Charlotte, I am ashamed of you.”
Mrs. Molineux colored high; but she kept her temper, and ignored the interruption. “Then, if you decided to go into so indelicate a question at all (and really you were not bound to do so on anonymous information), why, then, you should have sent for Sir Charles, and given him the letter, and put him on his honor to tell you the truth. He would have told you the fact, instead of a garbled version; and the fact is that before he knew Bella he had a connection, which he prepared to dissolve, on terms very honorable to himself, as soon as he engaged himself to your daughter. What is there in that? Why, it is common, universal, among men of fashion. I am so vexed it ever came to Bella's knowledge: really it is dreadful to me, as a mother, that such a thing should have been discussed before that child. Complete innocence means complete ignorance; and that is how all my girls went to their husbands. However, what we must do now is to tell her Sir Charles has satisfied me he was not to blame; and after that the subject must never be recurred to. Sir Charles has promised me never to mention it, and no more shall Bella. And now, my dear John, let me congratulate you. Your daughter has a high-minded lover, who adores her, with a fine estate: he has been crying to me, poor fellow, as men will to a woman of my age; and if you have any respect for my judgment—ask him to dinner.”
She added that it might be as well if, after dinner, he were to take a little nap.
Admiral Bruce did not fall into these views without discussion. I spare the reader the dialogue, since he yielded at last; only he stipulated that his sister should do the dinner, and the subsequent siesta.
Bella returned looking very wistful and anxious.
“Come here, niece,” said Mrs. Molineux. “Kneel you at my knee. Now look—me in the face. Sir Charles has loved you, and you only, from the day he first saw you. He loves you now as much as ever. Do you love him?”
“Oh, aunt! aunt!” A shower of kisses, and a tear or two.
“That is enough. Then dry your eyes, and dress your beautiful hair a little better than that; for he dines with me to-day!”
Who so bright and happy now as Bella Bruce?
The dreaded aunt did not stop there. She held that after the peep into real life Bella Bruce had obtained, for want of a mother's vigilance, she ought to be a wife as soon as possible. So she gave Sir Charles a hint that Baden was a very good place to be married in; and from that moment Sir Charles gave Bella and her father no rest till they consented.
Little did Richard Bassett, in England, dream what was going on at Baden. He now surveyed the chimneys of Huntercombe Hall with resignation, and even with growing complacency, as chimneys that would one day be his, since their owner would not be in a hurry to love again. He shot Sir Charles's pheasants whenever they strayed into his hedgerows, and he lived moderately and studied health. In a word, content with the result of his anonymous letter, he confined himself now to cannily out-living the wrongful heir—his cousin.
One fine frosty day the chimneys of Huntercombe began to show signs of life; vertical columns of blue smoke rose in the air, one after another, till at last there were about forty going.
Old servants flowed down from London. New ones trickled in, with their boxes, from the country. Carriages were drawn out into the stable-yard, horses exercised, and a whisper ran that Sir Charles was coming to live on his estates, and not alone.
Richard Bassett went about inquiring cautiously.
The rumor spread and was confirmed by some little facts.
At last, one fine day, when the chimneys were all smoking, the church-bells began to peal.
Richard Bassett heard, and went out, scowling deeply. He found the village all agog with expectation.
Presently there was a loud cheer from the steeple, and a flag floated from the top of Huntercombe House. Murmurs. Distant cheers. Approaching cheers. The clatter of horses' feet. The roll of wheels. Huntercombe gates flung wide open by a cluster of grooms and keepers.
Then on came two outriders, ushered by loud hurrahs, and followed by a carriage and four that dashed through the village amid peals of delight from the villagers. The carriage was open, and in it sat Sir Charles and Bella Bassett. She was lovelier than ever; she dazzled the very air with her beauty and her glorious hair. The hurrahs of the villagers made her heart beat; she pressed Sir Charles's hand tenderly, and literally shone with joy and pride; and so she swept past Richard Bassett; she saw him directly, shuddered a moment, and half clung to her husband; then on again, and passed through the open gates amid loud cheers. She alighted in her own hall, and walked, nodding and smiling sunnily, through two files of domestics and retainers; and thought no more of Richard Bassett than some bright bird that has flown over a rattlesnake and glanced down at him.
But a gorgeous bird cannot always be flying. A snake can sometimes creep under her perch, and glare, and keep hissing, till she shudders and droops and lays her plumage in the dust.
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