectful air.

"Is Mr. Salter at home, sir?"

"No, madam. Mr. Coyne is in charge to-day."

Lady Ba.s.sett was glad to hear that, and asked if she might be allowed to see Mr. Coyne.

"Certainly, madam. I'll tell him at once," was the reply.

Determined to enter the place, Lady Ba.s.sett requested her people to open the carriage door, and she was in the act of getting out when Mr.

Coyne appeared, a little oily, bustling man, with a good-humored, vulgar face, liable to a subservient pucker; he wore it directly at sight of a fine woman, fine clothes, fine footmen, and fine horses.

"Mr. Coyne, I believe," said Lady Ba.s.sett, with a fascinating smile.

"At your service, madam."

"May I have a word in private with you, sir?"

"Certainly, madam."

"We have come a long way. May the horses be fed?"

"I am afraid," said the little man, apologetically, "I must ask you to send them to the inn. It is close by."

"By all means." (To one of the outriders:) "You will wait here for orders."

Mary Wells had been already instructed to wait in the hall and look out sharp for Sir Charles's keeper and nurse, and tell them her ladys.h.i.+p wanted to speak to them privately, and it would be money in their way.

Lady Ba.s.sett, closeted with Mr. Coyne, began first to congratulate herself. "Mr. Ba.s.sett," said she, "is no friend of mine, but he has done me a kindness in sending Sir Charles here, when he might have sent him to some place where he might have been made worse instead of better. Here, I conclude, gentlemen of your ability will soon cure his trifling disorder, will you not?"

"I have good hopes, your ladys.h.i.+p; he is better to-day."

"Now I dare say you could tell me to a month when he will be cured."

"Oh, your ladys.h.i.+p exaggerates my skill too much."

"Three months?"

"That is a short time to give us; but your ladys.h.i.+p may rely on it we will do our best."

"Will you? Then I have no fear of the result. Oh, by-the-by, Dr. Willis wanted me to take a message to you, Mr. Coyne. He knows you by reputation."

"Indeed! Really I was not aware that my humble--"

"Then you are better known than you in your modesty supposed. Let me see: what was the message? Oh, it was a peculiarity in Sir Charles he wished you to know. Dr. Willis has attended him from a boy, and he wished me to tell you that morphia and other sedatives have some very bad effects on him. I told Dr. Willis you would probably find that and every thing else out without a hint from him or any one else."

"Yes; but I will make a note of it, for all that."