CHAPTER XLI.
IN THE TOILS.
Solomon started for Gethin on the ensuing morning; but his wife did not, as usual, find his departure a relief, since Balfour remained behind. Her last instructions from her husband were to treat this unwelcome guest with marked consideration, and to let him have his way in every thing. He also hinted, though it was scarcely necessary to insure her obedience, at certain brilliant prospects which were about to present themselves, through Balfour's means, if he were only kept in good-humor. Harry would have much preferred to relinquish his favor at the price of his absence; but not so her son. Notwithstanding the disparity in their ages, he and this new acquaintance were already fast friends. The latter had laid himself out to please the lad, and had succeeded; partly, perhaps, from the very novelty of companionship, for Charley knew no one in town, and was tired of taking his pleasure therein alone, but chiefly through his store of agreeable anecdotes, all illustrative of the enjoyments which wealth conferred, with which Balfour tickled his ears.
"In a few years—perhaps sooner, who knows?—all these things of which I speak will be within your own means. You will be rich; and he who is so can please himself in almost every thing. You can then marry your Agnes, if you will, without fear of being disinherited; or, what is better and more likely, you may choose from a score of Agneses, or even take them all."
He had a light amusing way with him, this Balfour, that hid the cynicism which would otherwise have jarred upon his young companion; for Charles, though selfish and fond of pleasure, was good-natured, and had not reached that period of life when our sherry must needs not only be dry, but have bitters in it. He was genuinely fond of his mother; yet even in this short time Balfour, as she well knew, had taught him to disobey her; not setting her at open defiance, indeed, but regarding her advice and remonstrances with a sort of tender contempt. She meant all for his good, his Mentor admitted, but women had not much knowledge of the world; and if a young man was not to be his own master at eighteen, he must look to be in leading-strings all his life. Harry perceived her darling's plastic nature changing daily for the worse in the hands of this crafty potter; and though it was an admission humiliating to her, as a mother, to make, she made it to Mrs. Basil in her sick-room.
"Mr. Balfour is doing my Charley harm," she said. "He is an altered boy already, and yet my husband talks as though we are never to be rid of the man. What money, what gain, can ever compensate for the demoralization of our child?"
"Nothing, indeed," said Mrs. Basil, quietly. "But have a little patience. Is not this gentleman going on Friday?"
"Yes; but he will come back again. It is only some business that calls him into Midlandshire. He does not even take all his luggage away. I have a great mind to tell him point-blank that his presence in this house—at all events in Mr. Coe's absence—is unwelcome; but I dare not do it; I am afraid."
"Yes, your husband would be very angry, without doubt," said Mrs. Basil, thoughtfully.
"That is not it. I am afraid of the man himself. He reminds me of that hateful creature—what is he?—in the opera, for which Mr. Aird gave us the tickets, and which Agnes went with us to see—Mephistopheles."
"What a strange fancy! He is only a sour, pleasure-jaded man. If I was not so ill I would speak to him myself; but you are right not to do so; that is your husband's place, who has brought him here. Let things be as they are till Friday."
Harry sighed, but perforce assented. Friday came, and Mr. Balfour went as he had designed, but not without stating at breakfast his intention of returning on the ensuing Monday or Tuesday at latest, and even making an engagement with Charley to spend the latter evening with him at the theatre.
"Do you happen to know when my husband will be home?" inquired Harry, timidly.
"No, madam. He was good enough to say, however, that his absence was to make no difference as to my remaining here as his guest."
This reply, which might easily have been made offensive, was delivered with the most studied courtesy: it cut the hostess's ground from under her; for it had answered the very objection which she had intended to imply. She felt herself not only defeated, but reproved.
"Let us hope you will both return together," said she.
"I do not think that very probable," answered Mr. Balfour, slowly.
An hour later and he had departed, his hostess, under pretense of being engaged with her sick friend up stairs, not having so much as shaken his hand. Charles, indignant at this slight, would have accompanied him to the railway station, but Balfour would not hear of it. For this he had two reasons: in the first place, he was anxious to keep his route secret; and secondly, it was a part of his system to give the young man no sort of trouble or inconvenience on his account. He wished every association that linked them together to be one of pleasure.
Mrs. Basil, as we have said, had not made her appearance that morning below stairs; she was, in fact, no better, but rather worse: that news from Lingmoor, outwardly borne so well, had shaken her to the core. Still, no sooner had Balfour left than she made shift to rise, and even came down to dinner. She discussed with Charley, who had a considerable regard for her, the character of their late guest—not with hostility, as his mother was wont to do, but with the air of one who asks for information, and has confidence in the verdict which she seeks. The lad, flattered by this implied compliment to his sagacity, answered her questions readily enough. He praised his friend, of course, and thought he praised him even when he spoke ill of him. He repeated his pungent sayings, and served up his anecdotes—such of them as were adapted, at least, for the ears of the ladies—anew. By this means he hoped to bring his hearers to a better opinion of so capital a fellow; and in Mrs. Basil's case he apparently succeeded. His mother still reiterated her opinion that Mr. Balfour was a dangerous personage, and not a fit companion for any young man. Charles smiled at this, for it was the almost literal fulfillment of a prophecy which Balfour had made to him, and believed in that gentleman's sagacity, accordingly, more than ever. Women were so ludicrously prejudiced; the fact of Mrs. Basil's—"the white witch"—not being so was an exception that proved the rule. She had been evidently interested in his anecdotes, of one of which she had even requested to hear the particulars twice over; not that, in his own judgment, it was the best, but, being of a weird sort, it had probably struck her fancy. It had lost in the telling, too—for he did not pretend to have the gift of narrative, as Mr. Balfour had—and his mother had seen in the story in question nothing at all.
Mrs. Basil came down stairs no more after that evening. She grew worse and worse, and was not only confined to her room, but to her bed. Harry was not much with her; she seized with avidity this opportunity of being alone with Charley to undo, as far as she could, Mr. Balfour's work with him. This was not hard, for the boy was a creature of impulse, and swayed for good or ill with equal ease. But she discovered that it would be useless to attempt henceforth to conceal from him the nature of his future prospects. He was now firmly convinced that he was the heir to a large fortune, and she regretted too late that she had left the disclosure to a stranger. What grieved her much more, and with reason, was that an attempt which she now made to bring the influence of Agnes to hear upon him proved unsuccessful; the girl resolutely refused to come to the house in the absence of its master, and contrary, as she knew, to his express commandment. Charley himself, too, whose visits to Mr. Aird's studio had been intermitted for some time, was received in Soho with coldness. It was not in Harry's nature to understand this independence of spirit, and she deeply deplored it on her son's account. She had looked to this young girl to be his guardian angel, and had never anticipated that she could possibly decline to watch over a charge so precious. She would not allow, even to herself, that her son's own conduct was as much the cause of this as her husband's ill favor; but she saw in it, clearly enough, the mark of the cloven hoof, the work of Balfour.
Sick Mrs. Basil could give her small comfort, though she did not attempt to defend their late visitor, as she had so unwarrantably appeared to do when discussing him with Charley.
"The man is gone, my dear," said she, wearily; "perhaps he may never come back: let us not meet troubles half-way. Charley has a kind, good heart"—for "the white witch" showed great favor to the lad at all times—"and all will come right at last."
She seemed too ill and weary to argue the matter, and Harry left her, as she thought, to repose. No sooner was she gone, however, than the closed lids of Mrs. Basil were opened wide, and revealed a sleepless and unutterable woe. Her sharp, pinched face showed pain and fear. Her parched lips muttered unceasingly words like these, which were, perhaps, the ravings of her fevered brain: "I am sure of it now, quite sure; those stags, those stags! There is no room for hope. His heart has become a stone, which no power can soften. It is no use to speak, or rather I am like one in a dream who watches murder done, and can not cry out."