“Gutta cavat lapidem non vi sed saepe cadendo.”
And in the midst of all a letter came from Mr. Oldfield, to tell her that Mr. Bassett threatened to take out a commission de lunatico, and she must prepare Sir Charles for an examination; for, if reported insane, the Court would administer the estates; but the heir at law, Mr. Bassett, would have the ear of the Court and the right of application, and become virtually master of Huntercombe and Bassett; and, perhaps, considering the spirit by which he was animated, would contrive to occupy the very Hall itself. Lady Bassett was in the dressing-room when she received this blow, and it drove her almost frantic. She bemoaned her husband; she prayed God to take them both, and let their enemy have his will. She wept and raved, and at the height of her distress came from the other room a feeble cry, “Childless! childless! childless!”
Lady Bassett heard that, and in one moment, from violent she became unnaturally and dangerously calm. She said firmly to Mary Wells, “This is more than I can bear. You pretend you can save him—do it.”
Mary Wells now trembled in her turn; but she seized the opportunity. “My lady, whatever I say you'll stand to?”
“Whatever you say I'll stand to.”
CHAPTER XVIII.
MARY WELLS, like other uneducated women, was not accustomed to think long and earnestly on any one subject; to use an expression she once applied with far less justice to her sister, her mind was like running water.
But gestation affects the brains of such women, and makes them think more steadily, and sometimes very acutely; added to which, the peculiar dangers and difficulties that beset this girl during that anxious period stimulated her wits to the very utmost. Often she sat quite still for hours at a time, brooding and brooding, and asking herself how she could turn each new and unexpected event to her own benefit. Now so much does mental force depend on that exercise of keen and long attention, in which her sex is generally deficient, that this young woman's powers were more than doubled since the day she first discovered her condition, and began to work her brains night and day for her defense.
Gradually, as events I have related unfolded themselves, she caught a glimpse of this idea, that if she could get her mistress to have a secret, her mistress would help her to keep her own. Hence her insidious whispers, and her constant praises of Mr. Angelo, who, she saw, was infatuated with Lady Bassett. Yet the designing creature was actually fond of her mistress: and so strangely compounded is a heart of this low kind that the extraordinary step she now took was half affectionate impulse, half egotistical design.