Part 66 (1/2)

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

LADY Ba.s.sETT, as her time of trial drew near, became despondent.

She spoke of the future, and tried to pierce it; and in all these little loving speculations and anxieties there was no longer any mention of herself.

This meant that she feared her husband was about to lose her. I put the fear in the very form it took in that gentle breast.

Possessed with this dread, so natural to her situation, she set her house in order, and left her little legacies of clothes and jewels, without the help of a lawyer; for Sir Charles, she knew, would respect her lightest wish.

To him she left her all, except these trifles, and, above all--a ma.n.u.script book. It was the history of her wedded life. Not the bare outward history; but such a record of a sensitive woman's heart as no male writer's pen can approach.

It was the nature of her face and her tongue to conceal; but here, on this paper, she laid bare her heart; here her very subtlety operated, not to hide, but to dissect herself and her motives.

But oh, what it cost her to pen this faithful record of her love, her trials, her doubts, her perplexities, her agonies, her temptations, and her crime! Often she laid down the pen, and hid her face in her hands.

Often the scalding tears ran down that scarlet face. Often she writhed at her desk, and wrote on, sighing and moaning. Yet she persevered to the end. It was the grave that gave her the power. ”When he reads this,” she said, ”I shall be in my tomb. Men make excuses for the dead.

My Charles will forgive me when I am gone. He will know I loved him to desperation.”

It took her many days to write; it was quite a thick quarto; so much may a woman feel in a year or two; and, need I say that, to the reader of that volume, the mystery of her conduct was all made clear as daylight; clearer far, as regards the revelation of mind and feeling, than I, dealer in broad facts, shall ever make it, for want of a woman's mental microscope and delicate brush.

And when this record was finished, she wrapped it in paper, and sealed it with many seals, and wrote on it,

”Only for my husband's eye. From her who loved him not wisely, But too well.”

And she took other means that even the superscription should never be seen of any other eye but his. It was some little comfort to her, when the book was written.

She never prayed to live. But she used to pray, fervently, piteously, that her child might live, and be a comfort and joy to his father.

The person employed by Wheeler discovered the house agent, and the woman he had employed.

But these added nothing to the evidence Ba.s.sett had collected.

At last, however, this woman, under the influence of a promised reward, discovered a person who was likely to know more about the matter--viz., the woman who was in the house with Lady Ba.s.sett at the very time.

But this woman scented gold directly: so she held mysterious language; declined to say a word to the officer; but intimated that she knew a great deal, and that the matter was, in truth, well worth looking into, and she could tell some strange tales, if it was worth her while.

This information was sent to Ba.s.sett; he replied that the woman only wanted money for her intelligence, and he did not blame her; he would see her next time he went to town, and felt sure she would complete his chain of evidence. This put Richard Ba.s.sett into extravagant spirits.

He danced his little boy on his knee, and said, ”I'll run this little horse against the parson's brat; five to one, and no takers.”

Indeed, his exultation was so loud and extravagant that it jarred on gentle Mrs. Ba.s.sett. As for Jessie, the Scotch servant, she shook her head, and said the master was fey.

In the morning he started for London, still so exuberant and excited that the Scotch woman implored her mistress not to let him go; there would be an accident on the railway, or something. But Mrs. Ba.s.sett knew her husband too well to interfere with his journeys.

Before he drove off he demanded his little boy.

”He must kiss me,” said he, ”for I'm going to work for him. D'ye hear that, Jane? This day makes him heir of Huntercombe and Ba.s.sett.”