He received her kindly, and showed himself a master; told her Sir Charles's was a mixed case, in which the fall, the fit, and a morbid desire for offspring had all played their parts.
He hoped a speedy cure, but said he counted on her assistance. There was no doubt what he meant.
Oh, for one thing, he said to her, rather slyly, “Coyne tells me you have been good enough to supply us with a hint as to his treatment; sedatives are opposed to his idiosyncrasy.”
Lady Bassett blushed high, and said something about Dr. Willis.
“Oh, you are quite right, you and Dr. Willis; only you are not so very conversant with that idiosyncrasy. Why have you let him smoke twenty cigars every day of his life? the brain is accessible by other roads than the stomach. Well, we have got him down to four cigars, and in a month we will have him down to two. The effect of that, and exercise, and simple food, and the absence of powerful excitements—you will see. Do your part,” said he, gayly, “we will do ours. He is the most interesting patient in the house, and born to adorn society, though by a concurrence of unhappy circumstances he is separated from it for a while.”
She spent the whole afternoon with Sir Charles, and they dined together at the doctor's private table, with one or two patients who were touched, but showed no signs of it on that occasion; for the good doctor really acted like oil on the troubled waters.
Sir Charles and Lady Bassett corresponded, and so kept their hearts up; but after Rolfe's hint the correspondence was rather guarded. If these letters were read in the asylum the curious would learn that Sir Charles was far more anxious about his wife's condition than his own; but that these two patient persons were only waiting a certain near event to attack Richard Bassett with accumulated fury—that smoldering fire did not smoke by letter, but burned deep in both their sore and heavy, but enduring, Anglo-Saxon hearts.
Lady Bassett wrote to Mr. Rolfe, thanking him again for his advice, and telling him how it worked.
She had a very short reply from that gentleman.
But about six weeks after her visit he surprised her a little by writing of his own accord, and asking her for a formal introduction to Sir Charles Bassett, and begging her to back a request that Sir Charles would devote a leisure hour or two to correspondence with him. “Not,” said he, “on his private affairs, but on a matter of general interest. I want a few of his experiences and observations in that place. I have the less scruple in asking it, that whatever takes him out of himself will be salutary.”
Lady Bassett sent him the required introduction in such terms that Sir Charles at once consented to oblige his wife by obliging Mr. Rolfe.
“My DEAR SIR—In compliance with your wish, and Lady Bassett's, I send you a few desultory remarks on what I see here.
“1st. The lines,
'Great wits to madness nearly are allied,
And thin partitions do their bonds divide,'
are, in my opinion, exaggerated and untrue. Taking the people here as a guide, the insane in general appear to be people with very little brains, and enormous egotism.
“My next observation is, that the women have far less imagination than the men; they cannot even realize their own favorite delusions. For instance, here are two young ladies, the Virgin Mary and the Queen of England. How do they play their parts? They sit aloof from all the rest, with their noses in the air. But gauge their imaginations; go down on one knee, or both, and address them as a saint and a queen; they cannot say a word in accordance; yet they are cunning enough to see they cannot reply in character, so they will not utter a syllable to their adorers. They are like the shop-boys who go to a masquerade as Burleigh or Walsingham, and when you ask them who is Queen Bess's favorite just now, blush, and look offended, and pass sulkily on.
“The same class of male lunatics can speak in character; and this observation has made me doubt whether philosophers are not mistaken in saying that women generally have more imagination than men. I suspect they have infinitely less; and I believe their great love of novels, which has been set down to imagination, arises mainly from their want of it. You writers of novels supply that defect for them by a pictorial style, by an infinity of minute details, and petty aids to realizing, all which an imaginative reader can do for himself on reading a bare narrative of sterling facts and incidents.
“I find a monotony in madness. So many have inspirations, see phantoms, are the victims of vast conspiracies (principalities and powers combined against a fly); their food is poisoned, their wine is drugged, etc., etc.
“These, I think, are all forms of that morbid egotism which is at the bottom of insanity. So is their antipathy for each other. They keep apart, because a madman is all self, and his talk is all self; thus egotisms, clash, and an antipathy arises; yet it is not, I think, pure antipathy, though so regarded, but a mere form of their boundless egotism.
“If, in visiting an asylum, you see two or three different patients buttonhole a fourth and pour their grievances into a listening ear, you may safely suspect No. 4 of—sanity.
“On the whole, I think the doctor himself, and one of his attendants, and Jones, a keeper, have more solid eccentricity and variety about them than most of the patients.”
Extract from Letter 2, written about a fortnight later:
“Some insane persons have a way of couching their nonsense in language that sounds rational, and has a false air of logical connection. Their periods seem stolen from sensible books, and forcibly fitted to incongruous bosh. By this means the ear is confused, and a slow hearer might fancy he was listening to sense.
“I have secured you one example of this. You must know that, in the evening, I sometimes collect a few together, and try to get them to tell their stories. Little comes of it in general but interruptions. But, one night, a melancholy Bagman responded in good set terms, and all in a moment; one would have thought I had put a torch to a barrel of powder, he went off so quickly, in this style:
“'You ask my story: it is briefly told. Initiated in commerce from my earliest years, and traveled in the cotton trade. As representative of a large house in Manchester, I visited the United States.
“'Unfortunately for me, that country was then the chosen abode of spirits; the very air was thick and humming with supernaturalia. Ere long spirit-voices whispered in my ear, and suggested pious aspirations at first. That was a blind, no doubt; for very soon they went on to insinuate things profane and indelicate, and urged me to deliver them in mixed companies; I forbore with difficulty, restrained by the early lessons of a pious mother, and a disinclination to be kicked downstairs, or flung out o' window.
“'I consulted a friend, a native of the country; he said, in its beautiful Doric, “Old oss, I reckon you'd better change the air.” I grasped his hand, muttered a blessing, and sailed for England.
“'On ocean's peaceful bosom the annoyance ceased. But under this deceitful calm fresh dangers brooded. Two doctors had stolen into the ship, unseen by human eye, and bided their time. Unable to act at sea, owing to the combined effect of wind and current, they concealed themselves on deck under a black tarpaulin—that is to say, it had been black, but wind and weather had reduced it to a dirty brown—and there, adopting for the occasion the habits of the dormouse, the bear, the caterpillar, and other ephemeral productions, they lay torpid. But the moment the vessel touched the quay, profiting by the commotion, they emerged, and signed certificates with chalk on my portmanteau; then vanished in the crowd. The Custom-house read the certificates, and seized my luggage as contraband. I was too old a traveler to leave my luggage; so then they seized me, and sent us both down here. (With sudden and short-lived fury) that old hell-hound at the Lodge asked them where I was booked for. “For the whole journey,” said a sepulchral voice unseen. That means the grave, my boys, the silent grave.'
“Notwithstanding this stern decree, Suaby expects to turn him out cured in a few months.
“Miss Wieland, a very pretty girl, put her arm in mine, and drew me mysteriously apart. 'So you are collecting the villainies,' said she, sotto voce. 'It will take you all your time. I'll tell you mine. There's a hideous old man wants me to marry him; and I won't. And he has put me in here, and keeps me prisoner till I will. They are all on his side, especially that sanctified old guy, Suaby. They drug my wine, they stupefy me, they give me things to make me naughty and tipsy; but it is no use; I never will marry that old goat—that for his money and him—I'll die first.'
“Of course my blood boiled; but I asked my nurse, Sally, and she assured me there was not one atom of truth in any part of the story. 'The young lady was put in here by her mother; none too soon, neither.' I asked her what she meant. 'Why, she came here with her throat cut, and strapping on it. She is a suicidal.'”
This correspondence led eventually to some unexpected results; but I am obliged to interrupt it for a time, while I deal with a distinct series of events which began about five weeks after Lady Bassett's visit to Mr. Rolfe, and will carry the reader forward beyond the date we have now arrived at.
It was the little dining-room at Highmore; a low room, of modest size, plainly furnished. An enormous fire-place, paved with plain tiles, on which were placed iron dogs; only wood and roots were burned in this room.
Mrs. Bassett had just been packed off to bed by marital authority; Bassett and Wheeler sat smoking pipes and sipping whisky-and-water. Bassett professed to like the smell of peat smoke in whisky; what he really liked was the price.
After a few silent whiffs, said Bassett, “I didn't think they would take it so quietly; did you?”
“Well, I really did not. But, after all, what can they do? They are evidently afraid to go to the Court of Chancery, and ask for a jury in the asylum; and what else can they do?”
“Humph! They might arrange an escape, and hide him for fourteen days; then we could not recapture him without fresh certificates; could we?”
“Certainly not.”
“And the doors would be too well guarded; not a crack for two doctors to creep in at.”
“You go too fast. You know the law from me, and you are a daring man that would try this sort of thing; but a timid woman, advised by a respectable muff like Oldfield! They will never dream of such a thing.”
“Oldfield is not her head-man. She has got another adviser, and he is the very man to do something plucky.”
“I don't know who you mean.”
“Why, her lover, to be sure.”
“Her lover? Lady Bassett's lover!”
“Ay, the young parson.”
Wheeler smiled satirically. “You certainly are a good hater. Nothing is too bad for those you don't like. If that Lady Bassett is not a true wife, where will you find one?”
“She is the most deceitful jade in England.”
“Oh! oh!”
“Ah! you may sneer. So you have forgotten how she outwitted us. Did the devil himself ever do a cunninger thing than that? tempting a fellow into a correspondence that seemed a piece of folly on her part, yet it was a deep diabolical trick to get at my handwriting. Did you see her game? No more than I did. You chuckled at her writing letters to the plaintiff pendente lite. We were both children, setting our wits against a woman's. I tell you I dread her, especially when I see her so unnaturally quiet, after what we have done. When you hook a large salmon, and he makes a great commotion, but all of a sudden lies like a stone, be on your guard; he means mischief.”
“Well,” said Wheeler, “this is all very true, but you have strayed from the point. What makes you think she has an improper attachment?”
“Is it so very unnatural? He is the handsomest fellow about, she is the loveliest woman; he is dark, she is fair; and they are thrown together by circumstances. Another thing: I have always understood that women admire the qualities they don't possess themselves—strength, for instance. Now this parson is a Hercules. He took Sir Charles up like a boy and carried him in his arms all the way from where he had the fit. Lady Bassett walked beside them. Rely on it, a woman does not see one man carry another so without making a comparison in favor of the strong, and against the weak. But what am I talking about? They walk like lovers, those two.”
“What, hand in hand? he! he!”
“No, side by side; but yet like lovers for all that.”
“You must have a good eye.”
“I have a good opera-glass.”
Mr. Wheeler smoked in silence.
“Well, but,” said he, after a pause, “if this is so, all the better for you. 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. By-and-by it will be once a fortnight, then once a month, and the black-eyed rector will preach patience and resignation. Oh, it was a master-stroke, clapping him in that asylum! All we have got to do now is to let well alone. When she is over head and ears in love with Angelo she will come to easy terms with us, and so I'll move across the way. I shall never be happy till I live at Huntercombe, and administer the estate.”
The maid-servant brought him a note, and said it was from her mistress. Bassett took it rather contemptuously, and said, “The little woman is always in a fidget now when you come here. She is all for peace.” He read the letter. It ran thus:
“DEAREST RICHARD—I implore you to do nothing more to hurt Sir Charles. It is wicked, and it is useless. God has had pity on Lady Bassett, and have you pity on her too. Jane has just heard it from one of the Huntercombe servants.”
“What does she mean with her 'its'? Why, surely—Read it, you.”
They looked at each other in doubt and amazement for some time. Then Richard Bassett rushed upstairs, and had a few hasty words with his wife.
She told him her news in plainer English, and renewed her mild entreaties. He turned his back on her in the middle. He went out into the nursery, and looked at his child. The little fellow, a beautiful boy, slept the placid sleep of infancy. He leaned over him and kissed him, and went down to the dining-room.
His feet came tramp, tramp, very slowly, and when he opened the door Mr. 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.”
“Oh, for shame!”
“Think, and use your eyes.”
“My eyes have seen the lady; I think I see her now, kneeling like an angel over her husband, and pitying him for having knocked me down. I say her only lover is her husband.”
“Oh, that was a long time ago. Time brings changes. You can't take the eyes out of my head.”
“Suppose it should be only a false alarm?”
“Is that likely? However, I will learn. Whether it is or not, that child shall never rob mine of Bassett and Huntercombe. Anything is fair against such a woman.”
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