So full was the joy of this loving pair that, for a long time, they sat rocking in each other's arms, and thought of nothing but their sorrows past, and the sea of bliss they were floating on.
But presently Sir Charles glanced round for a moment. Swift to interpret his every look, Lady Bassett rose, took two steps, came back and printed a kiss on his forehead, and then went to a door and opened it.
“Mrs. Millar!” said she, with one of those tones by which these ladies impregnate with meaning a word that has none at all; and then she came back to her husband.
Soon a buxom woman of forty appeared, carrying a biggish bank of linen and lace, with a little face in the middle. The good woman held it up to Sir Charles, and he felt something novel stir inside him. He looked at the little thing with a vast yearning of love, with pride, and a good deal of curiosity; and then turned smiling to his wife. She had watched him furtively but keenly, and her eyes were brimming over. He kissed the little thing, and blessed it, and then took his wife's hands, and kissed her wet eyes, and made her stand and look at baby with him, hand in hand. It was a pretty picture.
The buxom woman swelled her feathers, as simple women do when they exhibit a treasure of this sort; she lifted the little mite slowly up and down, and said, “Oh, you Beauty!” and then went off into various inarticulate sounds, which I recommend to the particular study of the new philosophers: they cannot have been invented after speech; that would be retrogression; they must be the vocal remains of that hairy, sharp-eared quadruped, our Progenitor, who by accident discovered language, and so turned Biped, and went ahead of all the other hairy quadrupeds, whose ears were too long or not sharp enough to stumble upon language.
Under cover of these primeval sounds Lady Bassett drew her husband a little apart, and looking in his face with piteous wistfulness, said, “You won't mind Richard Bassett and his baby now?”
“Not I.”
“You will never have another fit while you live?”
“I promise.”
“You will always be happy?”
“I must be an ungrateful scoundrel else, my dear.”
“Then baby is our best friend. Oh, you little angel!” And she pounced on the mite, and kissed it far harder than Sir Charles had. Heaven knows what these gentle creatures are so rough with their mouths to children, but so it is.
And now how can a mere male relate all the pretty childish things that were done and said to baby, and of baby, before the inevitable squalling began, and baby was taken away to be consoled by another of his subjects.
Sir Charles and Lady Bassett had a thousand things to tell each other, to murmur in each other's ears, sitting lovingly close to each other.
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. As for me, while you and our child live, I am proof against much greater misfortunes than that.”
Then Lady Bassett cleared up, and the subject dropped.
But it was renewed next morning in a more definite form.
Sir Charles rose early; and in the pride and joy of his heart, and not quite without an eye to triumphing over his mortal enemy and his cold friends, sent a mounted messenger with orders to his servants to prepare for his immediate reception, and to send out his landau and four horses to the “Rose,” at Staveleigh, half-way between Huntercombe and the place where he now was. Lady Bassett had announced herself able for the journey.
After breakfast he asked her rather suddenly whether Mrs. Millar was not rather an elderly woman to select for a nurse. “I thought people got a young woman for that office.”
“Oh,” said Lady Bassett, “why, Mrs. Millar is not the nurse. Of course nurse is young and healthy, and from the country, and the best I could have in every way for baby. But yet—oh, Charles, I hope you will not be angry—who do you think nurse is? It is Mary Gosport—Mary Wells that was.”
Sir Charles was a little staggered. He put this and that together, and said, “Why, she must have been playing the fool, then?”
“Hush! not so loud, dear. She is a married woman now, and her husband gone to sea, and her child dead. Most wet-nurses have a child of their own; and don't you think they must hate the stranger's child that parts them from their own? Now baby is a comfort to Mary. And the wet-nurse is always a tyrant; and I thought, as this one has got into a habit of obeying me, she might be more manageable; and then as to her having been imprudent, I know many ladies who have been obliged to shut their eyes a little. Why, consider, Charles, would good wives and good mothers leave their own children to nurse a stranger's? Would their husbands let them? And I thought,” said she, piteously, “we were so fortunate to get a young, healthy girl, imprudent but not vicious, whose fault had been covered by marriage, and then so attached to us both as she is, poor thing!”
Sir Charles was in no humor to make mountains of mole-hills. “Why, my dear Bella,” said he, “after all, this is your department, not mine.”
“Yes, but unless I please you in every department there is no happiness for me.”
“But you know you please me in everything; and the more I look into anything, the wiser I always think you. You have chosen the best wet-nurse possible. Send her to me.”
Lady Bassett hesitated. “You will be kind to her. You know the consequence if anything happens to make her fret. Baby will suffer for it.”
“Oh, I know. Catch me offending this she potentate till he is weaned. Dress for the journey, my dear, and send nurse to me.”
Lady Bassett went into the next room, and after a long time Mary came to Sir Charles with baby in her arms.
Mary had lost for a time some of her ruddy color, but her skin was clearer, and somehow her face was softened. She looked really a beautiful and attractive young woman.
She courtesied to Sir Charles, and then took a good look at him.
“Well, nurse,” said he, cheerfully, “here we are back again, both of us.”
“That we be, sir.” And she showed her white teeth in a broad smile. “La, sir, you be a sight for sore eyes. How well you do look, to be sure!”
“Thank you, Mary. I never was better in my life. You look pretty well too; only a little pale; paler than Lady Bassett does.”
“I give my color to the child,” said Mary, simply.
She did not know she had said anything poetic; but Sir Charles was so touched and pleased with her answer that he gave her a five-pound note on the spot; and he said, “We'll bring your color back if beef and beer and kindness can do it.”
“I ain't afeard o' that, sir; and I'll arn it. 'Tis a lovely boy, sir, and your very image.”
Inspection followed; and something or other offended young master; he began to cackle. But this nurse did not take him away, as Mrs. Millar had. She just sat down with him and nursed him openly, with rustic composure and simplicity.
Sir Charles leaned his arm on the mantel-piece, and eyed the pair; for all this was a new world of feeling to him. His paid servant seemed to him to be playing the mother to his child. Somehow it gave him a strange twinge, a sort of vicarious jealousy: he felt for his Bella. But I think his own paternal pride, in all its freshness, was hurt a little too.
At last he shrugged his shoulders, and was going out of the room, with a hint to Mary that she must wrap herself up, for it would be an open carriage—
“Your own carriage, sir, and horses?”
“Certainly.”
“And do all the folk know as we are coming?”
Sir Charles laughed. “Most likely. Gossip is not dead at Huntercombe, I dare say.”
Nurse's black eyes flashed. “All the village will be out. I hope he will see us ride in, the black-hearted villain!”
Sir Charles was too proud to let her draw him into that topic; he went about his business.
Lady Bassett's carriage, duly packed, came round, and Lady Bassett was ready soon afterward; so was Mrs. Millar; so was baby, imbedded now in a nest of lawn and lace and white fur. They had to wait for nurse. Lady Bassett explained sotto voce to her husband, “Just at the last moment she was seized with a desire to wear a silk gown I gave her. I argued with her, but she only pouted. I was afraid for baby. It is very hard upon you, dear.”
Her face and voice were so piteous that Sir Charles burst out laughing.
“We must take the bitter along with the sweet. Don't you think the sweet rather predominates at present?”
Lady Bassett explored his face with all her eyes. “My darling is happy now; trifles cannot put him out.”
“I doubt if anything could shake me while I have you and our child. As for that jade keeping us all waiting while she dons silk attire, it is simply delicious. I wish Rolfe was here, that is all. Ha! ha! ha!”
Mrs. Gosport appeared at last in a purple silk gown, and marched to the carriage without the slightest sign of the discomfort she really felt; but that was no wonder, belonging, as she did, to a sex which can walk not only smiling but jauntily, though dead lame on stilts, as you may see any day in Regent Street.
Sir Charles, with mock gravity, ushered King Baby and his attendants in first, then Lady Bassett, and got in last himself.
Before they had gone a mile Nurse No. 1 handed the child over to Nurse No. 2 with a lofty condescension, as who should say, “You suffice for porterage; I, the superior artist, reserve myself for emergencies.” No. 2 received the invaluable bundle with meek complacency.
By-and-by Nurse 1 got fidgety, and kept changing her position.
“What is the matter, Mary?” said Lady Bassett, kindly. “Is the dress too tight?”
“No, no, my lady,” said Mary, sharply; “the gownd's all right.” And then she was quiet a little.
But she began again; and then Lady Bassett whispered Sir Charles, “I think she wants to sit forward: may I?”
“Certainly not. I'll change with her. Here, Mary, try this side. We shall have more room in the landau; it is double, with wide seats.”
Mary was gratified, and amused herself looking out of the window. Indeed, she was quiet for nearly half an hour. At the expiration of that period the fit took her again. She beckoned haughtily for baby, “which did come at her command,” as the song says. She got tired of baby, or something, and handed him back again.
Presently she was discovered to be crying.
General consternation! Universal but vague consolation!
Lady Bassett looked an inquiry at Mrs. Millar. Mrs. Millar looked back assent. Lady Bassett assumed the command, and took off Mary's shawl.
“Yes,” said she to Mrs. Millar. “Now, Mary, be good; it is too tight.”
Thus urged, the idiot contracted herself by a mighty effort, while Lady Bassett attacked the fastenings, and, with infinite difficulty, they unhooked three bottom hooks. The fierce burst open that followed, and the awful chasm, showed what gigantic strength vanity can command, and how savagely abuse it to maltreat nature.
Lady Bassett loosened the stays too, and a deep sigh of relief told the truth, which the lying tongue had denied, as it always does whenever the same question is put.
The shawl was replaced, and comfort gained till they entered the town of Staveleigh.
Nurse instantly exchanged places with Sir Charles, and took the child again. He was her banner in all public places.
When they came up to the inn they were greeted with loud hurrahs. It was market-day. The town was full of Sir Charles's tenants and other farmers. His return had got wind, and every farmer under fifty had resolved to ride with him into Huntercombe.
When five or six, all shouting together, intimated this to Sir Charles, he sent one of his people to order the butchers out to Huntercombe with joints a score, and then to gallop on with a note to his housekeeper and butler. “For those that ride so far with me must sup with me,” said he; a sentiment that was much approved.
He took Lady Bassett and the women upstairs and rested them about an hour; and then they started for Huntercombe, followed by some thirty farmers and a dozen towns-people, who had a mind for a lark and to sup at Huntercombe Hall for once.
The ride was delightful; the carriage bowled swiftly along over a smooth road, with often turf at the side; and that enabled the young farmers to canter alongside without dusting the carriage party. Every man on horseback they overtook joined them; some they met turned back with them, and these were rewarded with loud cheers. Every eye in the carriage glittered, and every cheek was more or less flushed by this uproarious sympathy so gallantly shown, and the very thunder of so many horses' feet, each carrying a friend, was very exciting and glorious. Why, before they got to the village they had fourscore horsemen at their backs.
As they got close to the village Mary Gosport held out her arms for young master: this was not the time to forego her importance.
The church-bells rang out a clashing peal, the cavalcade clattered into the village. Everybody was out to cheer, and at sight of baby the women's voices were as loud as the men's. Old pensioners of the house were out bareheaded; one, with hair white as snow, was down on his knees praying a blessing on them.
Lady Bassett began to cry softly; Sir Charles, a little pale, but firm as a rock; both bowing right and left, like royal personages; and well they might; every house in the village belonged to them but one.
On approaching that one Mary Gosport turned her head round, and shot a. glance round out of the tail of her eye. Ay, there was Richard Bassett, pale and gloomy, half-hid behind a tree at his gate: but Hate's quick eye discerned him: at the moment of passing she suddenly lifted the child high, and showed it him, pretending to show it to the crowd: but her eye told the tale; for, with that act of fierce hatred and cunning triumph, those black orbs shot a colored gleam like a furious leopardess's.
A roar of cheers burst from the crowd at that inspired gesture of a woman, whose face and eyes seemed on fire: Lady Bassett turned pale.
The next moment they passed their own gate, and dashed up to the hall steps of Huntercombe.
Sir Charles sent Lady Bassett to her room for the night. She walked through a row of ducking servants, bowing and smiling like a gentle goddess.
Mary Gosport, afraid to march in a long dress with the child, for fear of accidents, handed him superbly to Millar and strutted haughtily after her mistress, nodding patronage. Her follower, the meek Millar, stopped often to show the heir right and left, with simple geniality and kindness.
Sir Charles stood on the hall steps, and invited all to come in and take pot-luck.
Already spits were turning before great fires; a rump of beef, legs of pork, and pease-puddings boiling in one copper; turkeys and fowls in another; joints and pies baking in the great brick ovens; barrels of beer on tap, and magnums of champagne and port marching steadily up from the cellars, and forming in line and square upon sideboards and tables.
Supper was laid in the hall, the dining-room, the drawing-room, and the great kitchen.
Poor villagers trickled in: no man or woman was denied; it was open house that night, as it had been four hundred years ago.
All books are sourced from Project Gutenberg