Charles Reade

“ Said Bassett, “Will you admit that it is uncommon?”
“Not so uncommon as for a high-bred lady, living in the country, and adored by her husband, to trifle with her marriage vow, for that is what you are driving at.”
“Then we have to decide between two improbabilities: will you grant me that, Mr. Wheeler?”
“Yes.”
“Then suppose I can prove fact upon fact, and coincidence upon coincidence, all tending one way! Are you so prejudiced that nothing will convince you?”
“No. But it will take a great deal: that lady's face is full of purity, and she fought us like one who loved her husband.” ”

“ Bella, now I can understand two enemies meeting alone in some solitary place, and one killing the other in a moment of rage; for when this scoundrel insulted me I remembered his anonymous letter, and all his relentless malice. Bella, I could have raised my gun and shot him like a weasel.”
Lady Bassett screamed faintly, and flung her arms round his neck. “Oh, Charles, pray to God against such thoughts. You shall never go near that man again. Don't think of our one disappointment: think of all the blessings we enjoy. Never mind that wretched man's hate. Think of your wife's love. ”

“ Wheeler was startled at the change in his appearance. He was pale, and his countenance fallen.
“Why, what is the matter?” said Wheeler.
“She has done us. Ah, I was wiser than you; I feared her. It is the same thing over again; a woman against two children. This shows how strong she is; you can't realize what she has done—even when you see it. An heir was wanted to those estates. Love cried out for one. Hate cried out for one. Nature denied one. She has cut the Gordian knot; cut it as boldly as the lowest woman in Huntercombe would have cut it under such a terrible temptation.” ”

“ But when all was quiet, and everybody else was in bed, Lady Bassett plucked up courage and said, “Charles, I am not quite happy. There is one thing wanting.” And then she hid her face in her hands and blushed. “I cannot nurse him.”
“Never mind,” said Sir Charles kindly.
“You forgive me?”
“Forgive you, my poor girl! Why, is that a crime?”
“It leads to so many things. You don't know what a plague a nurse is, and makes one jealous.”
“Well, but it is only for a time. Come, Bella, this is a little peevish. Don't let us be ungrateful to Heaven. ”

“ A grateful look from Ruperta's glorious eyes repaid the speaker.
“But,” said Lady Bassett, tenderly, “it is something to have two mothers when you marry, instead of one; and you would have two, my love; I would try and live for you.”
This touched Ruperta to the heart; she curled round Lady Bassett's neck, and they kissed each other like mother and daughter.
“This is too great a temptation,” said Ruperta. “Yes; I will engage myself to Cousin Compton, if papa's consent can be obtained. Without his consent I could not marry any one.” ”

“ Mary Wells looked at her with black eyes that flashed triumph.
After so surveying her for some time she said: “I have been at him again, and there's a change for the better already. He is not the same man. You go and see else.”
Lady Bassett now obeyed her servant: she rose and crept like a culprit into Sir Charles's room. She found him clean shaved, dressed to perfection, and looking more cheerful than she had seen him for many a long day. “Ah, Bella,” said he, “you have your bonnet on; let us have a walk in the garden.” ”

“ SIR CHARLES was behind his time in Mayfair; but the lawyer and his clerk had not arrived, and Miss Somerset was not visible.
She appeared, however, at last, in a superb silk dress, the broad luster of which would have been beautiful, only the effect was broken and frittered away by six rows of gimp and fringe. But why blame her? This is a blunder in art as universal as it is amazing, when one considers the amount of apparent thought her sex devotes to dress. They might just as well score a fair plot of velvet turf with rows of box, or tattoo a blooming and downy cheek. ”

“ Such a stroke fell on Richard Bassett: he saw Bella Bruce sweep past him, clinging to her husband, and shuddering at himself. For this, then, he had plotted and intrigued and written an anonymous letter. The only woman he had ever loved at all went past him with a look of aversion, and was his enemy's wife, and would soon be the mother of that enemy's children, and blot him forever out of the coveted inheritance. ”

“ Before they left the room, Sir Charles, who was now master of himself, said, with deep feeling, “My poor boy, you can never be a stranger to me. The affection of years cannot be untied in a moment. You see now how folly glides into crime, and crime into punishment. Take this to heart, and never again stray from the paths of honor. Lead an honorable life; and, if you do, write to me as if I was still your father.”
They retired, but Richard Bassett lingered, and hung his head. ”

“ As for the child himself, his lot was a happy one, if we could but see what the world is really worth. He was always a bright child, that never cried, nor complained: his first trouble was his last; one day's pain, then bliss eternal: he never got poisoned by his father's spirit of hate, but loved and was beloved during his little lifetime; and, dying, he passed from his Noah's ark to an inheritance a thousand times richer than Huntercombe, Bassett, and all his cousin's lands. ”

“ Her cheek was pale, her black eyes large, and her mellow voice had a magic power. “You don't know what you are doing!” she cried. “Go no farther, or you will all curse the hand that harmed a hair of his head; you, most of all, Richard Bassett.”
Sir Charles, in any other case, would have sent her out of the room; but, in his misery, he caught at the straw.
“Speak out, woman,” he said, “and save the wretched boy, if you can. I see no way.”
“There are things it is not fit to speak before all the world. Bid those men go, and I'll open your eyes that stay.” ”

“ Lady Bassett'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.” ”

“ On receiving this broadside the Somerset altered her tone directly, and said, obsequiously: “That is true, sir, and I beg your pardon for comparing you to the trash. But brave men are pitiful, you know. Then show your pity here. Pity a gentleman that repented his faults as soon as your daughter showed him there was a better love within reach, and now lies stung by an anonymous viper, and almost dying of love and mortification; and pity your own girl, that will soon lose her health, and perhaps her life, if you don't give in.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Don't you see that the lover will never really help her to get the husband out of confinement? It is not in the nature of things. He may struggle with his own conscience a bit, being a clergyman, but he won't go too far; he won't break the law to get Sir Charles home, and so end these charming duets with his lady-love.”
“By Jove, you are right!” cried Bassett, convinced in his turn. “I say, old fellow, two heads are better than one. I think we have got the clew, between us. Yes, by Heaven! it is so; for the carriage used to be out twice a week, but now she only goes about once in ten days. ”

“ But the lady's calm infallible eye saw a cunning twinkle in those black twinkling orbs. Young as he was, he was on his guard, and waiting for her. Nor was this surprising: Reginald, naturally intelligent, had accumulated a large stock of low cunning in his travels and adventures with the gypsies, a smooth and cunning people. Lady Bassett's fainting upon his return, his exclusion from her room, and one or two minor circumstances, had set him thinking. ”

“ Says the proud mother, “You might tell Lady Bassett you think it is your mission to reunite your father and Sir Charles.”
“Mamma!” said Ruperta, reproachfully. That was to stop her mouth. “If you tell all the wild things I say to you, her ladyship will think me very presumptuous.”
“No, no,” said Lady Bassett, “enthusiasm is not presumption. Enthusiasm is beautiful, and the brightest flower of youth.”
“I am glad you think so, Lady Bassett; for people who have no enthusiasm seem very hard and mean to me.” ”

“ 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 Bassett turned on him like a giant, and swept him away. ”

“ Was it not poetical of a wounded, fevered boy to beg to be laid by the window, and to say 'Let me drink the moonshine?' Take down your Homer, and read a thousand lines haphazard, and see whether you stumble over a thought more poetical than that. But criticism does not exist: whatever the dead said was good; whatever the living say is little; as if the dead were a race apart, and had never been the living, and the living would never be the dead.”
Heaven knows where he was running to now, but Sir Charles stopped him by conceding that point. ”

“ How do they mean to manage in Heaven? When the baronet comes to that happy place, where all is love, will the squire walk out? Or do they think to quarrel there, and so get turned out, both of them? I don't wonder at your smiling; but it is a serious consideration, for all that. The soul of man is immortal: and what is the soul? it is not a substantial thing, like the body; it is a bundle of thoughts and feelings: the thoughts we die with in this world, we shall wake up with them in the next. Yet here are two Christians loading their immortal souls with immortal hate. ”

“ Forgive me keeping it, Lady Bassett—I know I was little better than a thief; but it was only a tippet to you, and to me it was much more. Ah! Lady Bassett, I have loved your darling boy ever since; you can't wonder, you are a mother;” and, turning suddenly on Ruperta, “why do you keep saying he is only a boy? If he was man enough to do that at seven years of age, he must have a manly heart. No; I couldn't bear the sight of any other son-in-law; and when you are a mother you'll understand many things, and, for one, you'll—under—stand—why I'm so—fool—ish ”

“ But oh, to stand still, and be good and simple, and to see my husband trampled on by a cunning villain!
“Why is there a future state, where everything is to be different? no hate; no injustice; all love. Why is it not all of a piece? Why begin wrong if it is to end all right? If I was omnipotent it should be right from the first.—Oh, thou of little faith!—Ah, me! it is hard to see fools and devils, and realize angels unseen. ”

“ It was Sir Charles, feeble but convalescent. He crept about on the sunny gravel for about ten minutes, and then his nurses conveyed him tenderly in again.
This sight, which might have touched with pity a more generous nature, startled Richard Bassett, and then moved his bile. “I was a fool,” said he; “nothing will ever kill that man. He will see me out; see us all out. And that Mary Wells nurses him, and I dare say in love with him by this time; the fools can't nurse a man without. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 rode with Sir Charles, and rather liked him; his brother he never noticed, except to tease him. Lady Bassett he admired, and almost loved her while she was in the act of playing him undeniable melodies. But he liked his nurse Meyrick better, on the whole; she flattered him more, and was more uniformly subservient.
With these two exceptions he despised the whole race of women, and affected male society only, especially of grooms, stable-boys, and gypsies; these last welcomed him to their tents, and almost prostrated themselves before him, so dazzled were they by his beauty and his color. ”